Morpeth Herald Office

The Morpeth Herald office, once the Hope and Anchor Inn, keeps one of the old shop fronts intact with a step up above what were dirty streets.

Printers from 1831, the Mackay family printed the Herald from 1854, and the Crimean War figured in the first issue. The Tweeddale Press took it over in 1983.

In front of Mackay’s all was revealed. Original newspaper clippings from the 1800’s described the fatal incident of Miss D’Jeck’s revenge on her keeper, Baptiste Bernard, who, three years previously had “stabbed the noble beast with a pitchfork…”

The presence of elephant dung outside the shop suggested the elephant must have passed this way…