Cheviot Hills

Cheviot Hills, a mountain-range occupying contiguous parts of the counties of Northumberland and Roxburgh, on the English and Scotch borders, and running 35 miles from near the junction of the Till and Tweed, in the NE., to the sources of the Liddel, in the SW. The principal points are Cheviot Hill (2676 feet) and Peel Fell (1964). West of Carter Fell, these hills chiefly consist of Silurian rocks overlaid by Old Red Sandstone, and Lower Carboniferous strata, with which various igneous rocks are associated. The east portion of the range, including higher and more or less conical and abrupt hills, is built up almost exclusively of ancient lava-flows and tuffs (porphyrite and porphyrite-tuff), which are traversed by a mass of augite-granite, and by veins of felsite, dikes of basalt, &c. In the Cheviot Hills are the sources of the Liddel, Tyne, Coquet, and some of the branches of the Tweed. Grouse abound, and the golden eagle is occasionally seen. These hills afford pasture for the Cheviots, a superior breed of sheep. They have been the scene of many a bloody contest between the English and Scotch, and the name is commemorated in that of the famous old ballad of Chevy Chase, for the history in which see OTTERBURN. See five articles by Professor James Geikie in Good Words (1876).