{"id":6510,"date":"2025-09-20T15:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=6510"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:49:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:49:29","slug":"3-corbridge-hexham-and-pants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=6510","title":{"rendered":"3. CORBRIDGE, HEXHAM AND PANTS!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s always great to see the Angel of the North.\u00a0 It means we are almost in Northumberland!\u00a0 Nothing against County Durham – it’s just that Geordie-land is what we’ve really come north for!\u00a0 This time the Angel was wearing a flag!\u00a0 We almost didn’t get a picture…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It’s about as blurry an image as the nerve of some flag attachers is impressive!\u00a0 On a somber note, I’m predicting that there’s soon going to be some extremely nasty rioting in the UK on the issue of immigration.\u00a0 But enough of that.\u00a0 I know you want to know if we got to our next site with an undamaged caravan!\u00a0 (Always supposing you read the last episode!)<\/p>\n

Well, not exactly!\u00a0 When we arrived and opened the door we were met with an ” interesting” view…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The sliding drawer had come off it’s top slider and forced the door open.\u00a0 Tamar caravans asked us to bring it straight in to be fixed.\u00a0 We pointed out we were 500 miles away.\u00a0 They sent us a video of how the runners can be remounted (possibly) – a very fiddley procedure. I’ll take it to a local Swift agent.\u00a0 There was one just north of Newcastle – except, when I got there, I discovered it had ceased to deal with Swift two years ago.\u00a0 The next nearest is at Catterick – just a few miles from our last campsite!\u00a0 It’ll have to wait.\u00a0 With the assistance of two other campers (Ray and Barry), we decided the best plan was to prop the bottom of the slide-out with chocks of wood to take the strain off the bottom runner.\u00a0 Just use the front half of the two trays…\u00a0 shut the door… and pray!\u00a0 The whole episode is pants – and there’s lots of those about.\u00a0 But we’ll get to them in due course.<\/p>\n

Anyway, awning up straight away.\u00a0 We’ll worry later about the serious threat of gales and torrential rain forcast to arrive at the end of the week as Storm Amy kicks in.\u00a0 By day the site looks perfectly ordinary.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But as night falls, fairies (and maybe the occasional siren) come out to play.\u00a0 Very hard to get pictures of fairys!\u00a0 But their illuminated trails can be seen all round us!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Well, if we can’t beat them, we will join them.\u00a0 Here’s our display.\u00a0 Two single, non-flashing, non-coloured lamps marking the end of our guy ropes\u00b0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Apparently,\u00a0 it’s become a bit of a competition among the campers with seasonal pitches.\u00a0 As soon as someone puts up a string of lights, their neighbours respond in kind.\u00a0 Then the ratchet principle cuts in and one string becomes three.\u00a0 Moving, flashing multicoloured lights become the norm.\u00a0 We have to say that, like the farmer’s wife, we are not at all sure that it suits the country setting.\u00a0 Still, we are only here for a week!<\/p>\n

A visit to Corbridge was called for.\u00a0 l meet a lady who is tying ribbons on the plants outside her shop.\u00a0 It transpires that.it is the first anniversary of her shop’s opening!\u00a0 Newbies!\u00a0 It just happens to be our 55th wedding anniversary today!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Belinda and I had quite a chat on the street.\u00a0 \u00a0Half an hour later when Glenda visited the shop, she was treated to several glasses of fizz and some canap\u00e9s!\u00a0 She got into conversation with Belinda and was surprised when she knew all about our trip and anniversary!<\/p>\n

Last year I did some digging into the Roman remains\u00a0 (see the relevant posts from 2024).\u00a0 This year I was focused on more recent history -13 to 19 century stuff.\u00a0 The Vicar’s Pele…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A pele tower (pronounced “peel tower”) is a fortified, medieval structure, typically a rectangular stone tower.\u00a0 They were built along the English-Scottish border between the 13th and 17th centuries to serve as a refuge and home for the local lairds and families during times of attack and raid from the Border Reivers.\u00a0 The term “pele” comes from an Old French word for “stake,” referencing the original defensive palisades that surrounded these buildings and gave them their name.<\/p>\n

