Northumberland Yesterday and To-day Jean F. Terry Project Gutenberg's Northumberland Yesterday and To-day, by Jean F. Terry This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Northumberland Yesterday and To-day Author: Jean F. Terry Release Date: February 17, 2004 [EBook #11124] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHUMBERLAND *** Produced by Miranda van de Heijning, Margaret Macaskill and PG Distributed Proofreaders [Illustration: BAMBURGH CASTLE.] Northumberland Yesterday and To-day. BY JEAN F. TERRY, L.L.A. (St. Andrews), 1913. _To Sir Francis Douglas Blake, this book is inscribed in admiration of an eminent Northumbrian._ CONTENTS. CHAPTER I.--The Coast of Northumberland CHAPTER II.--North and South Tyne CHAPTER III.--Down the Tyne CHAPTER IV.--Newcastle-upon-Tyne CHAPTER V.--Elswick and its Founder CHAPTER VI.--The Cheviots CHAPTER VII.--The Roman Wall CHAPTER VIII.--Some Northumbrian Streams CHAPTER IX.--Drum and Trumpet CHAPTER X.--Tales and Legends CHAPTER XI.--Ballads and Poems ILLUSTRATIONS. BAMBURGH CASTLE (_From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_.) TYNEMOUTH PRIORY (_From photograph by T.H. Dickinson, Sheriff Hill_.) HEXHAM ABBEY FROM NORTH WEST (_From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_.) THE RIVER TYNE AT NEWCASTLE (_From photograph by T.H. Dickinson, Sheriff Hill_.) NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE NORTH GATEWAY, HOUSESTEADS, AND ROMAN WALL (_From photograph by J.P. Gibson, Hexham_.) ALNWICK CASTLE (_From photograph by J.P. Gibson. Hexham_.) WRECK OF THE "FORFARSHIRE" (_From illustration kindly lent by B. Rowland Hill, Newcastle_.) SKETCH MAP OF NORTHUMBERLAND (_From a Drawing by C.H. Abbey_) INTRODUCTORY. The following book makes no pretensions to be a mine of deep historical research or antiquarian lore; its object will have been achieved, and its existence to some extent justified, if haply by its aid some of the dwellers in this northern county of ours, with its past so full of action, and its present so rich in the memorials of those actions, may pass a pleasant hour in becoming acquainted through its pages with the happenings which have taken place in their own particular fields, their own streets, or by their own riverside. I am aware that many learned volumes on this subject, representing an enormous amount of patient labour and careful research in their compilation, are already in existence. To such this little book can in no sense be a rival; but there must be many people who have not a superabundance of time, to enable them to dig out the information for which they wish, from these various sources; nor can they always make these volumes their own, to be consulted at leisure. Northumbrians have always been interested in the records of their own county, and are now-a-days not less so than when, some three-and-a-half centuries ago, Roger North found them "great antiquarians within their own bounds." If to such as these this little book may perhaps bring in a more convenient form the information they seek, and help them to become better acquainted with the county which inspired Swinburne to write in stirring phrases of "Northumberland," and to address the home of his people as "Land beloved, where nought of legend's dream Outshines the truth"-- I shall be more than satisfied. I would take this opportunity of expressing my grateful thanks to the Rev. Canon Savage, of Hexham, for information relating to the tomb of Alfwald the Just, in the Abbey, given with courteous readiness; to the Rev. Canon Jeffery, of Bywell, for similar kindness regarding Bywell St. Peter's; to R.O. Heslop, Esq., whose profound store of learning on the subject of "Northumberland words" was in cases of uncertainty my final court of appeal; to E.T. Nisbet, Esq., and J. Treble, Esq., to whom I am greatly indebted for their goodness in reading my manuscript, and for their generous encouragement following thereupon; to C.H. Abbey, Esq., for his kindness in executing the map which accompanies these pages; and to Mr. G.P. Dunn, of Corbridge, for much helpful criticism, and many suggestions which only want of space has prevented my adopting in their entirety. J.F.T. _31st May_, 1913. NORTHUMBERLAND YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY CHAPTER I. THE COAST OF NORTHUMBERLAND. "We'll see nae mair the sea banks fair, And the sweet grey gleaming sky, And the lordly strand of Northumberland, And the goodly towers thereby." --_A.C. Swinburne_. Wild and bleak it may be, hard and cruel at times it undoubtedly is, but, nevertheless, this north-east coast of ours is at all times inspiring, whether half-hidden by