Harbottle Castle would have a good deal to tell, could it only speak, of siege and assault from the day when, “with the aid of the whole county of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham,” it was built by Henry II., until, after the Union of the Crowns, it shared the fate of many of the Border strongholds, and fell into gradual decay, or was used as a quarry from which to draw building material for new and modern mansions.  At Rothbury, a pele-tower has formed the dwelling of the Vicars of that town from the time that any mention of Whitton Tower is to be found, it being first noticed as “Turris de Whitton, iuxta Rothebery.”  Rothbury itself occupies quite the finest situation of any of the Northumbrian towns.  Others, besides it, lie on the banks of a pretty river; others, too, possess fair meadows and rich pastures; but none other has the combination of these attractive features with the finer surroundings of hill, crag, and moorland as picturesquely beautiful as those of Rothbury.  In the old church here Bernard Gilpin, “the Apostle of the North,” often preached; and even the fierce rival factions of the Borderland were so influenced by the gentle, yet fearless preacher, that they consented to forego their usual pleasure of “drawing” whenever they met one of a rival family, at least so long as Gilpin dwelt among them, and especially to refrain from showing their hostility in church.

There are in Coquetdale, as elsewhere, memorials of the ancient British days in the many camps to be found on the summits of the hills near the town, on Tosson Hill and the Simonside Hills; and not camps only, but barrows, cist-vaens, and flint weapons in considerable numbers.  The magnificent view to be obtained, on a clear day, from Tosson Hill or the Simonsides is one to be remembered; to the west and north stretch the vales of Coquet and Alwin, with the rolling heights of the Cheviots bounding them; northward are the woods surrounding Biddlestone Hall, the “Osbaldistone Hall” of Scot’s Rob Roy, awakening memories of Di Vernon; far to the eastward a faint blue haze denotes the distant coastline; while southward, over the dales of Rede and Tyne, the smoke of industrial Tyneside lies on the horizon, with the spires and towers of Newcastle showing faintly against the heights of the Durham side of the Tyne.

One of the chief sights of Rothbury is the beautiful mansion of Cragside and the wonderful valley of Debdon and Crag Hill, as transformed by the first Lord Armstrong into a paradise of beauty, where art and nature are so blended as to make a romantically artistic whole.  Another lovely spot on the banks of Coquet is at Brinkburn, where the famous Priory stands almost hidden at the foot of thickly wooded slopes.  A very much larger portion of this fine Priory is still standing than is the case with many other religious houses of the same age, for it dates from the reign of Henry I. The story is told of Brinkburn as well as of Blanchland,