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Akeld : Transport and Communications

In addition to the adoption of new agricultural techniques facilitated by the construction of coherently planned farm complexes, steady improvements to the area's transport infrastructure also contributed to the prosperity of farming in Glendale's estates during the late 18th and 19th centuries. The main routes from Wooler northward towards Coldstream and westward towards Kirknewton and the Scottish border had been converted into turnpikes by the early 19th century.

The map evidence from Fryer onwards reveals there was a toll bar at Bendor, where, as we have seen, the Black Bull Inn was also located and doubtless profited from feeding and watering travellers along these routes. A certain Margaret Chambers was the innkeeper in the early-mid 19th century (Parson & White's Directory 1827, 517; NRO DT 6M (1841 tithe award), listed as 'Bendor Inn Farm'. The turnpike trusts were gradually wound up in the face of competition from the railways during the mid-late 19th century.

It was not until 1887 that a branch line serving the small communities of Glendale, and operated by the North Eastern Railway (NER), was finally opened, although a number of other schemes intended to serve north and central Northumberland had been put forward previously, all of which were designed to traverse either Glendale or the Milfield Plain. Indeed the origins of the railway owed more to the commercial rivalry of Victorian railway companies than it did to the needs of this sparsely populated, rural part of Northumberland.