Alternative: Wooler to Bamburgh via Chillingham
APPENDIX 1 Route summary table
APPENDIX 4 The Archbishop’s Curse
The solitary farmhouse at Uswayford provides lodgings and meals in the very heart of the Cheviot Hills
PREFACE
Large herds of dairy and beef cattle are reared in the broad and sprawling Northumberland countryside
I never met the late James Roberts, author of Cicerone’s original guide to the Reivers Way, but if I had I’m sure I would have recognised a kindred spirit. Roberts’ enthusiasm for Northumberland spanned many years, and his guidebook to the Reivers Way was penned while walking the route on his honeymoon in September 1992. Ten years earlier he had acquired a simple, stapled booklet covering the route, written by Harold Osmond Wade, itself dating from 1977. This small guide was pieced together from articles written by Wade for the Newcastle Chronicle, in which he serialised a trip he made piecemeal around the Reivers Way during the summer of 1975.
Wade was an authority on the Northumberland countryside, but he wouldn’t have written about the Reivers Way without being inspired by Ken Coulson. As for Coulson, he entered a competition called ‘To the Hills’, run by Radio Newcastle, winning it with his idea for the route we now know as the Reivers Way. The Reivers Way is therefore essentially a creation of the 1970s.
While writing my own guidebook to the route for Cicerone, reflecting the designation of large areas of ‘access land’ in 2000 among other changes over the past 10 years, I have enjoyed revisiting many of my own favourite parts of Northumberland, walking the Reivers Way in summer and winter. I hope walkers will, as I do, remember as they follow the route Coulson, Wade and Roberts, who first encouraged others to explore and appreciate the wild countryside and fascinating heritage of Northumberland.
Paddy Dillon
Food, drink, accommodation and other facilities are available in towns and villages along the Reivers Way
INTRODUCTION
The Reivers Way is an ‘unofficial’ long-distance trail, wandering some 240km (150 miles) round the sparsely populated border county of Northumberland. While the popular Pennine Way and Hadrian’s Wall national trails run across Northumberland, the Reivers Way almost encircles the county, offering a wonderful opportunity to explore its wildest and most scenic parts. The route can be walked in nine days, and is suitable for an average walker, provided that they are reasonably competent with a map and compass. The route is not specifically waymarked beyond the usual public footpath and bridleway signposts, but the local authority has declared its intention to ensure that the paths are maintained in good order.
The trail starts at Corbridge and crosses Hexamshire Common in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. After following part of Hadrian’s Wall, a series of fine little towns and villages are visited, including Wark, Elsdon and Rothbury, as the route heads in and out of the Northumberland National Park. The broad and bleak Cheviot Hills are crossed on the way to Wooler. After catching a glimpse of Lindisfarne, the route traces the scenic Northumberland Heritage Coast from Bamburgh to Seahouses, then onwards to Craster and Boulmer to finish at Alnmouth. With an extra day to hand, walkers can include a boat trip to the bird reserves on the Farne Islands.
The Reivers Way is not based on any particular route used by reivers and ‘moss troopers’, but is simply a celebration of their memory, and a fine way to explore the land where they lived, and often died, in violent circumstances. When stripped of romance and glamour, reivers were little more than robbers and cattle rustlers living in a largely lawless society, but most of them had no option but to rob and raid in order to feed themselves and their families.
BRIEF HISTORY OF A BORDERLAND
Northumberland was forever destined to be ‘border country’ because of its position at the narrowest point of Great Britain. Evidence of human activity dates back 6000 years, and the region is well endowed with ancient settlement sites and ritual monuments. The Bronze Age and Iron Age were characterised by a noticeable level of strife, with many settlements built on defensive sites. A Celtic tribe, the Votadini, pushed southwards from Scotland, and was no doubt culturally distinct from other tribes already occupying the region.
The Romans reinforced any existing cultural divide when they constructed Hadrian’s Wall in 122AD
Roman legions marched northwards through Britain between 55BC and 77AD, confidently claiming a complete conquest. However, while southern Britain was gradually Romanised, northern Britain rebelled. Any existing cultural border was well and truly reinforced with the building of Hadrian’s Wall from coast to coast in 122AD. There was another push northwards, resulting in the construction of the Antonine Wall in 142AD, but the legions had to pull back to Hadrian’s Wall in 160AD. It seems the Romans paid the Celtic Votadini to keep the Picts at bay to the north.
Under pressure from many sides, the Romans withdrew from Britain in 410AD. While Hadrian’s Wall is now in ruins, there is still a tangible feeling of being in ‘border country’ while following it. The Celts and Picts suffered as much from internecine strife as they did from fighting each other, and they were both overrun by Angles and Saxons.
Ida ‘the Flamebearer’ was an Angle who established a base at Bamburgh in 547AD. From this longfortified rocky eminence he began to carve the foundations of a kingdom that became known as Northumbria, spreading far beyond current-day Northumberland. Successive Anglo-Saxon Northumbrian kings established a reasonable level of peace, while King Oswald encouraged Celtic Christian communities to flourish, spreading onto the mainland from Lindisfarne. Notable among the early churchmen were Aidan and Cuthbert. Danish invaders made incursions into the region, starting with an attack on Lindisfarne in 793AD. Later, the Scots also raided the region.
After the Norman Conquest another period of relative peace endured from the 11th to 13th centuries, with the Earls of Northumberland administering the region. Large-scale construction projects included castles and monasteries, especially along the coast and on the fertile lowlands. The death of Alexander III of Scotland in 1285, and the rise of Edward II of England, sowed the seeds of centuries of border strife. The local population found themselves under attack from all sides, with few they could truly call friends.
There was no convenient ‘border’ between England and Scotland drawn on the map, just a region of wild country that neither side could claim as their own,