Hexham

Hexham, a market-town of Northumberland, on the north bank of the Tyne, near the junction of the North with the South Tyne, crossed here by a stone bridge, 20 miles west of Newcastle, and on the Newcastle and Carlisle railway. The streets are mostly narrow, but there is a large market square containing a Moot Hall, once the courthouse of the Bishop and Priors of Hexham. Only the transept and chancel of the old cruciform abbey church remain. Other public buildings are a free grammar school and an institute. The trade is chiefly local. The town is of great antiquity, being supposed to be the Roman Alexodunum. In the 7th century a monastery was founded here by St. Wilfrid, and the Scots burnt the town in the reign of Edward I. In 1761 there was a formidable and fatal riot arising out of the militia ballot.