CHAPTER III. 



CHERRYBURN House, the place of my nativity, 

 and which for many years my eyes beheld with 

 cherished delight, is situated on the south side of 

 the Tyne, in the county of Northumberland, a 

 short distance from the river. The house, stables, 

 &c., stand on the west side of a little dean, at 

 the foot of which runs a burn.* The dean was 

 embellished with a number of cherry and plum 

 trees, which were terminated by a garden on the 

 north. Near the house were two large ash trees 

 growing from one root ; and, at a little distance, 

 stood another of the same kind. At the south end 

 of the premises was a spring well, overhung by 

 a large hawthorn bush, behind which was a holly 



* This, formerly, was supplied by a copious spring of fine 

 water, which having found its way into some pit workings and 

 disappeared, the burn is now only fed by day water from the fields. 

 [Nothing now [1886] remains of Cherryburn House but the central 

 portion of the building shown in John Bewick's sketch of 1781. 

 This is used as a cow shed, over one door of which is the inscrip- 

 tion "Thomas Bewick born here, August 1753." The site of the 

 spring well may still be traced; and the "garden on the north" 

 remains much as .of old. In the vicinity rises a larger and more 

 modern dwelling, at present inhabited by Bewick's grandnieces.] 



