NORTHUMBERLAND 



plenty of salmon and of sea trout, too, are killed when 

 the water serves. There is also a good stock of brown 

 trout, and the river being valuable is rather closely 

 preserved for most of its course. For the last mile 

 or so before the confluence the broad river, overhung 

 on both sides by the woods of Warden, makes fine 

 play, its amber waters churning furiously amid a 

 prodigious barrier of rocks and ledges. It bisects the 

 Roman wall just above at Cholerford, where the exca- 

 vated remains of the great cavalry station of Chesters 

 or Cilurnum and its Roman bridge still in the river 

 attract visitors from all parts of the country. A little 

 railroad runs up the North Tyne for a matter of some 

 thirty miles, crossing eventually into Scotland through 

 a wild pass of the Cheviots. It is still better, however, 

 to pursue the river by road if you want to go high up 

 the dale, as the scenery is always interesting, and if 

 you care for such things every mile is marked by a 

 castle, a peel tower, or some other martial relic of the 

 old Border wars and raids. 



For North Tynedale and its tributaries was the very 

 heart and centre of the ' Riding country,' the land of 

 the Herons, Swinburnes, Charltons, Robsons, and all 

 the rest of them. So up past Haughton castle of the 

 Swinburnes, in whose deep dungeon once upon a time 

 a chief of the Armstrongs, languishing in durance vile, 

 was literally forgotten, and so died of starvation ; 

 past Chipchase, where the Herons when official keepers 

 of Tynedale kept their light cavalry police ; past the 

 hamlet of Wark, where the Scottish judges of assize 

 sat when this was part of Scotland, the river beside 

 you still brawling broad and lusty ; past the mouth of 



