Last updated 13:12, Thursday, 27 November 2008

A DATE stone above the doorway announces that Chattlehope – a neat grey stone and ivy-trimmed house almost on the shore of the Catcleugh Reservoir – was built in 1901. But it has a few puzzling features which make it look much more antique.

Peak at the past: Chattlehope has many historic features.

Most prominent are the triangular pediments like surprised eyebrows, above the three front windows. They give the property an appearance at odds with its declared Victorian pedigree, and indeed they are probably part of a house built when Queen Anne, not Queen Victoria, reigned.

The original Chattlehope was nearly 200 years old when it got in the way of progress – the Catcleugh Reservoir, begun in 1899.

The sprawling cities on Tyneside demanded more water, so hordes of navvies from the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company amassed in the tranquil Rede Valley and built a small town of worksheds – of which one still survives.

Within three years a 610-yard dam of earth faced with stone had throttled the River Rede, and a lake more than a mile long had flooded the valley.

The Catcleugh dam was a massive engineering project for its time and 64 workers were killed – or succumbed to cholera – trying to complete it. A 1903 stained glass window in the church of St Francis of Assisi at nearby Byrness, preserves the memory of those who died.

Chattlehope was yet another victim of the dam, but some of its stonework was rescued before the waters rose, and it was used to beautify a new house built safely out of harm’s way and given the same name.

The name “Chattlehope” has a variety of roots. The “hope” bit means side valley – from the Old English “hoppa”. “Chattle” may come from “Cetel” – an Olde English word meaning cauldron and suggesting the valley was that sort of deep, rounded shape. Or it may have once been called “Chadwell Hope” from the old word for a cold spring. Another explanation is that the name dates from the Conquest and means “cattle valley” – cattle being a Norman word. The most obvious root is “chattel” or property.

We know that the first Chattlehope house belonged to the influential Hall family.

Stone waymarkers placed along the North Pennine Way in 1705 by order of Gabriel Hall, High Sheriff of Northumberland, can still be seen today. And a dusty parchment shows that in 1727, the Halls came to legal fisticuffs with the Rev. Hugh Farrington, rector of Elsdon, over unpaid tithes for their farms, including Chattlehope.

Gabriel Hall and his son, Martin, refused to cough up to the rector for his fair share of the profits on “oats and bigg” – a kind of barley – grown at Chattlehope and the farms adjoining. The Halls had history on their side – no tithes had ever been paid on crops grown on this land, the upper part of Troughend ward. But the judgement eventually went in favour of Rector Hugh.

In medieval times when Umfravilles held sway, Chattlehope was most likely a cattle-pasture or “vaccary” dedicated to supplying the Norman lords with their juicy “boeuf”. So no crops were actually grown there and no tithes were payable.

By the time Gabriel Hall bought Chattlehope from Henry Widdrington of Black Heddon, the agricultural revolution was gearing up, and new farming methods allowed crops to be planted on the bleak moors of Redesdale. So in court the Halls were told to pay up and they had to forfeit several years of oat-and-bigg money to the smug rector of Elsdon.

In the 1760s Chattlehope became part of the ducal portfolio, and His Grace of Northumberland built himself a hunting lodge just north of the farm, in a dimple of land circled by Echo Crags, Byrness Hill, Chattlehope Crag and Girdle Fell.

The lodge later became a farm and then a private house, and still stands on the far side of the Catcleugh Reservoir with a good view of new Chattlehope. But in its heyday, the lodge provided home comforts for a succession of Georgian, Regency and Victorian dukes and their invited shooting parties.

The duke seems to have rented out his farm at Chattlehope to the Turnbull family. A record from September 9, 1789, notes Janet Turnbull being christened “at Chattlehope, Birdhope Craig”.

A christening party was probably safe but only the faithful or the foolhardy ventured up to Birdhope Craig alone. The remote path was haunted by the ghost of Percy Reed, who, before he became a blood-spattered phantom, was a 16th century Keeper of Redesdale and Lord of Middle March.

Percy’s zero tolerance for crime offended the riper young blades of some local families – including those stroppy Halls. Johnnie, Willy and Tommie Hall pretended to be pally and invited Laird Percy out for a day’s hunting.

In a lonely glen off the River Rede, the three Hall brothers suggested a rest, and while the Laird fed his horse they damped the powder in his gun and glued his sword in the scabbard. Then they left him to face Part Two of their plot....

The Halls’ cronies, the Crozier clan, galloped into the glen, brandishing swords and yelling “We have thee now, Percy Reed”. Poor Percy ended up mightily perforated.

Naturally, upset by this turn of affairs, Percy Reed’s wraith haunted the River Rede for hundreds of years, with chapel-goers on their way to the Presbyterian Meetinghouse at Birdhope Craig claiming to have met Percy’s ghost.

Those who seek crag-top terrors today, head for Ellis Crag, just a mile south of Chattlehope. It is high on the national list for that select band who get their kicks out of “bouldering”.

Google “Ellis Crag” and you will discover that it is officially “bouldering heaven”. Expect such delights as a “slab and tickle block”, a “wakey-flakey block,” and a “classic dyno-block” with a “plush arête” (knife-like ridge) and a “serious roof”.

The Ellis roof is so “serious” it even defeated local climber Gordon Thompson, resident shepherd at Chattlehope Farm for several years.

Gordon claimed to have conquered the overhang, but admitted that he needed the help of a stepladder. So, the unaided ascent of Ellis Crag at Chattlehope is still an unplucked feather, just waiting to be stuck in an adventurer’s cap.

l Chattlehope at Catcleugh in Redesdale is for sale via George F. White and Co, who have offices in Tynedale.