UK Genealogy Archives logo
DISCLOSURE: This page may contain affiliate links, meaning when you click the links and make a purchase, we may receive a commission.

The Till, Northumberland

Historical Description

Till, The, a river of Northumberland, rising in the centre of the Cheviots, running about 12 miles eastward to the neighbourhood of Eglingham, and thence about 20 miles northward and north-north-westward past Chillingham, Doddington, and Ford, and falling into the Tweed 3 miles NNE of Cornhill. It is called the Breamish in its upper reaches, and it receives the Glen in the vicinity of Doddington. A huge structure, called Tillmouth Castle, erected about 1820 but never finished, crowns a precipitous bank at the river's mouth. An ancient chapel stood on a meadow there, and an old legend says that a stone coffin containing the body of St Cuthbert broke away from Old Melrose on the Tweed, and floated down to a landing at that ancient chapel. Sir Walter Scott, in his " Marmion," satirically renders the legend as follows-

" In his atone coffin forth he rides
A ponderous bark. for river-tides;
Yet light as gossamer it glides
Downward to Tillmouth cell."

Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Northumberland is available to browse.


Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers related to Northumberland online: