Ford and Etal are two estate villages a mile and a half apart on the River Till, a few miles from the Scottish border and further north than most visitors realise England goes. They are small and quiet, with plenty to see for an area this size.
The outstanding sight is Lady Waterford Hall in Ford, the old village school. In the 1860s and 1870s Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford, covered its walls with large watercolour murals of Bible stories, and used the villagers and their children as her models. Etal has a thatched pub, the Black Bull, and the ruins of Etal Castle, which fell to James IV's army days before Flodden.
Between the two villages the narrow-gauge Heatherslaw Light Railway runs along the river, and the Heatherslaw Corn Mill still grinds flour by water. Flodden battlefield, where James IV was killed in 1513, is a few miles west at Branxton.