Dunter is a North Country word for the porpoise, which in 1575 was sold in the Newcastle market as food. The porpoise often visits the Tyne and Tees and plays havoc among the salmon by frightening them.
Dunter is also the name of a North of England boggle, hobgoblin, or sprite, and is said to inhabit old castles, dungeons, forts, and peel towers, and to be constantly making a noise as if it was bruising barley in a hollow stone. According to superstitious belief, if this noise is louder than usual there is going to be a death.
The word Dunter occurs as a place name in the county of Durham in Dunter Linn (or Dunter Cascade) on the Rookhope Burn, about a quarter of a mile north of the village of Eastgate in Weardale. On the east side of this burn, and at a distance of about forty yards south of Dunter Linn, was found on the 15th November, 1869, a beautiful Roman altar. It is of millstone grit, 50 inches high, 21 inches wide, and 12 inches thick. On the upper part of the front of the altar are a couple of dolphins facing each other, in between two circles or rings. It is rather curious and interesting that these dolphins or dunters should be on a stone found at a place called Dunter Linn. The altar is inscribed: – DEO SILVANO AURELIUS QUIRENUS P.R.F. – which translated into English is: – To the Deity (or the God) Silvanus, Qurelius Quirinus, a prefect (erects this). Silvanus was the Roman god of the woods, the deity that presided overall the wooded districts.
Durham County Advertiser, 22nd October 1909.