2 president's address. 



The year which has passed since our last general meeting cannot 

 in any sense be said to have been a favourable one for out-door 

 pursuits. The attendance at the Field Meetings depends prima- 

 rily on settled fine weather, a desideratum we shall look for in 

 vain in the Meteorological Report for 1872, the characteristics of 

 which might be summed up in the words rain, wind, and cold. 

 The selection of field-days however was fortunate, and very few 

 of the excursions were marred by unfavourable weather, though 

 the numbers present were frequently diminished by threatening- 

 eve or lowering morning sky. 



First Field Meeting. — Our campaign was opened as usual 

 by a half-day excursion. From its easy accessibility Bothal had 

 been selected as the place of meeting, and the day fixed was the 

 22nd of May. Spring had not set in auspiciously. The sharp 

 frosts of the nights of the 1 6th and 1 8th of May had nipped ve- 

 getation in many parts of our district, and there had been little 

 indication of holiday weather, nor was the day itself promising. 

 Notwithstanding, there was a fair muster of members at the 

 Central Station, though the faith of a few failed before they 

 reached Morpeth, and at Choppington the party was somewhat 

 lessened by desertions. The walk from Choppington to Sheep- 

 wash and thence to Bothal Castle is known to all of you, and 

 the experience of that particular day would perhaps add nothing 

 to your knowledge, for the chief part of the journey was per- 

 formed under umbrellas. "We were not sorry, in the absence of 

 a village inn (a noteworthy defect in any village), to gain the 

 substantial shelter of the Castle archway, and the interior of the 

 old Church. But little is left of the Castle except this fortified 

 gateway, with its two towers and portcullis, and a few fragments 

 of the old wall — dating back perhaps to the Robert Bertram of 

 the time of Edward III. ; nor have these scanty ruins that halo 

 of stirring history which gives a charm to so many of our north- 

 ern keeps. Their story would chiefly be of the domestic annals 

 of the Ogles of Ogle and their kin — eventful doubtless, but of 

 which few noteworthy incidents have survived the lapse of time. 

 In the Church the alabaster tomb, with its recumbent figures, 



