g ridges beyond, is said to have been the scene which
John Martin had in mind when he painted the "Plains of Heaven"; though
the level reaches above Newburn, unencumbered with buildings in John
Martin's time, and then a scene of quiet pastoral beauty, also claim
that honour.

Flowing now between well ordered gardens, green meadows, and ferny
banks, brawling musically over shingly shallows, or crooning gently
between fringing woods, the Tyne rolls onward to Corbridge, receiving on
its way the Devil's Water, a sparkling stream which flows through scenes
of enchanting beauty, whether between rugged cliffs and heather clad
hills as in its upper course, through the graceful overhanging trees and
cool green recesses of Dipton woods or between rich meadows and green
pasture-land where it loses itself in the bosom of the Tyne.

There is no more delightful experience than to wander through the woods
of Deepdene (Dipton) on a summer's day, when it requires no stretch of
the imagination to believe oneself in an enchanted forest, or, on
hearing a crackle of twigs, or faint sounds of the outside world
filtering through the green solitudes, to turn round expecting to see a
maiden on a "milk-white steed," or one of the Knights of the Round Table
come riding by, in bravery of glistening armour and gay surtout, and to
find oneself murmuring, "Now, Sir Gawain rode apace, and came unto a
right fair wood, and findeth the stream of a spring that ran with a
great rushing, and nigh thereunto was a way that was much haunted. He
abandoneth his high-way, and goeth all along the stream from the spring
that lasteth a long league plenary, until that he espieth a right fair
house and right fair chapel enclosed within a hedge of wood."

On the green meadows of Hexham Levels and near Dilston Castle--two spots
of more than ordinary historical interest--the Lancastrian cause
received, in 1464, a blow from which it never rallied, though the
courageous Queen fought gallantly till the final disasters at Barnet and
Tewkesbury. The general of her forces, the Duke of Somerset, was
beheaded in Hexham market-place, and, together with several others of
rank and station, buried at Hexham. The well-known incident of Queen
Margaret's escape into Dipton, or Deepdene woods, where she and young
Prince Edward met with robbers, and afterwards escaped by the aid of
another member of that fraternity, took place a year before this, after
the first battle of Hexham in 146