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Northumberland

County of England

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Bamburgh Castle
mattbuck · CC BY-SA 2.0

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The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and had an estimated population of 331,420 in 2024, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth, Cramlington, Ashington, Bedlington, and Morpeth, the last of which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, the largest towns being Berwick-upon-Tweed in the far north and Hexham in the south-west. For local government purposes Northumberland is a unitary authority area. The county historically included the parts of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne.

The west of Northumberland contains part of the Cheviot Hills and North Pennines, while to the east the land becomes flatter before reaching the coast. The Cheviot (815 m (2,674 ft)), after which the range of hills is named, is the county's highest point. The county contains the source of the River North Tyne and much of the South Tyne; near Hexham they combine to form the Tyne, which exits into Tyne and Wear shortly downstream. The other major rivers in Northumberland are, from south to north, the Blyth, Wansbeck, Coquet, Aln and Tweed, the last of which forms part of the Scottish border. The county contains Northumberland National Park and two national landscapes: the Northumberland Coast and part of the North Pennines.

Much of the county's history has been defined by its position on a border. In the Roman era most of the county lay north of Hadrian's Wall, and the region was contested between England and Scotland into the Early Modern era, leading to the construction of many castles, peel towers and bastle houses, and the early modern fortifications at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Northumberland is also associated with Celtic Christianity, particularly the tidal island of Lindisfarne. During the Industrial Revolution the area had significant coal mining, shipbuilding, and armaments industries.

History

Name origin

The name of Northumberland is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as norð hẏmbra land, meaning "the land north of the Humber". The name of the kingdom of Northumbria derives from the Old English Norþan-hymbre meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to Southumbria, south of the Humber Estuary.

Before the county

The land has long been an English frontier zone, and it is now bordered to the north by Scotland. Northumberland has a rich prehistory with many instances of rock art, hillforts such as Yeavering Bell, and stone circles such as the Goatstones and Duddo Five Stones. Most of the area was occupied by the Brythonic-Celtic Votadini people, with another large tribe, the Brigantes, to the south.

During the Roman occupation of Britain, most of the present county lay north of Hadrian's Wall. It was controlled by Rome only for the brief period of its extension of power north to the Antonine Wall. The Roman road Dere Street crosses the county from Corbridge over high moorland west of the Cheviot Hills to Melrose, Scottish Borders (Latin: Trimontium). As evidence of its border position through medieval times, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, including prominent ones at Alnwick, Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh, Newcastle, and Warkworth.

Nearly 2,000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vindolanda Trust experts, led by Andrew Birley. Being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, those found at Vindolanda look like leather bands dating back to 120 AD. It is suggested that, based on their difference from gladiator gloves, the gloves were not used in mortal combat, but rather in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.

Present-day Northumberland formed the core of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia from about 547. It was united with Deira (south of the River Tees) to form the kingdom of Northumbria in the 7th century. The boundaries of Northumbria under King Edwin (reigned 616–633) stretched from the Humber in the south to the Forth in the north. Northumberland is often called the "cradle of Christianity" in England because Christianity flourished on Lindisfarne—a tidal island north of Bamburgh, also called Holy Island—after King Oswald of Northumbria (r. 634–642) invited monks from Iona to come to convert the English. The monastery at Lindisfarne was the centre of production of the Lindisfarne Gospels (around 700). It became the home of St Cuthbert (c. 634–687, abbot from c. 665), who is buried in Durham Cathedral.

The Kingdom of Northumbria fragmented into a series of successor states following the Viking invasion. In the south, Viking settlers established the Kingdom of York between the Humber and Tees. However, Viking influence petered out at the Tees, with the river serving as the northern boundary of the Danelaw. Between the Tyne and Tees rivers, the Community of St. Cuthbert emerged as the successors to the Bishops of Lindisfarne; north of the Tyne, the earls of Bamburgh, who traced their lineage back to the Kings of Northumbria, continued to exercise authority and governance over this northern expanse. York was eventually integrated as a shire into the unified Kingdom of England by the House of Wessex. However, the West Saxon governmental structures were not extended beyond Tees, leaving the Earldom of Bamburgh and the Community of St. Cuthbert as contested buffer states with the emerging Kingdom of Scotland.

After the battle of Nechtansmere, Northumbrian influence north of the Tweed began to decline as the Picts gradually reclaimed the land previously invaded by the Anglian kingdom. In 1018, its northern part, the region between the Tweed and the Forth (including Lothian, which includes present-day Edinburgh), was ceded to the Kingdom of Scotland.

As a county

The Earldom of Northumberland was briefly held by the Scottish royal family by marriage, between 1139–1157 and 1215–1217. Scotland relinquished all claims to the region as part of the Treaty of York (1237). The earls of Northumberland once wielded significant power in English affairs because, as powerful and militaristic lords in the Scottish Marches, they had the task of protecting England from Scottish retaliation for English invasions.

Northumberland has a history of revolt and rebellion against the government, as seen in the Rising of the North (1569–1570) against Elizabeth I. These revolts were usually led by the earls of Northumberland, the Percy family. Shakespeare makes one of the Percys, the dashing Harry Hotspur (1364–1403), the hero of his Henry IV, Part 1. The Percys were often aided in conflict by other powerful Northern families, such as the Nevilles and the Patchetts. The latter were stripped of all power and titles by the victorious Parliamentarians after the English Civil War of 1642–1651.

After the Restoration in 1660, the county was a centre for Roman Catholicism in England, as well as a focus of Jacobite support. Northumberland was long a wild county, where outlaws and Border Reivers hid from the law. However, the frequent cross-border skirmishes and accompanying local lawlessness largely subsided after the Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England under King James I and VI in 1603.

Northumberland played a key role in the Industrial Revolution from the 18th century on. Many coal mines operated in Northumberland until the widespread closures in the 1970s and 1980s. Collieries operated at Ashington, Bedlington, Blyth, Choppington, Netherton, Ellington, and Pegswood. The region's coalfields fuelled industrial expansion in other areas of Britain, and the need to transport the coal from the collieries to the Tyne led to the development of the first railways. Shipbuilding and armaments manufacture were other important industries before the deindustrialisation of the 1980s.

The historic county town was Alnwick; assizes were mainly held in Newcastle, with the county gaol in Morpeth. From the county council's formation in 1889 until 1981 Newcastle was the county town, being briefly the county town of two counties when the city became a part of the Tyne and Wear metropolitan county in 1974.

Northumberland remains largely rural, and is the least densely populated county in England. In recent years, the county has had considerable growth in tourism. Visitors are attracted both to its scenic beauty and to its historical sites.

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