A1-The Great North Road
About half way between Alnwick and Berwick is the village of Belford. Oliver, in 1835, wrote:
"Belford, a small town about fifteen miles north of Alnwick, contains little to interest the tourist; though from the rising ground in the neighbourhood he may obtain an excellent view of Bamborough Castle and Holy Island, should he have neither time nor inclination to visit those places."
Armstrong, in 1776, found an inn called the Post-House but Harper, in 1901worte:
"At Belford, a large wide-streeted village with a nowadays too roomy coaching inn, the "Blue Bell," and an old cross with gas-lamps fitted to it by some vandal or other, the road draws near the coast; that storied Northumbrian sea-shore where Bamborough Castle on its islanded rock, many miles of yellow quicksands, and the Farne and Holy Islands are threaded out in succession before the gaze... With the exquisite colouring of sea and sky on a summer day blending with them, they look at this distance like the shores of fairyland."
Garfoot-Gardner in 1949 writes briefly that, "Belford is another little town of the Great North Road. A wonderfully equipped hotel The Blue Bell is situated on the highway."
The mail coaches ran through Belford until the railway opened in 1847 but the station was closed in the 1960s. All the A1 traffic went through the market square until the by-pass was built in the 1980s.
Kyloe Woods is reputed to have the largest variety of trees in the World.....hmmm.
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Three bridges cross the Tweed, a little one, a middle sized one and a big one. They are called Berwick Bridge, Royal Tweed Bridge and Royal Border Bridge. The one without the regal name was most closely associated with a king, being built at the behest of King James I who was cross with the state of affairs when he travelled south from Edinburgh (as King James VI of Scotland) to take up the new job in London.
©Biff Vernon 2001