storm-clouds, its cliffs and hollows lashed by the "wild north-easter," or seen calmly brooding in the warm haze of a summer's day, its grey-blue water smiling beneath the grey-blue sky, and its stretches of sand and bents edging the sea with a border of gold and silver. In keeping with either mood of nature, the ancient Priory of Tynemouth, standing on the sandstone cliffs on the northern bank of the Tyne, rearing its grey and roofless walls above the harbour mouth, strikes a note that is symbolic of the Northumbria of old and the Northumberland of to-day--the note, that is, of the intimate commingling of the romance of the warlike past and the romance of the industrial present. Here, above the mouth of the river on which so many of the most noteworthy advances in industrial science have been made, and out of which sail the vessels which are often the last word of the moment in marine engineering and construction, stand calmly looking down upon them all the fragments of a building which was a century old when John signed Magna Charta, and which stands upon the site of another that had already braved the storms of nearly five hundred years. Looking upon the Priory of St. Mary and St. Oswin we are carried back to the days when Edwin, the first king of Northumbria to embrace Christianity, built a little church here, in which his daughter took the veil. King Oswald had the first wooden structure replaced by a stone one; and here, in 651, the body of another good king--Oswyn--was brought for burial from Gilling, near Richmond in Yorkshire, where, disbanding his army, he sacrificed his cause and his life to Oswy of Bernicia, with whom he had been about to fight. [Illustration: THE PRIORY, TYNEMOUTH.] When the pirate ships of the Danes swept down upon our coasts, the Priory of St. Oswin, conspicuous on its bold headland, could not hope to escape their ravages. It was destroyed by the fierce invaders; but King Ecgfrith[1] of Northumbria restored the shattered shrine. Again, in the year 865, it was sacked and burnt, and the poor nuns of St. Hilda, who had already fled from Hartlepool to Tynemouth hoping to find safety, were ruthlessly slain and earned the crown of martyrdom. It was again restored; but, five years later, the destroying hands of the invaders fell on the place once more, and for two hundred years the Priory stood roofless and tenantless. After the Norman Conquest, Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland bestowed it upon the monks of Jarrow. The rediscovery of the tomb of St. Oswyn in 1065, had gladdened the hearts of the monks, and forthwith the monastery was reared anew over the ashes of its former self. [Footnote 1: Pronounced "Edge-frith."] Mowbray, the next Earl of Northumberland, re-endowed the building. He had quarrelled with the Bishop of Durham, so in order to do him a displeasure, he made Tynemouth Priory subordinate to St. Albans instead of to Durham and brought monks from St. Albans to dwell there. The new buildings were finished in 1110, and the bones of St. Oswyn enshrined within them, the right of sanctuary being extended for a mile around his resting-place. This right, however, was already in existence, and had been appealed to in 1095 by Mowbray himself, who fled here pursued by the followers of William Rufus, against whom he had rebelled. The King's men disregarded the sanctuary right, captured Mowbray, and sent him prisoner to Durham[2]. [Footnote 2: See account of Bamburgh Castle.] In later days the queens of Edward I. and Edward II. visited Tynemouth Priory; and it was from Tynemouth that the foolish King Edward II. and his worthless favourite Piers Gaveston fled from the angry barons to Scarborough. In the reign of Edward III., after the battle of Neville's Cross, David of Scotland was brought here by his captors on his way to Bamburgh, from whence he was sent to the Tower. At the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. the Priory was inhabited by eighteen monks with their Prior. They bowed to the King's decree and left the monastery; but the church continued to be used as the parish church until the days of Charles II., when Christ Church was built. The Priory has many times formed the subject of pictures by famous artists, the best known being that of no less a genius than J. M. W. Turner; and its picturesque ruins are a well-known landmark to the hundreds of voyagers who pass it on their journeys, outward or homeward bound. Within the last few years the Priory has been in some measure repaired and restored. There is but little left of Tynemouth Castle, which was built as a protection for the monastery against the attacks of the Danes.