Northumbria or Northumberland?
4th February 2009 | Southlands Farm News
“Are you Northumberland Cottages or Northumbrian Cottages?” That was the question I was asked at the beginning of a telephone conversation recently. To be honest, although I often wonder about our local history and the folk that came before and sculpted our county and it’s culture, I’ve never really thought too much about the question, so I have done a little reading….
Northumbria is an historic term which describes the ancient kingdom of King Edwin which stretched from the Humber in the south to the Firth of Fourth in the North. Northumberland on the other hand was first mentioned when an account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, was entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.
Whatever you choose to call this rather special place, it is not an empty wilderness, it was lawless and known as The Contested Lands, but a lot happened here:
Hadrian’s Wall, according to English Heritage; “the most important monument built by the Romans in Britain” and it was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 to boot
Howick is home to “Britain’s oldest house” constructed about 7600BC.
Northumberland is sometimes called “The cradle of Christianity” because it was on Lindisfarne (Holy Island) that the monks From Iona settled. Lindisfarne was the home of Saint Cuthbert and the Lindisfarne Gospels.
Prior to the unification of England Bamburgh was the historic capital of Northumberland. The Lords of Northumberland were a bolshy lot, they were largly responsible for keeping the Scots out and so wielded a lot of power. They were also a rebellious lot, particularly the Percys. (The Rising of the North in Tudor times and Harry Hotspur in Henry IV part1)
Northumberland was also a Roman Catholic stronghold, and is riddled with Priest holes, being as it was; stuck between the Jacobites and the English Crown.
In more recent times we have had a rich industrial history with coal mines, George Stephenson and the Rocket, shipbuilding and armaments manufacture (Vicars Armstrong)
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