Tom Forsyth's Hill

[j_mcquillen]

I've recently been browsing through the newly published "Northumberland Name Books" - the archives of the Ordnance Survey surveyors that collected snippets of information regarding places and place names from local informants.

I came across the following, regarding "Tom Forsyth's Hill":

"About a century ago "Bold Smuggler" named Tom Forsyth excavated a hole in this hill and used it as a place of Concealment for the various articles in which he trafficked. After his death the cave was filled up by the Revenue Officer but the hill still bears his name."

The hill also appears in the 1920s publication "Highways and Byways in Northumbria", which states:

"one of the latest smugglers is commemorated by a hill called Tom Forsyth's Hill. Forsyth operated even in the nineteenth century, and forty horses have been seen there awaiting the arrival of the lugger."

The Northumberland Name Book records the site as being "16 chains N.E. of Bondicarr" - meaning the no-longer existing farm of Bondicarr, which stood to the south of Hauxley, rather than the rocks of the same name. Measuring that distance from the approximate position of the farm would place Tom Forsyth's Hill somewhere around the position of the ponds of Hauxley Nature Reserve, so I suspect any trace of the hill has long been wiped out by the open-cast mine.

I wonder whether anyone has come across this before, or had any further information on it.

The Northumberland Name Books can be viewed here: https://namebooks.org.uk/

[Al88c]

J
I had a look at the old OS Maps on the National Library of Scotland website - really useful because you can split screen with Google Earth. Tom Forsyth's hill is marked on an old map and by matching it's position on Google Earth it's in the Dunes at the very north end of the Nature Reserve. There is a path between the Nature Reserve and the Caravan Park which crosses the Coastal Path (next to the new "art work") and heads down to the beach, it is or was, just south of that. Looks like there has been a fair bit of erosion as part of area named is now on the beach.
Al

[AnnaAtTheAmbler]

So would that be where the lookout post is?

[Al88c]

Further north of the look out post. There is an old boundary hedge that crosses the coastal path next to the new tree trunk sculpture. The boundary shows up on the same OS Map as "Tom Forsyth's Hill". So assuming OS got it right, what remains of Tom's Hill is immediately south of that boundary line.