Catcherside is a lonely fortified farmhouse high on the Ottercops Moss in  Northumberland. Seven miles from Otterburn on the A696 it forms part of the  Wallington Estates, now administered by the National Trust, but in more  troubled times the homes of the Fenwicks, the Blacketts, and from the  eigtheenth century the Trevelyan's. The name - first noted in 1274 - comes  from Anglo-Saxon 'Cald cheer side'. This means a bleak looking hill and might  be compared with Cold Comfort Farm. 
 The farmstead is in the Parish of Kirkwhelpington in Redesdale. This was a  particularly lawless area in the Middle March under Border Law, and life must  have been pretty grim there. G.M. Trevelyan records that it was the duty of  the occupants of this isolated farmstead ro ride down into Wallington to warn  them when the Scots raiders were active on moonlit nights. The site is shown  as being fortified in a map of fortifications on the border in 1584.

No wonder there appear to have been waves of people leaving the farm and  taking with them the name as an identifier - my own ancestors had settled in  nearby Stamfordham by the eighteenth century, and farmed there, and various  children farmed elsewhere in Northumberland - including Bolam by Bedlington  and St. John Lee.

After Newcastle was opened to wild borderers in about 1800 my ancestors moved  into the City and became merchants and shopkeepers. My Great Grandfather branched out  into music hall and was a partner in the famous Livermore Brothers Court Minstrels.

There are of course other and probably older emigrants - with various  spellings - who moved into Durham and Sunderland by about 1600, and from there  down the East Coast to London. There is also to be an American branch of  Ketcherside dating from settlers of the eighteenth century, who may well have gone to  America to flee the punishments dished out to Jacobites afer the 1845 Rebellion.

There have been a number of famous Catchesides. David Guthrie Catcheside (1907 -  1994) was an outstanding microbiolist and the "Father of Australian Microbiology". He  features in many pages on the web, and was also in "Who's Who". Howard Carston Catcheside played Rugby Union for England 1924-1927. H scored in every  international in the 1924 season, establishing a record that was unequalled until the  1970s. He was Chairman of the England RU Selection Committee during the highly  successful period 1950-61.
 Catcheside-Warrington (Charles Ernest Catcheside)1859 - 1937 was a music hall artist  who went on to become a collector and arranger of "Geordie" songs. His music can  still be bought at Windows of Newcastle.
 Horace William Hindmarsh Catcheside 1882-1941 was the musical director of the London  Palladium for over a decade, and as Horace Sheldon was the MD of the 1931 Royal  Variety Performance. He represented the Palladium at Marie Lloyd's funeral in 1922. Robert Hall the Younger 1764-1931was a renowned Baptist preacher, and his biographers  say that owed much of his character to the superior intelligence and strong  Presbyterianism of his mother Jane Catcheside.
 A Mr. Catcheside was appointed by Parliament to bear the ewer for King Charles I  during his close confinement at Hurst Castle before he was taken to London for his  trial.

If you wish to contact me to pursue and enquiries, or to contribute new information,  please contact me at paul.catcheside@hotmail.co.uk