Long ago before the invention of Drag-Queen story-hour, the electric car and TikTok, there was a kingdom in the British Isles that has expanded
and decreased as politics by the sword and the written-word dictated its growth. Northumbria (the people or province north of the Humber) has
had many rulers during its time and now is a shadow of it former self.
Hexham is a small market town close to Hadrian's Wall in this diminished region and owns a history that has dripped with the blood of feudal lords,
raids from the Border-Reivers and a murder of their own king. Along with this violent past, whispers of strange mysteries lurched across the wind
-blown moors, riddles that are still pondered on today and in the winter of 1904, one of these conundrums surfaced that could have echoes that
reverberated over sixty years later.
![[Image: attachment.php?aid=11589]](http://rogue-nation3.com/attachment.php?aid=11589)
Northumbria, Then & Now.
With the first World War still a decade away, the Hexham Courant newspaper reported in early December of 1904 that a farmer from the nearby
hamlet of Allendale had began to stable his sheep due finding torn-apart remains of his animals in a nearby field. One of the sheep had been
disemboweled and another had been totally eaten leaving only its skull to be found. The terrified remainder of the ewes survived, although many
had been bitten around the neck and legs.
It was generally agreed that wolves had become extinct in England during the reign of Henry VII in 1509, but for the farmer discovering his livestock
on that cold winter's morning, those who had reached this conclusion didn't keep sheep here out in the rurals.
Then the sightings of a wolf began to be whispered amongst the communities of Allendale and Hexham. After a large prowling animal was reported to
have been seen lurking around Allenheads Primary School, several hunting parties of both villages took to finding the 'black and tan' sheep-killer, but
found their pursuit fruitless. As the dark cold winter rolled on and the fearful villagers lit lanterns in their windows, the Hexham Wolf Committee was
founded in efforts to bring wolf-trackers to find this spectral beast.
Even after the renowned Bloodhounds of Haydon were called in to find the spoor of the elusive animal and turned up nothing, tales were abound of
sheep and folk being attacked on both sides of the River Tyne in the same night and a rumour that 'The Girt Dog' -a huge hyena-like creature was
committing this foul-play.
As holly wreaths adorned the fire-hearths of the communities for Christmas and carols were sang in Hexham Abbey and Allendale's St Cuthbert's church,
eyes were still watching for the ghostly invader that left no tracks. Then two local men travelling to work witnessed a dog-like animal leaping over a high
wall as they approached and the following day, a wolf was seen attacking a black-faced ewe in a field.
As the short December days raced towards January, the wolf was encountered again by a group of women and children. However, the shouts and screams
of the frightened party drove the daring outremer away and supported the notion that the wolf was becoming more audacious in its actions.
Some thirty miles of Hexham, a dead body of a wolf was found on a railway track in Cumwinton, Cumbria. It was 1905 and the Hexham Courant newspaper
quickly deflated the hopes of its readers by stating on the 7th January that the corpse was not that of the Wolf of Allendale. Since the skinny cadaver didn't
match any of the descriptions from witnesses, it was suggested that there was perhaps an entire family of predators living in the receding surrounding woods
and vigilance should be maintained.
But by the end of January 1905 reports of the wolf began to wane and eventually the sightings and livestock killings ceased altogether. The wolf had died
or gone away and for the little thorps of Allendale and Hexham, that was good enough for them and life could return back to normal.
.............................................................
1971. Hexham.
Eleven year-old Colin Robson was farting around in the front garden of his Hexham home in Rede Avenue with his brother Leslie when he -or as others
have sometimes written, the young boys discovered a strange stone about the size of a tangerine. Casually cleaning the dirt from around a protuberance
on the small rock, Colin found that it was a crudely-carved neck and head of an effigy of some sort. To even the scales in alliance, the pair dug around
until another head-like stone was located and then both items were examined.
