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Updated: May 18, 2025
Robert Stephenson, or “Old Bob,” as the neighbours familiarly called him, and his wife Mabel, were a respectable couple, careful and hard-working. It is said that Robert Stephenson’s father was a Scotchman, and came into England as a gentleman’s servant. Mabel, his wife, was the daughter of Robert Carr, a dyer at Ovingham.
On the north bank of the stream the village of Ovingham now rises into view, its name telling us plainly that there was a settlement here in Saxon times "the home of the sons of Offa"; and the slope above the river is fittingly crowned by the ancient church of St. Mary, whose tower, with its curiously irregular windows, is the work of the Saxon builders of the original church.
At the fords of Ovingham, Eltringham, and Bywell, the Scots under General Leslie crossed the Tyne in 1644, and made their way into Durham, leaving six regiments to watch Newcastle. The picturesque ruins of Prudhoe Castle, whose lofty towers dominate the valley for some distance up and down the stream, stand on a commanding rocky ridge above the Tyne.
The army was only able to reach Ovingham, a distance of little more than ten miles, after fifteen hours' marching. The night was bitter cold; the ground was frozen so hard that but few of the tent-pins could be driven; and the men lay down upon the earth amongst their straw.
The roads west of Newcastle were so bad, that in the previous year the royal forces under General Wade, which left Newcastle for Carlisle to intercept the Pretender and his army, halted the first night at Ovingham, and the second at Hexham, being able to travel only twenty miles in two days.*
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