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Last updated 10:14, Friday, 11 July 2008
LITERARY types didn’t seem to take to Elsdon, judging by some of the scathing passages they left behind describing this national park village which we – with 21st century eyes – would call “historic”, “quaint” and “atmospheric”.Hae ye ivver been at Elsdon ?The world's unfinished neukIt stands amang the hungry hills,An' wears a frozen leuk.The Elsdon folk like diein' stegsAt ivvery stranger stare;An' hather broth an' curlew eggs,Ye'll get for supper there.For a hungry hole like ElsdonAw nivver yit did see;An' if aw gan back tiv Elsdon,The De'il may carry me.
In 1866, poet George Chatt – soon-to-be editor of the Hexham Herald – published a book of verse with “encouragement and advice” from Joseph Catherall, editor of the two-year-old Hexham Courant.
Showing scant respect for his locality and any potential readers in North Tynedale, George ripped into little Elsdon with a withering dialect ditty:
There is more, but these lines give the general flavour.
Elsdon also inspired some acidic diary passages from the Rev. Charles Dodgson – great-grandfather of Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll – who was rector of Elsdon from 1762 to 1765.
He wrote: “Modern Elsdon is a very small village consisting of a tower which the inhabitants call a castle, an inn for refreshment of the Scotch travellers, five little farmhouses and a few wretched cottages, inhabited by poor people who receive the parish allowance and superannuated shepherds.”
Dodgson’s opinion of Elsdon did not improve over time. Later he recorded: “The vestibule of the castle is a low stable and above it is the kitchen, in which there are two little beds, joining each other. The curate and his wife lay in one and Margery the maid in the other.
“I lay in the parlour between two beds to keep me from being frozen to death. My head is entrenched in three nightcaps and my throat is fortified with a pair of stockings twisted in the form of a cravat.”
The Bulmers Directory of Northumberland, an 1886 version of the Lonely Planet Guide, made no attempt to attract tourists to Elsdon.
It says: “The whole parish is a wild dreary waste, its heather-covered sides without one single feature to relieve the monotony.”
And MacKenzie’s 1811 History of Northumberland sniffily dismisses Elsdon as “containing little but large neglected heaths and extensive morasses”.
Why were these writers not impressed by Elsdon’s Mote Hills, a stronghold of William the Conquerer’s relative Robert de Umfraville and the best preserved earthwork castle in Northumberland?
Were they unmoved by Elsdon’s church of St Cuthbert, around nearly as long as Umfraville’s Mote and full of fascinating features to anyone with half an eye?
Its thick walls briefly sheltered the body of sainted Cuthbert himself. Deep gouges in a pillar near the main door supposedly show where Elsdon’s men sharpened their swords before rushing out to defend the village from yet another cross-border raid.
The north wall of St Cuthberts’s nave was found to be concealing more than 100 interwoven skeletons when workmen dug into the floor around 1810. Could they be the remains of high-ranking victims of the Battle of Otterburn, fought three miles west of Elsdon in 1388?
And in 1877 an even spookier discovery was made in St Cuthbert’s while repairs were underway in the spire. The skulls of three horses were uncovered in a small cavity just above the bells.
Pagan practices within one of the cornerstones of Christianity . . . a superstitious protection against lightning . . . some sort of primitive acoustics booster? Anyone who might know the truth is dust himself, but the long skulls are still kept in the church where they were buried centuries ago.
If castles and churches left 18th and 19th century travel writers under-whelmed, it’s surprising that they failed to relish the creature comforts and sheer optimism of Elsdon’s egg-shaped village green.
To the north-west is the Old Rector’s School from 1835, with its carved pediment proclaiming: “God is Light and in Him is No Darkness at All”. Nearby the 200 year-old Pinfold – the gated enclosure where parish overseers once kept stray animals – still survives.
To the south of the green is the Bird in Bush Inn, serving ale for more than 300 years. Across the way is the former Crown Inn, still inscribed with the name of its 1729 resident John Gallon.
And then there is The Bacchus House. You can’t miss The Bacchus.
Its main arched doorway is topped by a carved figure of the god of wine sitting on a barrel, holding a typical 18th century, fat-bottomed brandy flask.
The statue was once more than decoration: it was a shop sign for yet another of Elsdon’s long list of inns.
Before about 1830 the house was known as The Scotch Arms. Around that time it became multi-purpose in a most modern way.
The inn was open for business, another part of the building was a shop, and the first floor was turned into a Presbyterian chapel.
Setting up a local meeting house in The Bacchus/Scotch Arms saved Elsdon’s dissenters from the 10-mile hike to the next nearest chapel at Birdhopecraig.
But perhaps those Presbyterians, who once prayed in what is now a bedroom suite, had another reason to be grateful for the new facilities at The Bacchus?
Legend has it that the route to Birdhopecraig was haunted by the ghost of Percy Reed, who would bow to passers-by making their way to chapel.
Percy was a 16th century laird of Troughend, Keeper of Redesdale and Lord of Middle March. His zero tolerance for crime had offended the local Hall and Crosier clans.
The Halls pretended to be pally and invited Laird Percy for a day’s hunting. While he fed his horse they sabotaged his weapons and left him to be ambushed. Croziers galloped in and stabbed Percy to death before he could pull his glued sword out of his scabbard.
No wonder Elsdon’s devout types preferred worshipping snugly in The Bacchus House to risking chilly encounters in the wilds with a blood-boltered phantom!
l The Bacchus House, on Elsdon village green, is for sale via Smiths Gore of Corbridge.
