The Redeswire

A route must have run up the valley from Elsdon through Otterburn and beyond from an early date, to link the numerous hamlets and farmsteads mentioned in the medieval inquisitions and other documents. It followed the river right up to the head of the dale, providing access to the summer pastures and vaccaries in the tributary hopes before climbing up over the watershed of the Rede, known as Redeswire (near the present Carter Bar), and crossing into Scotland.

By comparison with its highland counterparts, the old Roman road Dere Street (also known as Gamelspeth or Kemelspeth in the Middle Ages), which had remained in use, and the Great Drove Road which branched off Dere Street near Featherwood to head directly towards Elsdon, the Redeswire route was slow and meandering. Whereas Dere Street crossed the high moorlands, staying clear of the valley until it reached the site of the fort at High Rochester, and the Great Drove Road reached Elsdon by following the moorland ridges, the Redeswire route was remarkable for the number of times it forded the Rede.

Hodgson noted that the river had nine fords just in the stretch between Byrness and Whitelees, near the head of the valley (1827, 161). The meandering nature of the road and its numerous fords are highlighted by Armstrong's map of 1769, the first to trace the route's course in any detail. If Armstrong's depiction is at all accurate, it implies that the road did not follow the line of the present A68 highway through Byrness, but ran further to the south, and actually crossed onto the south bank of the river opposite Byrness.

In common with all the cross border highways, the Redesdale route figured in the turbulent events which followed the onset of the Anglo-Scottish wars at the end of the 13th century. It was doubtless the Elsdon road which was followed by the Scottish army of Earl Douglas and the pursuing force of Henry Percy in 1388, after they decamped from Newcastle in the run-up to the battle of Otterburn.

Like Gamelspath, the Redeswire border crossing figures prominently in the warfare of the 15th and 16th centuries and was one of the designated meeting places between the wardens of the English and Scottish Middle Marches.

In 1575 one of these meetings at Redeswire degenerated into a bloody skirmish, the Redeswire Fray. This meeting had initially been scheduled for 'Kemelspeth', but was subsequently rearranged for the convenience of the Scottish deputy keeper of Liddelsdale (Hodgson 1827, 155-162 with full sources). An earlier battle is recorded at Redeswire in 1400, when Sir Robert Umfraville routed a Scottish force there.