In a message dated 25/04/2007 20:31:18 GMT Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Dear Eng- Durham Listers Is there a lister living in Bellingham and can they help me with the ( The four " Greynes") Regards Harold Harold: I don't live in Bellingham but I do know a little about what have been called "The Four Graynes of North Tynedale". It's a rather romanticised way of referring to the four surnames which at one time dominated the Dale (ie the upper part of the valley of the River North Tyne). I have a paper which is probably an off-print from Archaeologia Aeliana of 1860 or 1861, entitled "North Tynedale and its four 'Surnames' In the Sixteenth Century", with the last four words in a different font to the rest, as though they constituted a sub-title. It begins: "At the monthly meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, held on 7th March 1860, Dr Charlton read the following paper:-". Dr Charlton, himself one of the Charltons of Hesleyside in North Tynedale, began by quoting Sir Robert Bowes who, in his report on the state of the Borders in 1550 had said: "The countreye of North Tynedaill, which is more plenished with wild and misdemeaned people, may make of men upon horsbak and upon foote about six hundred. They stand most by fower surnames, whereof the Charletons be the chief. And in all services or charge impressed upon that countrey, the Charltons, and such as be under their rule, be rated for the one half of that countrey, the Robsons for a quarter, and the Dodds and Mylbornes for another quarter. Of every surname there be certayne families or graves (graynes) of which there be certeyne hedesman that leadeth and answereth all for the rest". The rest of Dr Charlton's paper is an introduction to the subject of the Border Reivers, one that has been gone into at greater length by George MacDonald Fraser in "The Steel Bonnets", and much primary material for which was published in The Calendar of Border Papers. It is worth remembering that during the reiving period (Tudor days mainly, especially the reign of Queen Elizabeth I), upper North Tynedale was probably reasonably well populated - indeed overpopulated, that being the main reason for the reiving! by farming families, the land being mainly open rough (very) grazing. Later, farming seems to have declined and much of the upper valley became a hunting ground of the Duke of Northumberland, who built Keilder Castle as a hunting lodge. With the 20th century the valley was transformed, first by being planted up with so much coniferous forest as to constitute, when Keilder, Wark and Redesdale forests on the English side and the Scottish Border Forest (Wachhope) on the Scottish are taken together, the largest man-made forest in Europe. Later, that part close to the course of the river between Falstone and Keilder was flooded (to provide a water supply to industries on Tees-side that had mostly ceased to exist by the time all was completed), thus creating the largest man-made lake in Europe (Keilder Water, which has also been called the largest white elephant in Europe). Flooding valleys is always controversial, though planting open moorland with trees can alter the landscape just as much. In this case the overall effect is, let's say "pleasant", and Keilder Water looks every bit as though it has always been there and always in its setting of a vast forest. Like Catcleugh Reservoir in nearby Redesdale, it could well be mistaken by a disoriented traveller for a minor Scottish Loch. In the Reiving period, when such as passed for Law and Order was in the hands of the Wardens of the Marches, North Tynedale and its northerly neighbour, Redesdale, were both in the English Middle March. For further information, see the AA paper I have referred to, The Steel Bonnets, The Calendar of Border Papers, a booklet by a Dr ?Anderson from the Scottish side of the Border called "They Rode with the Moonlight", the New County History of Northumberland, a good historical geography book called "Upper North Tynedale", whose author's name eludes me (perhaps someone else knows it), etc, etc. Geoff Nicholson