NORTHUMBERLAND AND DURHAM By Iris Wedgwood . Lady Wedgwood's pleasant,
if rather slight, book about Northumberland and Durham (Faber, 5s.) is well printed and unusually well illustrated, both with pen drawings by Mr. G. E. Chambers and with photographs. As an introduction to a most romantic and picturesque region, it should serve a useful purpose. Yet the reader who knows the Border and the Wall and Durham must often wonder at the author's choice of places to describe and at her omissions. It would have been so easy, for instance, while noting the parlous state of Durham Castle, to mention that a fund is being raised for the repair of that noble pile. At Otterbum the stone seat by the roadside, commemorating Chevy Chase, is surely a unique memorial that deserved a passing word. It was hardly worth while, in three brief pages on the Roman World, to suggest that the garrison needed naval support to avert "danger from marauding coracles "—manned by desperate Picts and Scots. Similar instances might be multiplied. But the pictures alone should tempt readers to go north.
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