Haltwhistle

Gilsland: (Guisland) was once a bustling 18th century spa thronged with visitors in carriages to take the sulphurous waters, including Robbie Burns, in 1787, and Sir Walter Scott. The Gilsland Spa Hotel is set above a delightfully wooded ravine in which can be traced the walks and well buildings of its heyday. Above it is the Popping Stone where Scott is believed to have set the fashion in romantic proposals when he `popped' the question to Charlotte Charpentier. They married on Christmas Eve, 1797. Scott was a Captain in the Edinburgh Volunteers at the time and stayed at the Spa with his brother, John, on a tour of the Lakes. Upstream from the Gilsland Spa Hotel and on foot one comes across the lovely Crammell Linn waterfall, on the upper reaches of the River Irthing. This is a very popular local bathing place in the summer. Above Gilsland, is the vast Spadeadam Forest site where Britain's successful but abandoned Blue Streak space programme was developed and tested in the 1960s. The site can be visited by arrangement with the RAF who still use the site as an electronic warfare range. At the southern end of Hall Terrace in Gilsland stands what remains of Mumps Ha', once a notorious tavern kept by Meg Teasdale who allegedly had guests robbed or drugged to death if they had money. Margaret Teasdale, thought to be the real life character Sir Walter Scott based `Meg Merrilees' and the Dandy Dinmont dog in his novel `Guy Mannerin.' Meg Teasdale died in 1777 and is buried in the Churchyard at Upper Denton.