Category: Northumberland

Rumbling Kern

24/2/2016

Dunstanburgh Castle by A Curtis (2016)

A recent visit to the fabulous Dunstanburgh Castle on the Northumberland coast north of Craster reminded me of some nearby place-names similar to the more famous, Rumbling Kern, further south at Howick.

Rumbling Kern. Photo by A Curtis (2009)

It has been described as a churn or barrel through which the sea runs noisily.

Bill Griffiths in 'Fishing and Folk: Life and Dialect on the North Sea Coast' (2008) describes two similar local features: 'Rumble Churn' at Dunstanburgh and 'The Churn' on the Farne Islands.

The latter feature is said to be a cavity in the rock near the north-west point of Inner Farne. It has a hole at the top through which the water is forced by the sea, producing a beautiful 'jet d'eau' (water-spout), particularly when the wind is from the north-east with a heavy swell. Presumably, he says, the noise resembles the rumbling sound of a churn.

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More new Northumberland Rock-Art

1/5/2015

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This new and beautiful example of Northumbrian rock-art has just turned up.

Sadly, at the moment, if I told you where it was found I would have to kill you, probably with a Neolithic hand-axe or an arrow tipped with an Early Bronze Age barbed and tanged arrowhead.

The panel, on the horizontal surface of natural sandstone bedrock has an array of cups with multiple rings, deep cups with more delicate, distorted rings, cups without rings, a dumb-bell, and a delightful and intriguing set of curving grooves which flow over the rock surface, connecting many of the motifs and uniting the overall design. It appears to have been made by an accomplished prehistoric artist, made to fit with the natural cracks and cover the sections between. It is clearly a very good example of the 4000 year-old, Northumbrian rock-art tradition.

Art is certainly how it appears, but quite why these carvings were created we can now only speculate. See here for some of my thoughts.

Further study of this new panel and its locality will add to our knowledge of the important prehistoric rock art heritage of the area. It certainly brightened up my day.

LINKS

England's Rock Art - ERA

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The Laidley Worm of Spindlestone Heugh

29/3/2015

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Worm (Old English: wyrm) is a local word for a serpent or dragon. There are many legends or folk-lore tales regarding such mythical creatures and how they terrorised their districts before being vanquished by a local hero. Some may go back a long way in time with the stories endlessly retold and embellished.

The Lambton Worm is a much better known tale from the River Wear area of County Durham and is one of the area's most famous pieces of folklore. The Linton Worm from the Scottish Borders is similar.

Bamburgh Castle from Harkess Rocks. Photo by A Curtis (2014).

The Laidley Worm is Northumberland's alternative from the Bamburgh area but although all these stories were all presumably originally made up, this particular tale doesn't seem to have quite the same historical longevity.

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Fourstones Fairy Tale

9/1/2015

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My article on the Named Stones of Northumberland included a brief account of Fourstones, and the stones (described as Roman altars) which were said to have given the hamlet its name. For those that don't already know, Fourstones is a small hamlet close to the River South Tyne north-west of Hexham.

I have now had time to explore this story in more detail.

The earliest source I have found so far is 1825 by Eneas Mackenzie in An Historical, Topographical, and Descriptive View of the County of Northumberland ...

His account of the Parish of Warden includes the following on Fourstones (Vol.2, p.262):

Fourstones about 1 mile north west from Warden contains a farmhold with cottages for labourers. This place with an adjoining colliery belongs to Greenwich Hospital. This township is named from being bounded by four stones supposed to been formed to hold holy water.*

The footnote is as follows:

*A writer in the Newcastle Magazine (Feb. 1824) calls these stones Roman altars, and relates a story very current in this neighbourhood, from which one of them obtained the name of the Fairy Stone, in the rebellion of 1715.

“The Ratcliffes, Forsters, Fenwicks, and others of the Jacobite families in the neighbourhood had recourse to the following curious stratagem for the security of their correspondence. The focus of the Roman altar was cut into a square recess with a cover; a little boy, clad in green, came every evening in the twilight, to receive the letters deposited in this recess for the Earl of Derwentwater, and in retern laid down his lordship’s letters, which were spirited away in the same manner by the agents of his friends. The humour of these urchins, or the policy of their masters, probably led to those tricks, which are still related by the peasantry as characteristic ot the fairy stone."

