Last updated 17:54, Thursday, 06 November 2008

MAD Jack Hall would have been relieved to know his estate at Otterburn would eventually settle down to such cosy domesticity. It certainly saw some lively upheavals in Jack’s day, and the odd skirmish before that too, like the Battle of Otterburn.

The lord of Otterburn Tower at the start of the 18th century, who rejoiced in the nickname Mad Jack of Otterburn, sadly went to meet his maker before his estate turned from the riotous living of its Reiver past to the agricultural revolution of the future, and gained its Home Farm – known as East Otterburn Farmhouse, which is now up for sale.

This south facing, double-fronted stone abode, surrounded by the latest farming amenities the Age of Enlightenment could come up with, was quickly hedged in by holiness too.

A Presbyterian chapel was built right next door in 1833, re-built in 1885 and morphed into a Methodist chapel by 1951. The Quakers were just over the road – records show that Jane Carr was buried in the now vanished Quaker cemetery on February 18, 1686.

And in 1858, a few hundred yards from East Otterburn Farm, the Anglican Church of St John the Evangelist was built – a design from high-flying architect John Dobson, eight years after he completed Newcastle’s central railway station.

All this fussing with vestries, pulpits and byres was tame stuff indeed by the standards of Mad Jack.

He was a Hall, one of Redesdale’s most powerful Reiver clans, who acquired Otterburn Tower and lands when Elizabeth I was on the throne. Jack won his ‘Mad’ soubriquet by first making a muck of things, then bravely sorting them out.

Jack Hall’s name was not ‘mad’ but ‘mud’, when he failed to prevent a duel where a popular young man was killed. As if in retribution, his Otterburn home was devastated by a mystery fire soon after.

Jack restored his reputation by saving his servant from being press-ganged at the annual Stagshaw Bank Fair, near Corbridge.

The servant had been pounced on by a well-known people-snatcher named Widdrington, who claimed to have a licence from Queen Anne to harvest likely Tynedalers for service in fever-ridden plantations in the West Indies.

A Hall wasn’t going to stand by while his valet was swiped, so he blocked Widdrington’s path and demanded he show his letter of authority.

“This is my authority!” snarled Widdrington, drawing his sword. “Is your authority a match for mine?” responded Jack, whipping out his weapon too.

The Stagshaw Fair crowd were thrilled at the extra sideshow of Mad Jack versus Snatcher Widdrington. Widdy was not flavour of the month, having already despatched several unwilling locals for extended foreign trips.

When Jack triumphed to much applause and withdrew like a gentleman, his opponent was left to the tender mercies of the crowd. Widdrington was last seen high-tailing it to the Tynedale border with a delighted mob in pursuit.

Jack confirmed his ‘mad’ character by joining his neighbour Jamie Radcliffe, Earl of Derwentwater, in the doomed 1715 Jacobite uprising against the new King George I.

Mad Jack Hall’s execution on London’s Tyburn Hill a year later caused almost as many tears in Tynedale as the death of Earl Jamie himself. Jack’s carved initials are preserved on a lintel at Otterburn Tower.

A later owner of the estate where East Otterburn Farmhouse stands, probably relished the tales of his predecessor Mad Jack. He was Howard Pease, who collected old books and spooky yarns.

Howard’s 1919 book Border Ghost Stories contains such bloodcurdlers as The Lord Warden’s Tomb, The Haunted Alehouse, and Apud Corstopitum – a gory saga of Roman Corbridge.

Howard had the money to set up a fancy library at Otterburn Tower, including a rare second edition of the Travels of William Lithgow (a Jacobean Marco Polo-type also known as Lugless Will, because before he set off abroad, his girlfriend’s brother cut his ears off. We don’t know if this was a drunken prank, or revenge on Will for dumping his sister.)

Howard loved building as well as books. He built Otterburn Tower’s stable block in 1904, opting for opulent ‘arts and crafts’ style, and he added the lodge right opposite East Otterburn Farmhouse, too. Howard’s decorated tomb is one of the most deluxe in Otterburn churchyard.

Just before Howard Pease’s era at the tower, George Waddell was tenant at East Otterburn.

George is recorded as resident from 1841 until 1901. In 1881 George was a widower cosily ensconced with his niece Eleanor Dunn as housekeeper, and 26-year-old Margaret Nicholson as boarder. By 1901, aged 85, George had a second wife, Mary.

When he wasn’t keeping his womenfolk happy, George was a woollen weaver. His workplace was handily just up the road at Otterburn Mill, run by his younger brother William Waddell.

For generations the Otterburn woollen mill was one of the area’s main employers. When George was at work, the mill kept 24 ‘hands’ busy making heavy ‘Bull’s Lug’ blankets and pastel tartan cot rugs for export all round the British Empire.

In 1926 Otterburn Mill supplied a soft woollen blanket to the new-born Princess Elizabeth, six-times great-granddaughter of that interloping Hanoverian George I. Mad Jack of Otterburn must have spun in his grave!

l East Otterburn Farmhouse is for sale via Smiths Gore of Corbridge.