We were reminiscing lately, about a time before the world went topsy turvey –

A warm day in August saw us venturing 6 miles west of Morpeth to explore the picturesque old village of Hartburn. It is a peaceful village hat has not been changed by any modern housing developments. We have often passed through Hartburn while roaming the typical rural winding roads of the county, but today was the day when we stopped off and took time to look around. We parked up in the car park that belongs to Saint Andrew’s Church. As I went to put our contribution into the honesty box at the opening of the carpark, I was delighted to see a bonny thrush on the grass verge close by.

We made our way across the road and then through a little gate that led us into the lush green grounds of the impressive 11th century, Grade 1 listed building of Saint Andrew’s Church. Walking around the perimeter of the church we stared upwards, noticing how the gentle light played on the beautiful stained-glass that relayed various religious teachings in some of the windows that decorated the building. Many of the well-preserved headstones surrounding the church were highly decorated with reminders to the living of the fragility of mortality. Stone carved cherubs, skull and cross bones, hourglasses etc., were enhanced with small colonies of lichen and mosses.

After a while we returned to the road and continued with our walk which led us to the site of the Hartburn War Memorial. A typical war cross design, proudly standing on its chunky base on a grass triangle of grass in the heart of the village. The main inscription read “PASS FRIEND ALL IS WELL, 1914 HARTBURN 1919” and “1939 HARTBURN 1945”, was also engraved into the stone.

The sleepy old village around us has few buildings. The charming houses and cottages with their well-loved gardens, seem to huddle together on top of the woodland banks of the Hart burn. We passed a tall building of a house that was part Gothic style, noticing the steep stone steps outside led up to an entrance door situated on the middle floor. The other side of the building looked like part of a tower. Its sandy coloured walls were crowned with deteriorating crenellations.

Walking carefully now along the very narrow footpath by the side of the main road, towards the farthest end of the village, we could hear the tumbling water of the burn down below us, winding its way through a typical British woodland. Eventually we spotted an opening in the hedge. We passed through and we were greeted by an elaborate affair of a stone footbridge that seemed to be there just for effect! The track that we chose to follow along the burn side, was steep and well-worn.

Once we were on a more substantial trail, we were aware of how peaceful it was within the protection of the trees. The sunlight was filtered as it reached the ground. We could hear the rustling of a blackbird as it scratched around the undergrowth, searching for insects or if it was lucky, a worm or two. The smaller birds continued with their business of flitting to and fro, calling out to one another. The effect was instantly soothing and encouraged us to slow down in order to take in more of our surroundings. We ventured on, not really speaking to each other, caught up in the sense of the place. The burn banks twisted and turned. The cool water only stopping to pool in the deeper intervals along its journey. A male pheasant called out in the distance across the nearby fields.

We came to a stop. What was this? We stood silent together staring up at a strange occurrence in the steep cliff. We turned and looked at each other, then returned in silence once again to stare in amazement at what? We did not know what to call what we saw. What we were looking at certainly was not what we expected to find in this setting. A cave, a tomb, an opening, a recess? Whatever it was we were stunned to come across it, carved into the rocky crag towering us. What a find!

Mother nature had taken on the task of decorating the opening into this place with a mixture grasses and ferns. One minute ago, we were walking along in lush woodland and the next were transported to a jungle setting complete with some long-lost shrine.

High above us fingers of ivy climbed, trying to lay claim to two empty spaces or shelves.

The dark opening, a portal of a doorway space was inviting us in. We were wary though. As we ventured closer, we became a bit braver. Peeping through into the gloom beyond the entrance we could just make out a Gothic style stone archway. It was at this point we decided that we just had to enter the sleepy chamber.

We switched our mobile phones onto ‘torch’ mode (not because we were scared you understand!) to light our way into who knows what? Wow! Old leaves had found their way in before us and resembled a sepia-coloured welcome mat, the still air smelled musty and the place was created into room like spaces. A high ceiling gave a spiritual feeling, as though we were about to enter a chapel or a temple. To our right was a large lintel topped fireplace, yes, a fireplace built into the wall of dressed stone. We looked at it in disbelief but the fireplace just stared blankly back as though it had the right to be there and not us.

Above the cavity of the Gothic style arched doorway were two vertical openings that resembled arrow slits. The deteriorating walls were part green with age.

Loose stone was scattered among debris in dark musty corners. Some not so kindly visitors had left litter, empty packets, a broken plastic chair and empty tea lights strewn around. These man-made items looked strangely out of place, alien like.

Outside in daylight again we wondered when, why and who had constructed such a rare enchanting place? With the rock face behind us now, we had missed seeing a short low tunnel with a flagged roof going under the path, from the secret bower leading down to the river’s edge. What went on here?

The day was marching on and we were impatient to return home, put the kettle on and settle down to do some research on our finds.

I gathered this information from Wikipedia:

Hartburn Grotto, as it is known, is a Grade II listed building. It is a cave, constructed and modified by Dr. John Sharpe who was vicar of Hartburn in the 18th century, as a resting place and changing area for ladies who wished to bathe in the river. The tunnel running under the path, would have been larger at that time and was used as a throughfare allowing bathers to discreetly access the river’s edge where they would emerge on the banks of river.