St Aidan's Mission Church, Fourstones. Photo A Curtis (2015).

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The Named Stones of Northumberland (revisited)

3/11/2014

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The Tailor & His Man, Shaftoe Crags. Photo A Curtis (2014).

Some things came together recently to develop further my interest in the Northumberland countryside, place-names and rocks (carved or otherwise). Firstly, on a recent walk from Alnham in the Cheviot Hills my friends introduced me to 'The Grey Yade of Coppath'.

The Grey Yade of Coppath near Alnham. Photo A Curtis (2014).

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Gardens of Northumberland

7/7/2012

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A talk by John Grundy on Monday 25th June in St Andrew's Church, beautifully decorated for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Flower Festival weekend. It was good to see as many as 100 people in the church for the talk.

Jubilee Flower Festival, St Andrew's Church. Photo by A Curtis (2012)

John, in characteristic humour, made this an illustrated talk 'with no flowers' but did sneak one or two flowery slide photos for those who were watching carefully. My notes don't allow me to give a full detailed account of all he told us and I can't hope to cover all the gardens he mentioned. I just give you lots of photos (mainly from Geograph) and flowers without the jokes!

The talk covered the history of gardens in the county from speculated gardens around our earliest castles to the planned landscapes of the big estates in the 18th and 19th centuries, many based on features shown in romantic paintings and the grand tours of classical Europe.

East end of the Italian Garden, Chillingham Castle. Photo A Curtis (2004).

Chillingham Castle. Photo A Curtis (2004).

Wallington Clock Tower. Photo A Curtis (2009).

Urn in walled garden, Wallington. Photo A Curtis (2009).

Quarry Garden, Belsay Hall. Photo A Curtis (2004).

Belsay Hall. Photo A Curtis (2004).

Bavington Hall. Photo by Peter McDermott (2011).

Bywell Hall. Photo by Bill Cresswell (2008).

Rothley Lakes. Photo by A Curtis (2010).

Kirkharle, the birthplace of 'Capability' Brown Photo A Curtis (2010).

Many of these gardens cost a great deal to make, a tradition which still continues with the garden at Alnwick Castle. Redevelopment of the garden was instigated by Jane Percy (the current and 12th Duchess of Northumberland) in 1997, with Belgian landscape designers Jacques and Peter Wirtz. It is the most ambitious new garden created in the United Kingdom since World War II, with a reported total development cost of £42 million (Wikipedia).

Tree house, Alwick Garden. Photo by Mark Evans (2008).

Cherry Orchard at Alnwick Gardens. Photo by David Clark (2010).

Magnificent (and numerous) though they are, it is not just the mansion houses that dominate the gardens of Northumberland. Smaller properties and even the productive miner/farmer small holdings of our once industrial valleys are also part of the floral mix.

John mentioned the yards of terraced houses, cottage gardens of our villages and the gardens of the pit cottages at Beamish that would also house a pig and some chickens. Gardens by man in God's own garden of Northumberland.

Personal spaces created by their owners. Contrast merely in scale.

Back lane in Blucher. Photo A Curtis (2010).

Cragside. Photo by Mike White (2010).

My favourites belong in this category too - the garden at the disused Langley Station, and the wonderful quirky Cement Menagerie at Branxton.

Langley Station. Photo by Charlie Bell (2008).

The Cement Menagerie, Branxton. Photo A Curtis (2010).

THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN
by Rudyard Kipling

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all;
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks:
The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.

Read the rest of Rudyard Kipling's poem at Project HappyChild - linking children all across the world.

Gardens of Northumberland by the Borders by Susie White (2006)

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Rumbling Kern

More new Northumberland Rock-Art

The Laidley Worm of Spindlestone Heugh

Fourstones Fairy Tale

The Named Stones of Northumberland (revisited)

Gardens of Northumberland

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