Report of Meetings for 1888. By J. Hardy. 169 



winter 1585-6, along with Lamendon, " and all the country 

 besides." Learchild, i.e. the Laverock or Lark-shieling, was the 

 " vill beyond the moors," which Grospatrick, out of Beanley 

 barony, conferred as part of the dower of Juliana his daughter, 

 when married to Eoger de Merlay, lord of Morpeth. One of 

 these lords of Morpeth did not disdain to act as seneschal to his 

 kinsman, one of the Earls of Dunbar. 



The burn is here traversed by a fordfor the accommodation of a 

 road from Thrunton. This road occupies, alongside a hedge-row 

 mound in a field, a raised causeway of small coble stones of 

 porphyrite and sandstone, that have the look of having been 

 collected from the adjacent lands. This does not however 

 coincide with the line of the Roman (or Devil's) Causeway as 

 laid down in the Ordnance Maps, which passed the burn here 

 between two modern fords, and crossed this causewayed road 

 obliquely. The road up the slope appears to have been the 

 outlet for the traffic centred here. Old people recollected the 

 trains of pack-horses that crossed the hills by this route, some- 

 times as many as 23 in line being seen at once. It is in the 

 direction but does not follow the track of the Roman road. 



Jacky's burn at the ford runs in considerable volume, and is 

 a trouting stream. It is narrowly skirted with a line of alders, 

 young and old (one of the latter a fine tree with a bulky stem) 

 Guelder rose,heckberr3 r , brambles, scrog-apples, oaks, hazels and 

 wild goose-berries. The upper part of the valley is partly 

 occupied by Broad Wood and its offshoot Allerton Wood, 

 belonging to Sir John Swinburne ; and again above that by 

 Roughley Wood, from which fringes of native trees or bushes, 

 expanding or contracting in width, accompany the stream a far 

 way up towards the Ooe crags, and into a defile beyond, where 

 a green hill near Lorbottle closes up the gap. The 

 rounded heads of these Coe crags stand grandly out with 

 shadows in their fissures, and wear a solemn aspect in a gloomy 

 day ; and are altogether more impressive than the opposite lower 

 Thrunton series ; which owe much of their dark hue to their 

 massed coniferous trees. It was very desirable that these 

 secluded woods should have been botanised on this occasion, but 

 subsequent wet weather prevailed. As seen from the public 

 road shortly after, Eoughley wood showed expanses of Herb 

 Mercury, Ajuga reptans, sprinklings of Epipactis latifvlia, wildHare- 

 bells (Scilla nutans) and Primroses in abundance. A month 



