Border Reivers at Tosson Tower

Widely regarded as one of the most haunted places in Europe, Chillingham Castle’s chief torturer was a cruel and sadistic man called John Sage. He met a grisly end when he made the mistake of accidently killing his girlfriend Elizabeth Charlton when a sex game on the wrack went wrong. Elizabeth’s family demanded Sage’s life or they would mob up with the Scottish Middle March families to annihilate Chillingham. English King Edward ‘Longshanks’ gave the Charltons what they wanted and had Sage strung up, with the crowd at his hanging cutting pieces off his body as souvenirs when he was still dancing on the end of the rope. The castle hosts ghost tours today with a number of famous spectral apparitions said to haunt the atmospheric 12 th Century building which was once owned by the prominent Grey family. In 1516 Chillingham was descended upon and fired and robbed by 200 Scottish riders led by John and Hob Burn, Thom Minto, Dand Moffat, Thom and James Young and Jock and Henr...

The High Shaw bastle near Elson. There are cut marks made in the stone of Elsdon’s St. Cuthbert’s Church that are said to come from the blades of the Redesdale riders as they prepared to set out on their raids, the place of worship reckoned to be the muster point for the men from the desolate and barren valley. The Vicarage is built into an old pele tower. Redesdale is a wild and lonely place with a good part of the dale containing the Military Ranges of Otterburn camp, so watch out for the red flag flying on the roads into the upper reaches as it denotes that live firing is taking place and DO NOT PASS THEM. A large number of skeletons were found buried piled up against the church during renovations in 1877 and were believed to be the remains of men who fell at the battle of Otterburn. On the hill above Elsdon is Winter’s Gibbet, a gruesome reminder of the hanging of William Winter in 1792 for the murder of Margaret Crozier.

The Redesdale riding family the Potts owned Woodhouses Bastle which has been restored by English Heritage and lies in fields near Holystone Grange, seven miles west of Rothbury. Woodhouses boasts an impressive winding staircase to the upper floor and an arched vault in the basement with its strong stone walls up to five feet thick. The initials of William and Bartholomew Pott and the date of 1602 are carved above the original entrance to the basement on the east gable. In 1587 Nicholas Pott of nearby ‘Woodsyde’ put in a complaint against the Bold Buccleuch and his crew who’d stolen a grey horse, money, goods, burned houses and killed a man, while Lewis Pott of Trewhitt was raided by George and Henry Davison, William Mow and Thomas Young the same year. Woodside is a couple of miles deeper into Redesdale and contains four isolated ruined bastles – The Raw, High Shaw, Iron House and Craig – but they are now within the bounds of the MOD ranges. The Potts were embr...