CHAP. i. NORTHUMBERLAND ROADS. 3 



escort armed to the teeth. A tribute called u dagger 

 and protection money " was annually paid by the Sheriff 

 of Newcastle for the purpose of providing daggers and 

 other weapons for the escort; and, though the need of 

 such protection has long since ceased, the tribute con- 

 tinues to be paid in broad gold pieces of the time of 

 Charles the First. 



Until about the middle of last century the roads 

 across Northumberland were little better than horse- 

 tracks, and not many years since the primitive agri- 

 cultural cart with solid wooden wheels was almost 

 as common in the western parts of the county as it 

 is in Spain now. The track of the old Roman road 

 continued to be the most practicable route between 

 Newcastle and Carlisle, the traffic between the two 

 towns having been carried along it upon pack-horses until 

 a comparatively recent period. When Marshal Wade 

 attempted to march westward in 1745, to intercept the 

 Highland rebels on their way south, he was completely 

 baffled by the state of the roads, which were imprac- 

 ticable for wheeled vehicles. 1 After the rebellion had 

 been put down, the Marshal proceeded to construct a 

 military road to connect Newcastle with Carlisle. He 

 closely followed the line of the Roman wall for thirty 

 miles w^est of Newcastle, and overthrew what remained 

 of that work for the purpose of obtaining materials for 

 his new " agger." 



Since that time great changes have taken place on 

 the Tyne. When wood for firing became scarce and 

 dear, and the forests of the South of England were 

 found inadequate to supply the increasing demand for 

 fuel, attention was turned to the rich stores of coal 

 lying underground in the neighbourhood of Newcastle 

 and Durham. It then became an article of increasing 

 export, and " seacoal " fires gradually supplanted those 



1 See ' Lives of the Engineers,' vol. i., Memoir of John >f etcalf. 



B 2 