Colin Robson's appeared to be a young male face with slash marks on top of the head to perhaps signify hair. The other resembled a hooked-nosed hag-like
female and both heads had nodules protruding from the necks, perhaps eluding to bodies they were once attached to. Fascination is fleeting in the young
and so after showing their find to their parents, they left the two pale -greenish stone heads on a window ledge and Leslie and older brother retired to their
bedroom for the night.
The next morning, the Robson family saw that the heads had moved on the window sill and now faced the location where they'd been excavated. This odd
activity would regularly occur and a foreshadow of what was about to happen next. A couple of nights later, one of the sleeping boys felt his hair tugged at
by an invisible hand, objects would be found broken and one of the Robson sisters discovered shattered glass in their beds.
If one peered out of the window of No.3 Rede Avenue, one would see a glow in the area of the garden where the stone heads were found and the television
set constantly tried to reach a different frequency or channel even though nobody was trying to change it.
The heads still moved when faced away from their burial place, their cold gaze was always found in the morning staring back towards the garden. But the
worst was yet to come, Colin and Leslie's mother would witness a frightful sight that would relegate the poltergeist happenings to commonplace. In the middle
the night, Mrs Robson saw a shambling thing she described as a half-man, half-goat creature in her house... a comical characterization, to say the least!
Staring at the abomination, the terrified woman watched the bestial presence stumble to the front door and leave the semi-detached (duplex) end-street home.
The neighbours who shared the building were not exempt from these weird happenings, the Dodds family -namely Mr Isaac Dodd, Mrs Ellen “Nelly” Dodd and
her sons and daughters, Brian, Carol, Marie, and Trevor also endured strange goings-on. One night, Mrs Dodd was comforting her daughter -Marie, during
an ear-infection and after hearing someone enter the girl's bedroom, happened to look up and see a chimera of a creature standing before the horrified pair.
The 'thing' touched Nelly Dodd and as she screamed, it scampered away on all fours. The distraught mother described the invader as 'half-person, half-sheep'!
![[Image: attachment.php?aid=11590]](http://rogue-nation3.com/attachment.php?aid=11590)
(Left-to-Right) No. 3 Rede Avenue, a diagram of the Hexham Heads and Colin & Leslie Robson posing with a later-made head.
The traumatised Dodds assured the Hexham Town Council that they couldn’t live in that house anymore and were rehoused not long after. Around this time,
the enduring Robsons, realising a power beyond their understanding was sharing the corner house in Rede Avenue, gave the troublesome stone heads to a Guide
of Hexham Abbey called Betty Gibson for safekeeping. The national newspapers turned up late, but still managed to sensationalize the 'Evil Heads of Northumbria'
and enticed Colin and Leslie to pose for their cameras with copies of their discovery. But the strange malefactors that had terrorised a quite street in Hexham were
gone and with them, a Werewolf-like apparition from their worst nightmares.
.............................................................
The horror-show that newspapers portrayed -but didn't appreciate, was over and after a short time, Mrs Gibson of Hexham Abbey had handed the stone heads
to Richard Bailey, a Professor who worked at the Museum of Antiquities at Newcastle University. However, it was the media that attached the legend of The Wolf
of Allendale to the modern visitation of the Were-goat/sheep/wolf of Rede Avenue and with this vague connection, came the idea that the heads were Celtic in
origin.
A collector of such ancient objects named Dr Anne Ross eventually took possession of the Hexham heads for analysis at her home in Southampton and
not aware of this supposed kinship between the Wolf of Allendale and the Robson finds over three hundred miles away, had no idea what was to occur
at her Rose Road home on the south coast of England.
A few nights after obtaining the heads from Newcastle's Museum of Antiquities, the woes that the Robsons and Dodds experienced began to manifest in
Dr Ross' home in the form of the strange creature that seemed to enjoy appearing in bedroom doorways. In Dr Ross' own words:
“It was about six feet high, slightly stooping, and it was black, against the white door, and it was half animal and half man.