Dr. John Sharpe also built the crenellated Tower House that overlooks Hartburn Glebe. It was built in 1745, as a village school and also used to stable the parish hearse. The north face of the house is built in an 18th-century Gothic style whilst the south face, with its stairs up the outside, resembles a large Northumbrian bastle house.

The Hartburn War Memorial was designed by famous architect Sir Edward Lutyens to his War Cross design. Commissioned by Mr and Mrs Straker of Angerton Hall, Northumberland, whose gardens Lutyens renovated in 1904. It is a Grade II listed building.

Hartburn Glebe is a small area of woodland under the care of The Woodland Trust. The woodland is an important part of the landscape and community of Hartburn. It is well maintained. The ancient site has been replanted with numerous specimens including oak, beech, lime, cherry, lime, sycamore and blocks of Scots pine and Douglas fir.

Northumberland Archives, EP 151/45 Church Warden’s accounts and vestry book includes rules for use of parish hearse (1799).

Wikipedia

On a pretty bench, in a peaceful park overlooking the Castle Gatehouse in Morpeth, a statue of Emily Wilding Davison sits in contemplation of the busy little town. Morpeth’s famous daughter, her name synonymous with the right to vote and the fight for equality, Emily’s ultimate sacrifice is a powerful symbol of the fight for women’s emancipation. But I often think they should have made that bench a little bit bigger – just enough to accommodate another statue – a neat little woman, dressed in a trim 1930’s suit with a look of determination in her eye. That look of determination belongs to Dorothy Robson, another formidable daughter of Morpeth. She and Emily would have had much to discuss on that park bench, both passionate for justice, both active in their desires for social change. But when it comes to famous Northumbrian ladies, Dorothy is much overlooked against Emily’s daring deeds for suffrage, or the heroic imagery of Grace Darling rowing out in the storm. Even Cissie Charlton, with that twinkle in her eye and a football at her feet, gets more of a shout-out than Dorothy. But Dorothy was a pioneering force in clearing slums and reforming public health. Her extensive memoirs, held in the Archives, record her selfless efforts to help those in poverty and need. This month Northumberland Archives have been remembering the important women in our local history, so I thought it would be nice to take an admiring look into the life of this adopted Northumbrian lady, who did so much to improve the lives of working class people in and around Morpeth in the middle decades of the last century.

In our time we see a very sanitised version of Morpeth. A beautiful little town, bursting with character and a feeling of quiet affluence. Yet not 100 years ago, just off the main streets, Morpeth was a series of crowded old alleyways where families lived in poverty and squalor. Where we now shop in the elegant Sanderson’s Arcade for tasty treats at Marks and Spencer’s, the latest fragrance from the Body Shop or yet another pair of shoes from Clarks, in her day appalling slums seethed with deprivation and want. Well into the 30’s, Morpeth still had a workhouse of Dickensian awfulness. Dorothy saw it….and Dorothy was not having it!

She was an unlikely candidate to lead the fight into improving lives for south-east Northumberland’s working poor. Born into a middle-class family in 1900 and spending her sheltered formative years in a comfortable and conservative Sheffield home, Dorothy had not been prepared for the conditions and hardships of everyday life in a Northumbrian colliery town. When she followed Jim Robson, a young miner who had caught her eye, back to his Ashington home to begin their married life at the age of 19, she walked slap-bang into the turmoil and adversity of the National Strike in 1921 and the General Strike of 1926. The suffering endured by mining families in these years ignited a desire to fight for better in Dorothy. She joined the Labour Party, with which she had a long, complex and often difficult relationship. No one should underestimate the determination of this young woman to stand up to the expectations of the day – miner’s wife, poor, ‘know thy place’ – and take on the local political class who she felt did not represent those who had the greatest need – the poor, the sick, the powerless.

In time Dorothy’s family moved from the mining village of Pegswood to Morpeth and Dorothy found the plight of the town’s poor even more shocking then that of the collieries. This article does not intend to comment on the politics of the day too deeply, but Dorothy’s memoirs are clear – she felt the authority was indifferent and neglectful of the poor of Morpeth who lived in terrible slum conditions, lacking the most basic of amenities such as clean water and hygienic privies, sharing their squalid living space with rats and pigeon muck.

Dorothy’s political career saw her championing a range of social issues, lobbying and petitioning to clear the Morpeth slums, to build new social housing, to improve sanitation and provide basic health services such as a public ambulance, antenatal services and child health care. Dorothy stood for election seven times, finally succeeding in 1939 as the first female and the first Labour Councillor for Morpeth Borough Council.

Her memoirs are pitted with adversity, disappointment and the hostility of those that sought to obstruct her fight for social reform, but the one thing that shines through from her recollections is her unshakable need to serve, and her tireless desire to see justice and equality in a community for which she cared deeply. In the end misogynism, class prejudice and good old political machinations forced Dorothy out of the Morpeth Labour Party she had helped to create. She lost her place on the council in 1947 but remained active in local politics for the majority of her life, serving on a number of local committees and baring witness to the redevelopment of the Morpeth’s slums that she had fought so bitterly to bring about. Dorothy died in 1984 and her memoirs, written between 1965 and 1977 are held in the County Archives as a testament to a time and place where the alleys and yards of Morpeth where not just the reside of pleasant retail outlets and cosy cafes.

Archive reference – NRO 10818 – DOROTHY ROBSON OF MORPETH, NORTHUMBERLAND: MEMOIRS. 1965-1977.