Category: North Tyne Valley
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Calm and wide, the River North Tyne, gently flows below Wark Bridge. It is not behaving naturally. It looks tame because, in a very real sense, it has been tamed. For most of its history the North Tyne did what upland rivers do: it raged when it rained and starved when it did not. Two…
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Shitlington: A Cross, a Fair, and Eight Centuries of Unfortunate Spelling
In the Peak District sits a hill called Shatton Moor. My Duke of Edinburgh groups used to home in on it every time, like pigeons to a statue, and the jokes wrote themselves. The name is almost certainly Old English. “Scēat-tūn” — a corner of land plus a farmstead. “The farm on the edge.” Dull,…
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A Glimpse of the Frontier: Black Middens Bastle House
In the 16th century, the “Debatable Land” sitting between England and Scotland had no time for national loyalty. Survival was a subscription service, and missing a payment was bad for your health. We now think of “blackmail” as something that happens to politicians on laptops. It was, in fact, invented here, as a perfectly formal…
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The Castle That Time, Fire, and a Small River Are Finishing Off
That eroded mound is Tarset Castle, in the North Tyne valley. The steep, undercut flanks show the ongoing damage caused by the Tarset Burn. The gentle green mound does not look like much. It is, in fact, all that’s left of a castle that was once a record-holder, a border fortress, a bonfire, a quarry,…