Anniversary Address. 25 



our Secretary's notes : — " Rothbury stands on a narrow strip 

 of cultivable ground, on a slope between the heath-crowned 

 sandstone crags that bound the moors and the Coquet, and 

 this gorge broadens upwards into a wide fertile area, of 

 which we obtained only a glimpse. Harbottle Beacon, a 

 bulky detached black hill, shaped like Ruberslaw, closed the 

 view among the upper reaches of the Coquet. On the oppo- 

 site side of the Coquet there is an expanse of flat grassy 

 meadow, where the Rothbury races were wont to be held ; 

 and there the ground ascends, reticulated with the hedge- 

 rows and stone walls of cultivated fields, towards the village 

 of Tosson. This ancient tree-shadowed village is backed by 

 a range of low heathy hills, with an undulated ridge line, 

 called the Tosson Hills ; and above all tower the Simonside 

 Hills, broken into several peaks of separate heights with 

 distinctive names, and not, as they appear at a distance, one 

 combined mass, with a continuous mural crown of sandstone 

 crag." 



After breakfast at the Queen's Head, the church was in- 

 spected. The chief object of interest there is the shaft of the 

 font, which is the lower part of a Saxon cross, sculptured 

 with intertwining knot work, entangling snakes, and a re- 

 presentation of our Saviour's ascension. This fragment has 

 been described and figured in the Club's " Proceedings," and 

 another portion of it in the Transactions of the Antiquarian 

 Society of Newcastle. From their analogy with similar 

 sculptures elsewhere, it was considered that the figures on 

 three of the sides were ornamental, and not k symbolical, as was 

 suggested by the late Mr Dickson, in his paper (" History of 

 the Club," vol. iv., p. 7.) The living here is one of the most 

 valuable in Northumberland, and has had several eminent 

 occupants. The present rector is the Rev. G. H. Ainger, 

 D.D., formerly Principal of St. Bees' College. The church 

 was occasionally at the period of the Reformation visited by 

 Bernard Gilpin, the " Apostle of the North," during his mis- 

 sionary peregrinations among the wild men of Coquetdale, 

 Reedsdale, and Tynedale, who thought nothing of settling 



