General

In August 1873, a Northumberland shepherd made his way from the Cheviots to the Cleveland Hills in North Yorkshire, with a beautiful drove of white lambs. Accompanied by his faithful collie, they crossed the Tyne at Shields by steam ferry. On arrival, the lambs sniffed the unfamiliar air of a manufacturing town. Suddenly, surrounded by a cloud of dense black smoke, their frolicking came to a sudden halt. This was a new world, this was not home! The lambs made their escape! The streets were suddenly filled with bleating fluffy clouds on legs dashing in all directions. The collie pursued the lambs the best it could, bounding and running, turning and driving. It finally got them all into one flock and brought them to the presence of his master. At the first count it appeared one of the flock was missing and the shepherd raised a cry in the collie’s ear. Away he ran to find the missing lamb but in his absence, the drove was actually found to be complete. 

By the time the autumn sun had set the shepherd still had four miles to go before resting his weary charge. The dog was nowhere in sight. He has searched the town for the supposed missing lamb and had returned late at night to the ferry in search of his master. Men came and went and the dog checked each in turn but the shepherd did not appear. Weak and hungry, he finally settled down for the night.

The collie lingered around the same spot for days, weeks then months refusing comfort, growling at consolation and setting his teeth at the kindest efforts to win him from his despair. He seemed to have a notion that any interest in his welfare, whether it be generous sympathy or substantial food, was almost like a bribe to induce him to forget his former life and enter the service of a new friend. For a full six months his independent spirit scorned all patronage. Offerings of food were laid his way but often he prefered to seek out scraps on the shore and provide for himself. 

The lonely canine became known as Wandering Willie. Night and day he began to travel on the ferry searching for his master. One night the poor beast was thrown overboard when the tide was high. He strove against death and by some miracle he survived the waves!! He was seen a week later, resuming his search. The Shepherd returned the following autumn having heard of the dog’s long lonely wanderings but sadly missed him and could not recover him on that journey. 

Willie was frequently taken home by friendly butchers and farmers as he had awakened the widest sympathy by his devotion. However, in a week or two, he would break away from their care to renew his solitary life. When the close of 1874 drew near, there was a general doubt that he would survive the winter. His frame was slight and he had been reduced to a ‘ruckle of bones’. Luckily the dog began to respond to the kindness shown by people and gradually his glossy black coat returned and the ring around his neck was restored to white. He was even seen to finally wag his tail! Food was accepted more readily with expressions of gratitude. He did not however lighten his labours and pursued them with added energy and zeal. His daily and nightly wanderings in search of his old friend went forward as earnestly as ever. 

Willie became known far and wide and people both rich and poor would try to feed him. He became gloriously fat and very possessive; he began to growl at every dog that crossed on the ferry. On reaching land he claimed the right of being ‘first man out’ and would bark furiously as a proclamation that he had brought all the passengers safely over the water. This he did for several years. Local street children would join Willie, but, sadly, this resulted in such commotion that the poor dog and his ragamuffin comrades were banished from the locality of the landing place. 

After his banishment, Willie was often still seen on the streets of Shields with Ralph the local Ferryman. Blindness and infirmities quickly gathered upon him and at last in 1880, old age ended his wanderings. To commemorate the animal’s fidelity, Ralph had Willie stuffed and mounted and placed behind glass in the Turk’s Head pub in Tynemouth.

Underneath the dramatic ruins of Tynemouth castle and priory lie a series of largely undocumented caves, tombs, vaults and passages. Now collapsed or otherwise inaccessible, we are left with anecdotal evidence thanks to the enquiries of the antiquarians of the nineteenth-century. The community of Tynemouth and its surrounding area passed down stories about the final cave to remain open to exploration.

The cave, known as “Jingling Man’s Hole” and “Jingling Geordie’s Hole” (among other variations), overlooks the bay to the north of the Tynemouth headland. The cave was explored on at least two occasions, around 1778 and 1847. Both accounts describe an arched entrance and a small room containing a well about 12’ (3.6m) deep which leads to two square rooms. A further stone doorway is mentioned but both sets of adventurers were unable to proceed due to masonry blocking the path. Writers have speculated that the rooms may have been dungeons and were partially excavated by artillery men hoping to create a safe passage between the sea and the garrison. 

Some theories regarding Jingling Geordie’s identity include:

• A fettered (chained around the ankles) pirate and smuggler of the seventeenth-century who lured ships onto the rocks and used the cave to store his treasure. 
• A destitute outsider to the community who took up residence in the cave. His unconventional appearance and solitary night time activity may have led to him becoming a source of terror and fascination for local children. Also fettered.
• A minstrel or jester connected to the castle.
• A member of a group of gamblers using the cave, throwing down his money.