The upper part, I would have said, was a wolf, and the lower part was human and, I would have again said, that it was covered with a kind of black,
very dark fur.
It went out and I just saw it clearly, and then it disappeared, and something made me run after it, a thing I wouldn’t normally have done, but I felt
compelled to run after it. I got out of bed and I ran, and I could hear it going down the stairs, then it disappeared towards the back of the house.”
Being one of a pragmatic and scientific outlook, Dr Ross accepted that she may have dreamt the whole weird incident. But when arriving home one day
with her husband -Richard Feacham, they found their teenage daughter Berenice in a distressed state. Berenice explained that she had used her key to
unlock the front door and entered the house that afternoon to witness 'a large, black shape rushing down the stairs; halfway downstairs the creature
vaulted the bannister, landing with a soft, heavy thud like a large animal with padded feet.'
Through further research, Dr Ross came to realise that the presence of the stone heads could be responsible for these events and passed on her whole
collection to other collectors. Eventually, the Hexham Heads found their way to the British Museum, although were soon removed from public display and
mothballed amid reports of unsettling events associated with the small relics.
.............................................................
Where the Hexham heads currently reside, nobody knows for sure. But the rumours are abound with where they came from and where they are today.
Des Craigie, a local truck driver in Hexham claimed he made the heads in the 1950's for his daughter -Nancy, to play with and ergo, not of ancient
Celtic origin.
Yet, Frank Hodson, Professor of Geology and Dean of the Faculty of Science at Southampton University dated the stone heads as ancient. But to counter
the claim, Douglas Robson (no relation) a Senior Lecturer in Geology at Newcastle University dated the Hexham heads as modern cement by taking a
sample.
The debate on where the stone heads are at this time still rolls on, Some say that up until 1978, a mysterious London-based individual called Frank Hyde
purportedly became the last custodian of the Hexham Heads after accepting them from a Materials chemist called Don Robins. Mr Hyde is no longer with
us and trail seems to have gone cold... but somewhere out there, two small stone heads are watching and waiting to see the light again and with them,
that shambling escort we can call 'The Other'.
and decreased as politics by the sword and the written-word dictated its growth. Northumbria (the people or province north of the Humber) has
had many rulers during its time and now is a shadow of it former self.
Hexham is a small market town close to Hadrian's Wall in this diminished region and owns a history that has dripped with the blood of feudal lords,
raids from the Border-Reivers and a murder of their own king. Along with this violent past, whispers of strange mysteries lurched across the wind
-blown moors, riddles that are still pondered on today and in the winter of 1904, one of these conundrums surfaced that could have echoes that
reverberated over sixty years later.
Northumbria, Then & Now.
With the first World War still a decade away, the Hexham Courant newspaper reported in early December of 1904 that a farmer from the nearby
hamlet of Allendale had began to stable his sheep due finding torn-apart remains of his animals in a nearby field. One of the sheep had been
disemboweled and another had been totally eaten leaving only its skull to be found. The terrified remainder of the ewes survived, although many
had been bitten around the neck and legs.
It was generally agreed that wolves had become extinct in England during the reign of Henry VII in 1509, but for the farmer discovering his livestock
on that cold winter's morning, those who had reached this conclusion didn't keep sheep here out in the rurals.
Then the sightings of a wolf began to be whispered amongst the communities of Allendale and Hexham. After a large prowling animal was reported to
have been seen lurking around Allenheads Primary School, several hunting parties of both villages took to finding the 'black and tan' sheep-killer, but
found their pursuit fruitless. As the dark cold winter rolled on and the fearful villagers lit lanterns in their windows, the Hexham Wolf Committee was
founded in efforts to bring wolf-trackers to find this spectral beast.
Even after the renowned Bloodhounds of Haydon were called in to find the spoor of the elusive animal and turned up nothing, tales were abound of
sheep and folk being attacked on both sides of the River Tyne in the same night and a rumour that 'The Girt Dog' -a huge hyena-like creature was
committing this foul-play.
