The massive church here, with its roof of stone, bears eloquent testimony to the need for fireproof buildings in a village so near to Scotland in the days of Border warfare.  Outside the churchyard wall is the well of St. Cuthbert, or “Cuddy’s Well,” which was greatly venerated in early days, and many stories are told of the miraculous power of its waters.  Inside the churchyard a grave is pointed out as the burial place of the robber whose tragic end was told by James Hogg in his gruesome story of “The Long Pack.”

The village itself is plain and bare, as might be expected from a settlement which would probably find that unattractiveness in either wealth or appearance was a tolerable safeguard.

Below Bellingham the North Tyne is joined by its longest and most noted tributary, the Rede Water, which also rises in the Cheviots.  Rising in the hills north of Carter Fell, it flows south-east, through a wild region, passing, while still high up amongst the hills, the little village of Byrness, and the new reservoir at Catcleugh, where a supply of pure water is stored for the use of the dwellers in distant Newcastle.  On its way to the Tyne, it passes many an old pele-tower, and the Roman stations of Bremenium (Rochester) and Habitancum, near Woodburn.  The ancient Roman road of Watling Street crosses the Rede at Woodburn, leading from Habitancum to Bremenium.

Many mountain streams, clear and sparkling, or peaty and brown, join the Rede Water on its way, amongst others the little Otter Burn, by whose banks took place that stirring episode in the constant quarrels between the Douglases and Percies known as “Chevy Chase,” from which the fierce battle-cries ring down the five centuries that have passed since that time, with sounds that echo still.

The pretty village of Redesmouth (or Reedsmouth) stands where the Rede Water enters the North Tyne, and a few miles further on the rapid little Houxty Burn pours its peaty waters into the main stream.

On the right bank of the Tyne stands Wark, conveniently placed at one of the most important fords of the Tyne in former days.  Like other towns and villages so placed on different streams throughout the country, the advantages of its situation have evidently been appreciated by the successive inhabitants of the land, for there are traces of its occupation by Celt, Roman, and Saxon; and, later, the town was the most considerable in Upper Tynedale.  During the time that this part of England was ceded to the Scottish Kings, David and Alexander, it was at Wark that the Scottish law courts for Tynedale held their sittings.  The mound called the Mote Hill, near the river, marks the spot where, in all probability, the ancient Celtic inhabitants met together to administer the rude justice of prehistoric times, and to make the laws of their little settlement, which grew to much greater proportions in later years.  In fact, it is supposed that the Kirkfield marks the site of a church which stood in the midst of the once extensive town.