Apart from the eponymous jingling man the cave and its cells have been occupied in popular imagination by witches and wizards. Little information on the nature on the “Wytche of Tinemouth” survives, just an unattributed passage:

“In a gloomy pit o’ergrown with briers,
Close by the ruins of the mouldering abbey,
‘Midst graves and grots that crumble near the charnel-house,
Fenced with the slime of caterpillars’ kells,
And knotted cobwebs rounded in with spells 

Stealing forth to find relief in fogs
And rotten mists that hang upon the fens
And marshes of Northumbria’s drowned lands,
To make ewes cast their lambs, swine eat their farrow,
Sour the milk, so maids can churn it not,
Writhe children’s wrists and suck their breath in sleep,
Get vials of their blood, and where the sea
Casts up its slimy ooze search for a weed
To open locks with, and to rivet charms
Planted about her in the wicked feats
Of all her mischiefs, which are manifold.”

The legend of a wizard in the cave was collected by North Shields resident, Robert Owen, whose work passed to William Hone (1780-1842), notable writer, satirist and press freedom pioneer, for publication in his 1827 Table Book: 

The wizard controls powerful spirits who protect the vast treasures within the cave from adventurers, none of whom had ever returned. Walter, the son of a knight named Sir Robert enters the cave and fights the spirits, a dragon and hell hounds. With great courage and effort of will Walter avoids being lured into a chasm and reaches the wizard’s treasury just as the complex seems to be collapsing around him. Walter sees a golden bugle horn suspended by a golden chain and blows the instrument three times, despite it appearing to turn into a snake in his grasp. This awakens a cockerel whose crow opens a portal to a grand hall containing the rumoured vast treasure which enables Walter to become a wealthy landowner as reward for his courage.

The final great story connected to Jingling Geordie’s Hole takes place in 1819 and survives thanks to a handbill:

The Public are respectfully informed that the
SIBUR ABDAHALLA
WILL
ON Easter Tuesday, April 13th, 1819,
Display from His
MAGICAL CHAIR
the
WHOLE ENCHANTED SECRET
of
JINGLING MAN’S HOLE
He will before Sunset astonish every Beholder by producing, by
three waves of his Magic Wand, the long-heard-of chest at the
Mouth of the Cave. By a second three waves of the Wand, he will
produce the Lady that has been confined since the Reign of
Severus, the Roman Emperor. By a third Movement he will
command them from whence they came.

Peace Officers will attend to preserve Tranquillity.

Pollock, Printer, 15, Union Street, North Shields.

Sadly, Sibur Abdahalla failed to appear at the appointed time and the ancient spirit was saved the indignity of being summoned and immediately dispelled. 

“Weariness of the world, and a longing desire to merit transference to a better, through a persistent course of austerity and sacrifice, have disposed many pious individuals, in all ages and countries, and of every rank in life, to retire from the neighbourhood of their fellow-men, and take up their solitary abode in desert places” **

Whilst self-isolation may be a new phenomena to many, people have chosen to take themselves off to remote corners of Northumberland and live as hermits or recluses for centuries. Some of these stories have been captured in ‘The Monthly Chronicle of North-Country Lore and Legends’.

Cuthbert, monk and later saint, was a seventh-century hermit, who built himself a walled ‘cell’ on the Farne Islands so that all he could see was heaven. 

The Hermitage in the parish of St John Lee near Hexham was a retreat for John of Beverley, one time bishop of Hexham and then York, when he retired from ‘his apostolic labours of evangelising the Anglican pagans’.

It was believed that following the Reformation there were no hermits living in Northumberland, although there were instances of recluses: 

William Pettigrew was employed at Walbottle Colliery in the mid-eighteenth century. He built a hut using brushwood in Walbottle Dene near the turnpike road running from Newcastle to Carlisle. He lived there with his family, and was nicknamed ‘Willie of the Wood’. Curiosity led to many people visiting and he welcomed them, especially on Sundays and holidays. He sold bread, cheese and refreshments; the income allowed him and his family to live more comfortably. As a result, his sons were able to maintain a better position in society; one joined the army and reached the rank of lieutenant, the other became a Methodist preacher.

Macfarlane, a Scottish besom-maker, made brooms which he sold to the local gentry for their stables. He sought permission from Mr Bryan Burrell of Broom Park for some land near Lemmington Burn in Rimside Moor to build a shed where he could make his brooms. This was agreed, he slept there overnight and built a small garden with flowers and vegetables. Passing gentry would listen to his tales and he was always happy to help passer-bys with directions. After a while he asked for more land to build a lumber yard which he fenced off; with the addition of some pigs he became self-sufficient. He lived like this for twenty-one years ‘squatting’. When a contested election occurred, he travelled down to Alnwick to vote. No objections to his vote were received “and so, from that day till his death, the besom-maker of Rimside Moor was virtually a freeholder of Northumberland”.

** quote taken from The Monthly Chronicle of North-Country Lore and Legend Vol 5, 1891, p.302