Another Umfraville, Richard, quarrelled with his neighbour of Nafferton, on the opposite side of the river, for having begun to erect a fortress much too near Umfraville's own. He sent a petition to the King on the subject and King John commanded Philip de Ulecote's building operations to cease. The unfinished castle, known as Nafferton Tower, remains to this day as Philip's masons left it so many centuries ago.
Sir Ingram de Umfraville was by the side of Edward II. at Bannockburn, when, before the battle, Bruce ordered his men to kneel in prayer. Edward looked on the kneeling host, and turning to Umfraville, exclaimed "See! Yon men kneel to ask mercy." "You say truth, sire," answered the knight of Prudhoe; "they ask mercy--but not of you."
The last Umfraville, who died in 1381, left a widow, the Countess Maud, who married a Percy of Alnwick, and so the castle passed into the hands of that family, in whose possession it still remains.
When Odinel de Umfraville was building the keep of his castle, every one in the neighbourhood was pressed into the service, and all lent their aid except the men of Wylam. Wylam had been given to the church of St. Oswyn at Tynemouth, and, as was customary, was freed by charter from the duty of castle building, or any other feudal service excepting such as were rendered to the Prior of Tynemouth as occasion arose. So, in spite of the angry surprise of the lord of Prudhoe, the Wylam men quietly held to their charter, and not all Odinel's threats or persuasions moved them one whit.
The Stanley Burn, which enters the Tyne close to Wylam railway station, divides this part of the county of Durham from Northumberland, so that from Wylam to the sea the south side of the Tyne is in the county of Durham. The most noteworthy object at Wylam, or, to be precise, a little way along the old post-road, leading to Newcastle from Hexham, is the red-tiled cottage in which George Stephenson was born in 1781. It stands on the north bank of the Tyne, where it can be distinctly seen from passing trains. Its neighbour cottage has been repaired and re-roofed, but Stephenson's cottage remains unaltered.
Mr. Blackett, who owned Wylam Colliery at the beginning of the nineteenth century, took the keenest interest in the question of locomotives, and had tried more than one on his estate before George Stephenson brought them to the point of practical use. At Newburn, just four miles down the Tyne, George Stephenson passed many years of his youth; here he learned to read and write, when he was old enough to earn a man's wage and could afford the few pence necessary; and here, in the parish church, may be seen, with an interval of twenty years between them, the entries of his two marriages.