{"id":5550,"date":"2024-11-02T15:10:08","date_gmt":"2024-11-02T15:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=5550"},"modified":"2025-12-24T22:26:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T22:26:46","slug":"5-more-northumberland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=5550","title":{"rendered":"5. MORE NORTHUMBERLAND."},"content":{"rendered":"

Corbridge is one of our favourite little towns to visit.\u00a0 It has excellent shops and bistros as well as easy parking and a riverside walk.\u00a0 A good combo.\u00a0 Always provided we both remember to carry our phones – preferably switched on!<\/p>\n

The flood plain on the south side of the River Tyne appears to be excellent, productive farm land.\u00a0 Lots of rows of tightly packed crops.\u00a0 But on the day we visited, Farmer Giles was out ironing his field.\u00a0 He had a commercial scale steam-pressing machine which he was driving very slowly across his field.\u00a0 If anyone has any clue what is really happening here, I would be delighted to hear from you!!<\/p>\n

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A couple of miles up the river, the path turns sharp left and crosses the railway linking East and West.\u00a0 Newcastle and Carlisle, I guess.\u00a0 And, just as I was about to cross rhe lines, the 2.30 flier flew past.\u00a0 No warning hoot or wave.\u00a0 A good place to turn round and retrace my steps.<\/p>\n

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Another day, another trip!\u00a0 We found lovely food at the Cook and Barker pub at Newton on the Moor.\u00a0 Actually, this got sampled a couple of lunch-times!<\/p>\n

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Another must-visit-at-least-once-per-trip sort of place is Cragside (now owned by the National Trust).\u00a0 The home of Lord William Armstrong, famous for being the first house illuminated by hydroelectricity.\u00a0 The water supply for the generators was stored laterly in two large lakes at the top of the property, 340 feet above the power house.\u00a0 These are known collectively as Nelly’s Moss.\u00a0 But, why<\/span>?\u00a0 A local legend says a witch (called Nelly, obviously) was burned at the stake there in the middle ages.\u00a0 Hard to prove, but interesting – although far less so for Nelly!<\/span><\/p>\n

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We managed one complete circuit of the double lakes and two out-and-back walks on the east side which is much easier walking.<\/p>\n

To get to the Moss without an energetic hike up the hill, we took the carriage drive which starts through the archway under the house …<\/p>\n

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… and which emerges into the front yard …<\/p>\n

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… before heading out round the estate to the Crozier carpark!<\/p>\n

After our walk we re-visited the house.<\/p>\n

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Sadly, no ghosts – not even any ghost stories!\u00a0 Standards are falling!\u00a0 But there were lots of lovely old decorations and pictures.\u00a0 The long gallery (above) was completed in 1877 and upgraded just before a visit from the royal family.<\/p>\n

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Using our non-member cards, we managed a couple of morning coffees and bacon baps at the Rothbury Golf Club.<\/p>\n

One day, after elevensies at the RGC, we visited Whittingham.\u00a0 This was home to members of the family of Vicky Best (Glenda’s Best friend from school days.\u00a0 With a name like that, she was always going to be a best friend!).\u00a0 Vicky and her family now live near Adelaide.\u00a0 Her older brother used to own the village shop and post office.\u00a0 Now re-purposed as a residential property, leaving village folk with the best part of a ten mile round trip to post their Amazon returns.<\/p>\n

The old post office (as was) …<\/p>\n

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Upstream of Rothbury we had a lovely cross country walk alongside the River Coquet …<\/p>\n

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… where the river divides and spreads out into an inland “delta” near Bickerton.<\/p>\n

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Spooky atmospheric view over the river further downstream near Thropton after it had been through a de-delta-ing process.<\/p>\n

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Great village names around here.\u00a0 Little Tosson, Hepple, Caistron and Flotterton to name but a few.<\/p>\n

Wooler is another favourite destination.\u00a0 \u00a0Strictly speaking the real favourite is the Terrace Caf\u00e9.\u00a0 The place serves magnificent Border Tart.\u00a0 This confection can only be bought within two miles of the Scottish border (hence the name)!\u00a0 Last year the caf\u00e9 had run out, so this year we went early and got two of the last three slices.\u00a0 Photographic evidence is almost non existent – the time between purchase and consumption was almost shorter than the shutter speed of my camera.\u00a0 But I did get this shot while pausing for a drink!<\/p>\n

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This raises another question.\u00a0 What is it with this (fairly) recent fad of serving comestibles on top of paper napkins?\u00a0 I can’t believe it’s because the plates aren’t clean, nor that it significantly reduces crockery cleaning time.\u00a0 The napkins immediately lose their usefulness as napkins, thereby increasing the amount of paperwork with each serving!\u00a0 I just don’t get it!<\/p>\n

A short wander along the streets of downtown Wooler revealed a number of interestingly named businesses…<\/p>\n

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She even had a number of roads, streets and crescents named after her!<\/p>\n

Near Wooler there are a number of valleys that run up into the Cheviot Hills.\u00a0 (Strictly speaking, I guess they run down out of the hills.)\u00a0 Anyway, there are two well known valleys nearby.\u00a0 Ingram Valley and College Valley.\u00a0 \u00a0The former is easily accessed, the latter much less so.\u00a0 Predictably,\u00a0 we chose the harder to reach, College Valley.<\/p>\n

As we approached via the narrow, winding country lanes, we were met by an almost continuous stream of horse boxes, quad bikes and overloaded rural 4x4s.\u00a0 It transpired that the local hunt had met in the valley that morning and the event had just ended!\u00a0 Bad timing, involving lots of reversing round blind bends.\u00a0 Bad choice of Valley!\u00a0 But eventually we made it and walked miles upstream with Scotland a mere kilometre away on our right.\u00a0 Only a thousand metres, but all of them steeply uphill.\u00a0 To be avoided… at all costs.\u00a0 So the riverside walk it was, up the College Burn!\u00a0 All the while watching the local gliding club towing gliders one after the other into the updrafts over the hills.<\/p>\n

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Leaving this remote corner of the remote county of Northumberland we passed a memorial plaque …<\/p>\n

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A memorial to the long forgotten “Royal Township” of Cefrin.\u00a0 The ancestral home of seventh century Anglo-Saxon Kings of Northumberland.\u00a0 Here, allegedly, the missionary\u00a0 Paulinus, preached to the residents for 36 days in AD 627\u00a0 He then baptised them in the nearby River Glen.\u00a0 I guess that after 36 days, they’d have agreed to almost anything!<\/p>\n

By the way I forgot to mention that College Burn empties into the River Glen. Wooler sits just south of Glendale.\u00a0 That may have some bearing on all the “Glenda” associations in town.\u00a0 My camera is pre-adjusted to focus on her name and obliterate the last two letters!<\/p>\n

Ever perverse in the bet-hedging department, we then took a drive up the more accessible Ingram Valley before turning tail and heading home to a campsite which was rapidly emptying as the closing date approached.<\/p>\n

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A rather fine sunrise as seen from our caravan.<\/p>\n

And then we left Glenda’s home county for Yorkshire…\u00a0 Well, we had to move because Nunnykirk, our favourite campsite in Northumberland, was closing for good the following day.\u00a0 Doubly sad!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Corbridge is one of our favourite little towns to visit.\u00a0 It has excellent shops and bistros as well as easy parking and a riverside walk.\u00a0 A good combo.\u00a0 Always provided we both remember to carry our phones – preferably switched… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-north-country-tour-2024"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5550"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5587,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5550\/revisions\/5587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}