As holly wreaths adorned the fire-hearths of the communities for Christmas and carols were sang in Hexham Abbey and Allendale's St Cuthbert's church,
eyes were still watching for the ghostly invader that left no tracks. Then two local men travelling to work witnessed a dog-like animal leaping over a high
wall as they approached and the following day, a wolf was seen attacking a black-faced ewe in a field.
As the short December days raced towards January, the wolf was encountered again by a group of women and children. However, the shouts and screams
of the frightened party drove the daring outremer away and supported the notion that the wolf was becoming more audacious in its actions.
Some thirty miles of Hexham, a dead body of a wolf was found on a railway track in Cumwinton, Cumbria. It was 1905 and the Hexham Courant newspaper
quickly deflated the hopes of its readers by stating on the 7th January that the corpse was not that of the Wolf of Allendale. Since the skinny cadaver didn't
match any of the descriptions from witnesses, it was suggested that there was perhaps an entire family of predators living in the receding surrounding woods
and vigilance should be maintained.
But by the end of January 1905 reports of the wolf began to wane and eventually the sightings and livestock killings ceased altogether. The wolf had died
or gone away and for the little thorps of Allendale and Hexham, that was good enough for them and life could return back to normal.
.............................................................
1971. Hexham.
Eleven year-old Colin Robson was farting around in the front garden of his Hexham home in Rede Avenue with his brother Leslie when he -or as others
have sometimes written, the young boys discovered a strange stone about the size of a tangerine. Casually cleaning the dirt from around a protuberance
on the small rock, Colin found that it was a crudely-carved neck and head of an effigy of some sort. To even the scales in alliance, the pair dug around
until another head-like stone was located and then both items were examined.
Colin Robson's appeared to be a young male face with slash marks on top of the head to perhaps signify hair. The other resembled a hooked-nosed hag-like
female and both heads had nodules protruding from the necks, perhaps eluding to bodies they were once attached to. Fascination is fleeting in the young
and so after showing their find to their parents, they left the two pale -greenish stone heads on a window ledge and Leslie and older brother retired to their
bedroom for the night.
The next morning, the Robson family saw that the heads had moved on the window sill and now faced the location where they'd been excavated. This odd
activity would regularly occur and a foreshadow of what was about to happen next. A couple of nights later, one of the sleeping boys felt his hair tugged at
by an invisible hand, objects would be found broken and one of the Robson sisters discovered shattered glass in their beds.
If one peered out of the window of No.3 Rede Avenue, one would see a glow in the area of the garden where the stone heads were found and the television
set constantly tried to reach a different frequency or channel even though nobody was trying to change it.
The heads still moved when faced away from their burial place, their cold gaze was always found in the morning staring back towards the garden. But the
worst was yet to come, Colin and Leslie's mother would witness a frightful sight that would relegate the poltergeist happenings to commonplace. In the middle
the night, Mrs Robson saw a shambling thing she described as a half-man, half-goat creature in her house... a comical characterization, to say the least!
Staring at the abomination, the terrified woman watched the bestial presence stumble to the front door and leave the semi-detached (duplex) end-street home.
The neighbours who shared the building were not exempt from these weird happenings, the Dodds family -namely Mr Isaac Dodd, Mrs Ellen “Nelly” Dodd and
her sons and daughters, Brian, Carol, Marie, and Trevor also endured strange goings-on. One night, Mrs Dodd was comforting her daughter -Marie, during
an ear-infection and after hearing someone enter the girl's bedroom, happened to look up and see a chimera of a creature standing before the horrified pair.
The 'thing' touched Nelly Dodd and as she screamed, it scampered away on all fours. The distraught mother described the invader as 'half-person, half-sheep'!
