The scenery of Allendale was a major influence on the extraordinary painter John Martin, born in Haydon Bridge. His great celestial landscape The Plains of Heaven, now in the Tate Gallery, is thought to be based on his native valley, while the celebrated The Bard in Newcastle's Laing Art Gallery, owes much to Staward Pele, stunningly positioned between the Allen on the west and Harsondale Cleugh on the east. Late in life he painted the strangely disturbing Valley of the Tyne, My Native Country Near Henshaw (1842).
Martin attended the grammar school in Haydon Bridge before studying art in Newcastle for three years, but it was after Martin moved to London that he began to execute the grandiose scenes of biblical destruction which are regarded as typical of his style. He achieved huge popularity: a print of his Belshazzar's Feast (now in the Laing Gallery) hung on the Brontes' parlour wall at Howarth. Charlotte and Branwell copied his prints, and their juvenile stories set in Angria or Glasstown, show the influence of Martin's fantasy architecture and landscape. In fact, Martin himelf appears as Edward de Lisle of Verdopolis, painter of Babylon. His dramatic Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion (now in the Southampton Art gallery) inspired a Shelley poem.
Such popularity could hardly last. Martin was out of place in the age of Turner and Constable, neither of whom thought well of him. John Ruskin was also a severe critic. Nevertheless, a large painting by Martin can still fetch close to a million pounds today, and his influence can still be seen in the architecture and special effects of Hollywood's biblical extravaganzas.