316 About Wooler. 



about it, so different from many of the Northumbrian 

 Border castles, as though it should have been at all 

 times the refuge of refinement and peace. Mr. Tom- 

 linson tells us that " when the survey of Border towns 

 and castles was made in 1552, there was no fortress or 

 barmekyn at Coupland ; " and yet he goes on to add : 

 "The fact of such a stonghold being raised sixteen 

 years after the union of the two kingdoms is a remark- 

 able proof of the unsafe and unsettled state of the 

 Borderland at that time. The oldest portion of the 

 existing castle consists of two strong towers, contain- 

 ing eleven rooms and a remarkable stone corkscrew 

 staircase. The walls are in some places six and seven 

 feet thick. At the corners of the castle are ' pepper- 

 pot ' turrets, the only other examples south of the 

 Tweed being at Dilston and Duddo." 



But our time in the glen is exhausted, though we are 

 loth to leave it, with its soft pencilled beauty here and 

 there, and its wilder breaks and ravines and distant 

 romantic glimpses. We must make for Kirknewton, 

 there to get the train to take us south again, for we 

 are already almost due in London town. 



