M&pwrt of Meetings for 1887. hy J. Hardy. 43 



and the Dove's Crag, and then descend ou Lantronside, but we 

 soon became aware, that crouched though we were, like a troop 

 of " Brown men of the Moors," in the hollows of the rocks, the 

 shelter was inadequate, and that we were gradually getting 

 soaked through ; so bidding adieu to 



" That lake whose gloomy shore, 

 Skylark never warbles o'er, 

 Where the cliffs hang high and steep," 



we arose with one accord, and speedily put the Drake Stone 

 between us and the bitter gusts from Hedesdale. After this 

 preliminary adventure, we were soon snugly housed in the two 

 Harbottle inns, till the rain mitigated or became bearable, and 

 our clothes were dried. Our friends from Alnwick arrived at this 

 juncture, and were rather surprised to find how comfortably we 

 were installed. We had dropped in on the proper quarters, for 

 our host was a taxidermist, and brimful of the zoology of the 

 district, and exhibited several rare specimens of native and exotic 

 birds. Some notes that he handed us, will subsequently appear. 

 Harbottle is a small village, on each side of the public 

 road, lying in a hollow — being built above or parallel with a 

 buried channel of the Coquet before it adopted its present 

 eccentric course, (H. Miller, p. 120) — and sheltered by the green 

 mound of the famous Border fortress. Most of the houses are 

 new and well built. The castle-mound is either green and grassy, 

 or its slopes are enriched with thriving gardens. Most of the 

 fragments are shapeless pillars, or splintered tottering masses. 

 A lengthy division wall is entire. There is a monument to Mrs 

 Clennell at the village-well. Mr Clennell has now purchased 

 most of the property in the village. The Presbyterian Meeting- 

 house is new, and the manse, a picture of comfort and clieerf ulness, 

 is placed aloft in a green field near the plantation, by the side of 

 which we made the ascent to the inhospitable tarn sentinelled by 

 the Drake Stone. 



There was a chapel once attached to the castle, of which the 

 foundations were laid bare when forming the gardener's lodge, 

 which stands at the entry to the grounds of Harbottle Hall. Mr 

 Joseph Oliver furnishes me with some notes, worthy of preserva- 

 tion, of some Antiquities found or preserved here, or at the Hall 

 when his brother was gardener. His brother left Harbottle 

 Castle in 1883, for Beaufront Castle. The notice is written by 

 his nephew. 



