146 REPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1907 



and consists of three floors, one above the other. In spite 

 of the interest which such a splendid piece of architecture 

 awakens, and the insight it affords into the domestic life of 

 the Middle Ages, it is matter of regret that no proof exists 

 as to the date of its construction, or the individual who 

 devised its unique details. In summing up his minute des- 

 cription of the Castle in a memoir originally published in 

 the ArchcBologia jEliana, on which the foregoing account is 

 largely based, Mr C. J. Bates makes what seems at least 

 a plausible suggestion -.■ — " On general grounds it seems 

 improbable that a man of such power and such ambition as 

 the first Earl of Northumberland should have done nothing 

 to render his favourite home more habitable and magnificent. 

 Although documentary evidence be not forthcoming, and 

 architectural evidence be little favourable, it is impossible not 

 to feel that after all the conception, if not the completion, 

 of this marvellous donjon may have been the work of the 

 first and greatest of the eleven Earls of the princely house 

 of Louvain."* 



At one o'clock the party left the Castle by the postern 

 gate on the curtain-wall, and proceeding along the path on 

 the top of the precipitous bank of the Coquet which leads 

 to the main street of the town, they were accommodated in 

 brakes for the drive to Morwick Hall, a distance of upwards 

 of two miles from Wark worth. Eain had by this time 

 begun to fall, so that on reaching their destination the 

 members found the projected ramble by the river anything 

 but agreeable. Passing through a field to the East in which 

 an ancient British camp is said to have stood, and descending 

 to the Coquet by a steep bank at a point midway between 

 two ancient fords, the lower one of which still bears the name 



of Paupers-ford, they reached the level of the 

 Morwick river below a perpendicular cliff of sandstone, 



Incised on which are graven characters, whose true 



Rocks. significance has as yet baffled the ingenuity 



of antiquarians. Similar markings have been 

 reported elsewhere in Northumberland, as for instance at 

 Old Bewick, Doddington, Eoutin Linn; but whereas these 



* History of Northumberland, Vol. v., p. 112. 



