Redesdale

Redesdale, the valley of the river Reed in Northumberland, extending almost from the Scottish border in a south-easterly direction for over 16 miles, until it opens up into the valley of the Tyne, the river joining the North Tyne at Redsmouth. It is for miles a mere mountain vale, sloping upwards into bleak and dreary moorland, but it has a quiet beauty of its own that is not easily forgotten by the traveller. The river springs out of the Cheviot Hills, which lie athwart the head of the dale, and down its course from Carter Toll on the border lay one of the chief roads into England. Watling Street itself traverses its middle and upper part. Near the southern end of Redesdale is the famous field of Otterburn (q.v.), but 16 miles from the border, which point again is but 10 miles from Jedburgh. The men of Redesdale of old were brave and turbulent, and bore more than their share in Border feuds and forays.—Redesdale gave from 1877 the title of earl to John Thomas Freeman Mitford (1805-86), who was son of the ex-Speaker, John Mitford (died 1830), first Baron Redesdale, and who himself from 1851 was Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords, and a determined enemy of change in ecclesiastical matters.