Northumberland

Northumberland, historic county and unitary authority of northeastern England. It is England’s northernmost county, bounded to the north by Scotland, to the east by the North Sea, to the west by the administrative county of Cumbria (historic county of Cumberland), and to the south by the county of Durham. Newcastle was the historic county town (seat) of Northumberland, but Morpeth is the unitary authority’s present administrative centre.

When the former administrative county of Northumberland was converted into a unitary authority in 2009, the six administrative entities into which it had been divided (the districts of Alnwick, Tynedale, and Wansbeck and the boroughs of Berwick-upon-Tweed, Blyth Valley, and Castle Morpeth) were abolished. The historic county of Northumberland includes the entire unitary authority and the metropolitan boroughs of Newcastle upon Tyne and North Tyneside in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear.

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Northumberland is an area of strongly contrasting landscapes, from the agricultural eastern coastal plain and the sparsely populated, rugged hills and moors of the west to the densely populated urban and industrial areas of the Tyne and Blyth river valleys in the south. It is famed for its wild exposed scenery: half the area is mountain and moorland, and the British Forestry Commission holds large areas, notably Kielder, Wark, and Redesdale forests. The Cheviot Hills, rounded uplands with elevations of 1,000 to 2,500 feet (300 to 760 metres), form the Scottish border, while the Pennines extend south to form the western border with Cumbria. The western hills and moors, composed of grits and impure limestone, are deeply dissected by the Rivers Rede and North Tyne. Carboniferous rocks dip east and south from the Cheviot Hills to the coast and the Tyne valley. Along the coast a notable landscape feature is Whin Sill, a doleritic (lava) intrusion that forms the Farne Islands and Bamburgh Castle Rock and carries sections of a Roman wall. The coastal plain, underlain by limestone in the north and coal-bearing rocks in the south, is covered by glacial deposits varying in character from light sands and gravels to heavy clays and loams. The upland soils are thin, acid, and peaty.

The climate is cool because of the northerly latitude, elevation, and exposure to easterly winds. Winters are relatively cold, springs late, and summers cool—temperatures seldom exceed 68 °F (20 °C)—and the coast experiences cool sea fogs. Rainfall is modest, ranging from 25 inches (635 mm) on the coast to 50 inches (1,270 mm) in the Cheviot Hills.

There is considerable evidence of prehistoric settlement before the Romans established control over the area in 122 ce by constructing Hadrian’s Wall from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. After the Romans withdrew in the 5th century, the Germanic Angles gradually gained control of the region. In 547 the Angle king Ida built the fortress at Bamburgh (subsequently the seat of Anglo-Saxon kings) and founded the kingdom of Bernicia. His grandson, Aethelfrith the Destroyer, established the predominance of the Angles in 603 by defeating the combined forces of the Strathclyde Britons and Scots, and he annexed the neighbouring kingdom of Deira in 605. The area between the Firth of Forth and the River Humber became known as Northumbria (i.e., land north of the Humber) and was the most powerful of the 7th-century Anglo-Saxon states. Holy Island (Lindisfarne) was the centre for the spread of Christianity throughout this kingdom.

Danish invaders conquered Northumberland in the 9th century, and the land north of the River Tweed was lost to the Scots. The Normans ruthlessly harried the north in the 11th century and built castles to defend against invasions from Scotland and Scandinavia. Northumberland’s subsequent history until the union of the Scottish and English crowns (1603) is a continuous record of border warfare. The Roman Catholic north rose in support of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1569. In 1644 the Scots captured Newcastle during the English Civil Wars.

Medieval Northumberland prospered from the production and export of wool and hides. Lead, silver, and iron were mined in Allendale from the 12th to the 19th century. Coal was mined in Roman times, and the coal trade between London and the Tyne, centred on Newcastle, expanded rapidly from the 13th century. Shipbuilding consequently developed, and in the early 19th century new investment and inventions (including the steam turbine) created great shipbuilding and repairing works. In the 1830s local iron foundries developed to supply the shipbuilding industry. Other industries dependent on coal also thrived—salt panning at the river mouths and glassmaking, which was introduced in the early 17th century from Lorraine, France. For about a century the Tyneside (now Tyne and Wear) chemical industries were among the most important in the country, but, like the glassworks, they failed to survive. During the late 20th century the heavy industries of the Tyne and Blyth valleys declined, and coal mining ceased, except for a single mine at Ellington. That mine, however, closed in 2005.

Approximately half of the unitary authority of Northumberland is mountain and rough-hill pasture. Nearly all of the rest is medium-quality farmland, and only a small fraction is good farmland. There was little crop production in Northumberland until late in the 18th century, and even in the 1770s at least half of Northumberland was still wasteland. Parts of the moors are still among the most sparsely populated areas of England. The coastal plain produces sheep, cattle, and barley on large, highly mechanized mixed farms that include some of the richest fattening pastures in England. Sheep (mainly cheviots) greatly outnumber cattle. Traditional salmon fishing in the Tyne and Tweed still flourishes. A large publicly managed forest in northwestern Northumbria and northeastern Cumbria, which includes Kielder Water (formed by damming the North Tyne), is utilized for timber extraction and for recreation.

The larger towns and industrial villages—such as Blyth, Cramlington, Bedlington, and Ashington—are found in the south and east, Alnwick and Berwick-upon-Tweed are the principal towns of the northeast, and the sparsely populated fells are served by the small market towns of Wooler, Rothbury, and Bellingham. An industrial complex on the River Blyth in the southeast produces electrical machinery, electronic equipment, and light manufactures. Service activities, including those related to tourism, play an increasingly important economic role. The region’s numerous castles and manor houses, the forest and lake area in the northwest, and Northumberland National Park (which contains a portion of Hadrian’s Wall) adjacent to the forest all attract visitors. The unitary authority’s economy is closely linked to that of the neighbouring metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear. Area unitary authority, 1,936 square miles (5,013 square km). Pop. (2001) unitary authority, 307,190; (2011) unitary authority, 316,028.