Eeporfof Mr f tings for 1 <S9(). By J)v J. Hardy, 73 



with fruit in the shelter of this sunny bank. Tragopogon pratensis 

 grows here and in the churchyard. There is an extensive view 

 from the church upwards along the reaches of the river, includ- 

 ing Eedden on the one side, and on the opposite, which is more 

 open, across a corner of the woods that screen Birgham, on to 

 Edenhall backed by its plantations ; the three Eildans towering 

 beyond in the remote distance. All is quiet except the rush of 

 the river. It is at Oarham Haugh, that during floods, the bodies 

 of drowned people are first arrested. The phrase " Carham 

 Haugh or Spittal Sands" is proverbial in relation to such 

 calamities, 



Wallace's Croft, a flat, deepening to a hollow, and then rising 

 to a dry ridge, is in front of the church. Wallace is said to 

 have encamped there when the church was burned in 1297,* 

 Lying close to the Borders, the place was subject to many war- 

 like encounters. A battle was fought in the vicinity in 1018 ; 

 and another in 1371. The flat extends down to the church and 

 the village. 



The church dedicated to St. Cuthbert is entirely modern, as 

 well as the Bells and Church plate. Within the church there 

 are tombstones and funeral slabs to members of the Compton 

 family of West Learmouth and then of Carham ; and to Eichard 

 Hodgson Huntley, Esq., who was long a member of the Club, 

 Mr Blair, who examined the Church Eegisters says that they 

 contain a full pedigree of the Comptons. The Forsters sold the 

 estate to the Comptons. The oldest register book was kept by 

 tlie vicar, the Eev. Eichard Wallis, brother of the Eev. John 

 Wallis, the historian of Northumberland, a work prized by 

 Naturalists as well as by Antiquaries. " Mr Wallis, for many 

 years besides attending his charge at Carham, read prayers and 

 preached to a congregation of the Episcopal persuasion at Kelso, 

 and being in want of a Chapel, he raised among his friends 

 £186 towards building one, which was soon begun and finished 

 in an elegant manner. After his resignation of it in 1789, Mr 

 Alcock, a suitable and polite man, succeeded him." (Mr Wallis's 

 Eegister Book.) The Eev. Eichard AVallis, A.M., the son of the 

 vicar of Carham, was rector of Seaham and perpetual curate of 



* " The ost but mar full awfully he dycht ; 



Began at Tweid, and spard nocht at thai fand ; 

 But brynt befor throuch all Northummyrland." 



Wallace hy Henry the Minftrel, Bul-e aucht, lines 512-514. 

 K 



