Report of the Meetings for 1894. 65 



" The meeting cliffs the deep sunk glen divides ; 

 The woods, unbroken, clothe their ample sides." 



To botanists the wood is a happy hunting-ground, especially 

 in spring and early summer. It was not altogether unfruitful 

 even on this autumn day. The first halt was made at " St. 

 Catherine's Well," which is a spring bubbling to the surface 

 close to the river's edge, and only a few yards below the 

 magnificent viaduct which carries the North Eastern Railway 

 from bank to bank of this water- worn gorge. Mr Walker 

 said the well, whose waters it was noted are slightly chalybeate, 

 was one of the Holy Wells of Northumberland. It figured 

 in a novel entitled "The Lost Evidence," published fifty or 

 sixty years ago. It was written by Miss Burdon, and was a 

 tragic story of love and murder, in which a Dacre and a 

 Widdrington were the prominent characters. The lost evidence 

 was a dagger ; found, after many a fruitless search elsewhere, 

 in the sand by the side of St. Catherine's Well. As far as 

 he could find, there was no foundation of fact in the history 

 of either of the families for what made the warp of the story. 



The next stoppage was made at the ruins of "Our Lady's 

 Chapel." In 1887 Dr Bates, a native of Morpeth, with the 

 permission of the Duke of Portland's agent, was at the 

 expense of partially restoring it, for it was fast becoming 

 more and more dilapidated ; there would soon not have been 

 one stone of it left standing upon another. At the same time 

 he built "Ye Jubilee Well," to the west of the ruin. The 

 arch, which frames the erection, is really one of the roof 

 ribs of the adjoining Chapel. Before the formation of "Ye 

 Jubilee Well," the water that supplies it found its way to 

 the east of the Chapel, close beside the bower already 

 mentioned. It was known as "The Lady's Well." Thirty 

 years ago a curate of Morpeth, enchanted with the presence 

 of a ruined chapel in such a beautiful spot, with a " Lady's 

 Well" close beside it, by a clever appropriation of one of 

 Surtees' ballads, threw an additional spice of romance around 

 the hallowed place. On the face of the solid rock he carved 

 an escutcheon, with the Arms of the Bertrams on it, constructed 

 a rustic bower, and had painted on the under side of a board, 

 which served as a pent-house to the seat, " Bartram's Dirge."*" 



* " Barthram's Dirge " may be found in the " Minstrelsy of the 

 Scottish Border," and in various local books. 

 J 



