Returning down the Cor burn to the Tyne, our way lies eastward by the side of the river, which here, after splashing and sparkling over the shallows below Corbridge, narrows again to a deeper stream of swifter current, and flows between green meadows and leafy woods, fern-clad steeps and level haughs, all the way down to Ryton, where the picturesque aspect of the river ceases, and it becomes an industrial waterway.  On this reach of the river are several places of considerable interest.

Riding Mill, a pretty village in a well-wooded hollow, enclosed by steep hills which rise ever higher and higher to the moors by Minsteracres and Blanchland, stands where Watling Street, or Dere Street, leading down the long slope of the country from Whittonstall, on reaching the Tyne turned westward to Corstopitum.  Further down the stream is Stocksfield, where the aged King Edward I. halted on his last journey into Scotland, on that expedition which was to have executed a summary vengeance upon the Scots; he journeyed forward by slow stages, but was taken ill at Newbrough, where he stayed for some time, before continuing his journey by Blenkinsopp, Thirlwall, and Lanercost to Carlisle.

On the opposite side of the stream from Stocksfield is the lovely village of Bywell, a “haunt of ancient peace,” “sleeping soft on the banks of the murmuring Tyne.”  This little peaceful spot was at one time a very busy centre of life and industry on a small scale; in the Middle Ages the inhabitants drove a thriving trade in all the necessities for a people who spent a great part of their lives upon horseback, especially in the making of the ironwork required—­“bits, stirrups, buckles, and the like, wherein they are very expert and cunning.”  The Nevilles, lords of Raby and earls of Westmoreland, held Bywell at this time; before that it was in the hands of the Balliols, of Scottish fame, who, like the Bruces, were Norman knights high in favour with their kings, Norman and Plantagenet, though they afterwards became their most determined foes.

Long before the advent of the Normans, a church was built here by St. Wilfrid, and in it—­St. Andrew’s or the “White” Church—­Egbert, twelfth bishop of Lindisfarne, was consecrated by Archbishop Eanbald in the year 803.  More than a thousand years afterwards, in 1896, an Ordination service was again held at Bywell, in St. Peter’s church, when five deacons were ordained by Bishop Jacob.  And in times yet more remote than Wilfrid’s age, Roman legionaries crossed the Tyne at this point over a bridge of their own construction, of which the piers might be seen until our own day.  Bywell, too, had its “find” of Roman silver; in 1760 a silver cup was found in the Tyne, bearing the inscription “Desidere vivas” around the neck of the vessel.

When the Nevilles were lords of the manor of Bywell, they began to build a castle here, which, however, was left unfinished; the ancient tower still standing, with its picturesque draping of ivy, was the gate-house of the intended fortress.  On the rebellion of the northern earls in 1569, Westmoreland’s forfeited lands passed to the crown, so that Bywell was held by Queen Elizabeth for a year or two, until she sold the estate to a branch of the Fenwick family.