The Corbridge pele tower had one room to each storey, built in the churchyard of St. Andrews in 1318.\u00a0 It served as the vicarage for the church until the early 17th century.\u00a0 It is built largely from sandstone taken from the Roman fortress at Coria nearby.\u00a0 In the summer of 2016 the tower was re-opened as a wedding and events venue after a three-year redevelopment project.<\/p>\n

Another feature was the “King’s Oven”.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In 1310, this bread oven was built and introduced to the people of Corbridge by King John.\u00a0 Made from bricks and faced with stone, the oven would be fired with wood.\u00a0 The bricks enabled the ovens to reach and maintain fierce heat, enabling meat to be cooked in the oven after the initial baking of bread.\u00a0 The ashes would be raked across the base of the oven and the meat left to tenderise.<\/p>\n

One oven master would oversee the whole process, but peasants would come from around the vicinity carrying home-kneaded dough on wooden boards.\u00a0 Having proved at home by the warmth of the fire, they’d rush through the lanes of Corbridge before the cool of the air compromised the cooking in the King’s Oven.<\/p>\n

Each loaf would be crissed and crossed and marked in a way making it specific to the owner, so upon return, you received your own loaf and not that of a neighbour.<\/p>\n

In those days homes were built largely of timber and clay, and roofed with reeds, so the fire risk was great.\u00a0 The communal nature of the King’s Oven would have been a welcome addition to community life as people would have been oven-less and would have gathered around the centrally placed location in the village, socialising, catching up on news and waiting for their loaves.<\/p>\n

It was used for more than 500 years until the 19th century when people may have popped in their roast before church on a Sunday.<\/p>\n

With the arrival of smaller, safer ovens for people’s homes, and the advent of ready-baked bread, the communal oven has fallen into disuse over the last two hundred years.<\/p>\n

Now then.\u00a0 What’s a PANT.\u00a0 We’ve already had the issue with the sliding drawer.\u00a0 That was definitely PANTS (as in “rubbish”) but that’s sort of plural.\u00a0 Ditto my underPANTS – they come in pairs – as do trouser PANTS (short for PANTaloons).\u00a0 There is the verb to PANT, of course, but in my experience climbing hills I don’t normally have one PANT.\u00a0 I find they come in some seriously repetitive sequences!\u00a0 AI definitions also include the following bizarre entry:<\/p>\n

To “pants someone” is an act of yanking down a person’s trousers and sometimes their underwear, typically as a prank, with the intention of causing embarrassment.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In St Andrews church, while exploring an historical review of life in Corbridge since records began, I found an old sepia photograph captioned : “Market place with cross and PANT!”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So they’ve been around for over a hundred years.\u00a0 But what exactly is a PANT?\u00a0 Its not clear from the postcard.\u00a0 OK, the obvious first step (with limited expectation bearing in mind she’s looking after literally hundreds of photographs) is to ask the on-site curator-cum-supervisor of the exhibition.\u00a0 Without a flicker of hesitation, she answered – “it’s a drinking trough for animals”.\u00a0 And so it is!\u00a0 She directed me to the earliest known surviving PANT in town.\u00a0 In Princes Street.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So now we all know!<\/p>\n

There is a humourous footnote to this account.\u00a0 A week later I was walking in Morpeth when I noticed a young girl walking next to her mother wearing tiny blue pants worn over tight black leggings.\u00a0 \u00a0I was just thinking that I wouldn’t let any daughter of mine wear that outfit in public when she turned round.\u00a0 It wasn’t the mother’s daughter, it was HER extensively wrinkled mother!\u00a0 Crazy place, Morpeth!<\/p>\n

The only other notable event relating to Corbridge involved coffee and cakes at Tea & Tipple.\u00a0 I managed to walk out without paying.\u00a0 But I was chased across the market square (with cross, but no pant) by the waitress waving our bill – so that all ended happily with no arrest .<\/p>\n

And now it’s time to relocate northwards to Thrunton Lowfield.\u00a0\u00a0We’ve bought a really tasteful, illuminated windmill to install at our next campsite!\u00a0 We plan to start a competition!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s always great to see the Angel of the North.\u00a0 It means we are almost in Northumberland!\u00a0 Nothing against County Durham – it’s just that Geordie-land is what we’ve really come north for!\u00a0 This time the Angel was wearing a… <\/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":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yorkshire-and-northumberland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6510","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=6510"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6536,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6510\/revisions\/6536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}