NORTHUMBERLAND AND DURHAM. 



87 



places where it is conspieiioiis between Gunnerton and Alnwick. 

 At Wallington the stream is a mere brook, some 6 or 8 yards 

 across, between grassy pastures, with the iine old hall and its 

 rich woods looking down upon it from an easy slope on the north. 

 About Meldon and Mitford the banks are deep and pleasantly 

 wooded. Below this latter village there is a steep bank planted 

 with beech and sycamore for at least a mile on the north side of 

 the stream, and the bed is in some places filled with rock and 

 overhung with alder, bird-cherry, and willows, amongst which 

 grow Trollius, Myrrhis, Crepis pcduclosa, and Cardmnine amara. 

 The town of Morpeth is situated in a hollow but little above the 

 level of the stream 5 miles from its mouth, with wooded banks 

 rising rather abruptly to a height of about 100 feet to enclose it. 

 It is a pleasant ride in summer-time from Morpeth by the coach 

 to Long Horsley, up a gradual ascent through a thinly -populated 

 and thinly- cultivated country where brake, furze, and broom 

 still linger in the lanes, and honeysuckle and wild roses cluster 

 in the hedges, till at last the brow of the bank is gained, and 

 Simonside and the Cheviots leap up suddenly into view. The 

 stream is large enough to admit small vessels as high as Morpeth, 

 and flows between deep wooded banks below Bothal Castle into 

 an estuary at Camboise. The area of the district is about 200 

 square miles. 



ALTITUDES. 



Simonside 1447* 



CockliiU 367* 



Riifflaw 597 



Meldon Brida-e 243* 



FEET. 



Morpeth Bridge 94* 



Point quarter of a mile 

 north of Hebron Village 376* 



6. NOETH TYNE DISTEICT. 



This district has an area of about 400 square miles, embracing 

 a tract 20 miles across in both directions, including the western 

 border of the county from the Cheviots southward for half the 

 distance to the Durham border, a large proportion of its surface 

 being uncultivated grassy or heath-clad moor between 500 and 



