The tragic tale of Teesdale's own Romeo and Juliet

THIS is a true and tragic tale of forbidden romance, of cruel parents, of wild moors, of untamed passion and of a beautiful young girl who ultimately chose love over life itself.

It is the story of Teesdale’s own Romeo and Juliet, which has been immortalised by poets and captured by painters over the centenaries.

Indeed an 18th Century poet gave the young girl in the story the name Emma and, alliteratively, called her beau Ediwn, and his Ballad of Edwin and Emma became so famous that travellers sought out its remote setting and took twigs as souvenirs from the hawthorn tree under which the illicit love affair had blossomed.

Today, the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle is offering free admission because of the Heritage Open Days, and so an emotion-packed painting of Emma and Edwin, painted at the height of their fame, will be on display.

The backdrop for the story is the inspiring ruins of Bowes Castle (above), in County Durham, which was built on the edge of the romantically wild Stainmore largely by Henry II from 1171 to 1174 to keep out the rampagingly wild Scots.

The story begins in the early 18th Century when Bowes was strategically placed on the trans-Pennine road. Depending on your direction, it was the first or last stopping point before or after the assault on the Stainmore summit. It was a place where you stopped either to collect your energies for the ascent or to catch your breath after the descent.

In those days, the village boasted two coaching inns: the King's Head, which was the posh one at the top of the village, and The George, which is now known as the Ancient Unicorn, at the bottom.

The rivalry between the two inns ran far deeper than just a business competition for the travellers' custom. It was personal and it was bitter.

Prospect House in Bowes was originally the King's Head

The Wrightsons of the King's Head had once been a prosperous family of yeomen who had counted for something in the district. Their head, Roger Wrightson, was churchwarden nine times between 1694 and 1721, and was still a man of substance, but because he was a younger son, his means were being watered down.

Still, the Wrightsons felt they were a couple of cuts above the Railtons, who ran The George.

The George in Bowes is now the Ancient Unicorn

John Railton, the licensee, was regarded as being poor and ill-educated, and the poet David Mallet, whose ballad of 1760 made the sad story famous, was downright rude about him:

The father too, a sordid man
Who love nor pity knew,
Was all-unfeeling as the clod
From whence his riches grew.

John Railton had a daughter called Martha. Roger Wrightson had a son, also called Roger.

Finding little poetic in their names, the poet re-christened them Emma and Edwin.

Whatever you call them, they were the same age, "growing up to twenty". Naturally, they fell deeply in love:

What happy hours of homefelt bliss
Did love on both bestow!
But bliss too mighty long to last,
Where fortune proves a foe.

The feuding parents forbade the love. Neither family regarded the other as good enough for their child, and the lovers were banned from seeing each other.

Forbidden fruit, though, is often the sweetest. . .

Denied her sight, Edwin oft behind
The spreading hawthorn crept,
To snatch a glance, to mark the spot
Where Emma walk'd and wept.

It was said that the hawthorn in question grew in the playground of the Bowes Free Grammar School, near the King's Head. When the ballad became famous, trans-Pennine travellers dismounted from their carriages and snapped twigs from the tree to take as souvenirs.

In July 1713, John Railton died, leaving his daughter Martha consumed with grief. Secretly, Roger consoled her during clandestine meetings until his jealous sister, Hannah, discovered...

His sister, who, like Envy form'd,
Like her in mischief joy'd,
To work them harm, with wicked skill,
Each darker art employ'd.

Hannah spilled the beans and, once more, the lovers were banned from meeting. In his lovelorn misery, Roger took to roaming "Stainmore's wintry waste, beneath the moonlight shade" to ease his soul, but this would prove to be a fatal mistake.

His cheek, where health with beauty glow'd,
A deadly pale o'ercast:
So fades the fresh rose in its prime,
Before the northern blast.

On February 27, 1714 – Shrove Tuesday – Roger was confined to bed by a contagion caught on the moors. Martha went to him with an orange for a present, but it was cruelly turned away at the door of the King's Head. For days, Roger pleaded with his parents to relent and let her in:

"'Tis past!" he cried, "but if your souls
Sweet mercy yet can move,
Let these dim eyes once more behold
What they must ever love!"

Roger grew weaker by the day until, on March 13, his parents granted him what they knew would be his dying wish: a last visit from his beloved:

She came; his cold hand softly touch'd,
And bath'd with many a tear:
Fast-falling o'er the primrose pale,
So morning dews appear.

But, as the painting in the Bowes Museum shows, horrible Hannah stood guard over the meeting. She refused to allow them any privacy in which to exchange their true love vows, and so the lovers parted frustrated and unfulfilled:

But oh! his sister's jealous care,
A cruel sister she!
Forbade what Emma came to say:
"My Edwin, live for me."
Now homeward as she hopeless wept
The churchyard path along,
The blast blew cold, the dark owl scream'd
Her lover's funeral song.

Amid the falling gloom of night,
Her startling fancy found
In every bush his hovering shade,
His groan in every sound.
Alone, appall'd, thus had she past
The visionary vale –
When, lo! the death-bell smote her ear,
Sad-sounding in the gale!

This was a "passing bell", tolled on the Bowes church (above) bell as a person was dying to assist their soul's passage to heaven.

Martha knew immediately for whom the bell tolled:

Just then she reach'd, with trembling step,
Her aged mother's door –
"He's gone!" she cried, "and I shall see
That angel-face no more!

"I feel, I feel this breaking heart
Beat high against my side."
From her white arm down sunk her head;
She shivering sigh'd, and died.

And so, with Emma dying of a broken heart, David Mallet ended his Ballad of Edwin and Emma.

In real life, it was said that Roger's last words had been "Martha, Martha, come away."

Three hours later, she followed him to the grave. Her last words were: "Oh he's dead, I cannot live. Nay, nay, now my heart is burst."

And so the death bell tolled once more.

But in death, Martha and Roger were reunited. Despite horrid Hannah's protestations, they were buried together in the churchyard beneath the belltower - their shared headstone is below.

The curate of Bowes wrote in the parish register: "Roger Wrightson, junr, and Martha Railton, both of Bowes, buried in one grave. He died in a fever, and upon hearing his passing bell she cry'd out 'my heart is broke' and in a few hours expired, purely through love. Mar 15, 1714 (aged about 20 years each)."

Neither family prospered after the tragedy. The Wrightsons retired to a nearby smallholding and closed the King's Head, which became a private residence.

Horrid Hannah was the last to survive, dying in 1757, near Boroughbridge, where she had lived practically in poverty, which she seems to have accepted as punishment for her nastiness to her ailing brother.

Martha's brother, John, took over The George. He invested heavily in improving the road, which today we know as the A66, because hoped a better road would bring more travellers to his door.

More travellers did indeed use the improved road, but they now travelled so fast, that had no need to stop at Bowes and so sped past his door. In 1760, he sold the pub to clear his debts, and moved to Newcastle.

This meant he missed out on the opportunity to cash in on his late sister's rise to fame. Her sad story circulated wider and wider until it reached the ears of David Mallet, a Scottish poet who, in 1760, put Bowes on the map when he published The Ballad of Edwin and Emma, and it became a big hit.

John Downman, a Welsh painter, found success with his painting (above: courtesy of the Bowes Museum) which was shown at the Royal Academy in 1789. It was bought by the Bowes in 1975 and now hangs in the 19th Century picture gallery showing how Horrid Hannah intervened, as her brother lay dying, to prevent the course of tree love running smooth.

The painting, and story, is included in the Hidden History tour of the museum which is being run today at 10.30am and 12.10pm.