(Left-to-Right) No. 3 Rede Avenue, a diagram of the Hexham Heads and Colin & Leslie Robson posing with a later-made head.
The traumatised Dodds assured the Hexham Town Council that they couldn’t live in that house anymore and were rehoused not long after. Around this time,
the enduring Robsons, realising a power beyond their understanding was sharing the corner house in Rede Avenue, gave the troublesome stone heads to a Guide
of Hexham Abbey called Betty Gibson for safekeeping. The national newspapers turned up late, but still managed to sensationalize the 'Evil Heads of Northumbria'
and enticed Colin and Leslie to pose for their cameras with copies of their discovery. But the strange malefactors that had terrorised a quite street in Hexham were
gone and with them, a Werewolf-like apparition from their worst nightmares.
.............................................................
The horror-show that newspapers portrayed -but didn't appreciate, was over and after a short time, Mrs Gibson of Hexham Abbey had handed the stone heads
to Richard Bailey, a Professor who worked at the Museum of Antiquities at Newcastle University. However, it was the media that attached the legend of The Wolf
of Allendale to the modern visitation of the Were-goat/sheep/wolf of Rede Avenue and with this vague connection, came the idea that the heads were Celtic in
origin.
A collector of such ancient objects named Dr Anne Ross eventually took possession of the Hexham heads for analysis at her home in Southampton and
not aware of this supposed kinship between the Wolf of Allendale and the Robson finds over three hundred miles away, had no idea what was to occur
at her Rose Road home on the south coast of England.
A few nights after obtaining the heads from Newcastle's Museum of Antiquities, the woes that the Robsons and Dodds experienced began to manifest in
Dr Ross' home in the form of the strange creature that seemed to enjoy appearing in bedroom doorways. In Dr Ross' own words:
“It was about six feet high, slightly stooping, and it was black, against the white door, and it was half animal and half man.
The upper part, I would have said, was a wolf, and the lower part was human and, I would have again said, that it was covered with a kind of black,
very dark fur.
It went out and I just saw it clearly, and then it disappeared, and something made me run after it, a thing I wouldn’t normally have done, but I felt
compelled to run after it. I got out of bed and I ran, and I could hear it going down the stairs, then it disappeared towards the back of the house.”
Being one of a pragmatic and scientific outlook, Dr Ross accepted that she may have dreamt the whole weird incident. But when arriving home one day
with her husband -Richard Feacham, they found their teenage daughter Berenice in a distressed state. Berenice explained that she had used her key to
unlock the front door and entered the house that afternoon to witness 'a large, black shape rushing down the stairs; halfway downstairs the creature
vaulted the bannister, landing with a soft, heavy thud like a large animal with padded feet.'
Through further research, Dr Ross came to realise that the presence of the stone heads could be responsible for these events and passed on her whole
collection to other collectors. Eventually, the Hexham Heads found their way to the British Museum, although were soon removed from public display and
mothballed amid reports of unsettling events associated with the small relics.
.............................................................
Where the Hexham heads currently reside, nobody knows for sure. But the rumours are abound with where they came from and where they are today.
Des Craigie, a local truck driver in Hexham claimed he made the heads in the 1950's for his daughter -Nancy, to play with and ergo, not of ancient
Celtic origin.
Yet, Frank Hodson, Professor of Geology and Dean of the Faculty of Science at Southampton University dated the stone heads as ancient. But to counter
the claim, Douglas Robson (no relation) a Senior Lecturer in Geology at Newcastle University dated the Hexham heads as modern cement by taking a
sample.
The debate on where the stone heads are at this time still rolls on, Some say that up until 1978, a mysterious London-based individual called Frank Hyde
purportedly became the last custodian of the Hexham Heads after accepting them from a Materials chemist called Don Robins. Mr Hyde is no longer with
us and trail seems to have gone cold... but somewhere out there, two small stone heads are watching and waiting to see the light again and with them,
that shambling escort we can call 'The Other'.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.