NORTHUMBERLAND, a county (maritime), and,
excepting a detached part of the county of Durham,
the most northern of England; bounded on the east
by the North sea, or German Ocean, and by a small
detached portion of the county of Durham, called Bedlingtonshire,
which is situated on the coast, between
the mouths of the rivers Blyth and Wansbeck; on the
south, by the county of Durham'; on the west, by
Cumberland, and by Roxburghshire in Scotland; and
on the north, by the Scottish county of Berwick, from
which it is separated by the Tweed; and by the larger
detached part of Burham (divided into Norhamshire
and Islandshire), which includes Holy Island, and a
large triangular space, the two other sides of which are
bounded by the river Tweed and the North sea. It
extends from 54° 51' to 55° 41' (N. Lat), and from
1° 9' to 2° 28' (W. Lon.), and includes an area of
one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one square
miles, or one million one hundred and ninety-seven
thousand four hundred and forty statute acres. The
population, in 1821, was 198,965. The historical
notices respecting the aboriginal inhabitants of Northumberland
are extremely scanty. According to Ptolemy,
the people inhabiting the tract of sea-coast which
extends from the river Tyne to the Frith of Forth',
were called the Otodini; to the west of whom, in tne
mountainous districts, and in Tiviotdale, were seated
the Gadeni; both which tribes appear to have been
either dependent on, or confederated with, the Brigantes,
whose extensive territory lying southward, included
some portion of the south-western part of this
county. The Romans did not penetrate into this part
of Britain until the year 79, when Agricola led his
legions into the north, and partly by the terror of
his arms, and partly by the fame of his clemency,
subjugated the country; to secure which he erected a
chain of forts extending from the Solway Frith to Tynemouth.
This barrier, however, being soon broken
through by the British refugees, in conjunction with the
Britons of Caledonia, the Emperor Adrian constructed
a rampart of earth, which, connecting the forts of Agricola,
likewise extended across the county from sea to
sea. The Brigantes who settled north of this wall appear
to have assumed the name of Meatce, supposed
to be derived from the British word meath, a plain. In
the reign of Antoninus Pius, about the year 140, the
Meats fought several severe battles with the Romans
under Lollius Urbicus, who at length re-conquered the
whole country as far as the isthmus, between the Friths
of Forth and Clyde, where the Roman commander, by
the emperor's order, constructed a second rampart, after
the manner of Adrian's, and upon the same line along
which Agricola had also previously built a second chain
of forts. The country between the two ramparts being,
however, again devastated by the barbarians, theEmperor
Severus, about the year 207, took the field against them
in person; and entering Caledonia at the head of a
large army, compelled the inhabitants to purchase peace
by the surrender of a large portion of territory; on his
return he repaired and strengthened Adrian's, rampart.
During his subsequent indisposition at York, the
Meatae and Caledonians recommenced hostilities, which
so much exasperated him, that he resolved upon
their utter extermination: his son Caracalla led the
army to the north; but, on the death of his father,
which soon afterwards ensued, he hastily concluded a
dishonourable peace, and returned to the southern
provinces of Britain, the more effectually to prosecute
his claims to the empire. A chasm of more than seventy
years now occurs in the Romanhistory of Britain; and we
find nothing on record regarding this particular district,
until the year 306, about which time Constantine the
Great, having allayed the disturbances on the northern
frontiers., entrusted their defence to an officer, styled Duke
of Britain, who had under him fourteen thousand foot,
and nine hundred horse, being more than two-thirds
of the whole Roman force in the island. In the reigns
of the succeeding emperors, the rampart was frequently
broken through by the northern tribes, denominated
Scots, Picts, and Attacotes, and the contiguous
districts on the south depopulated in the most
savage and unrelenting manner. At length the Emperor
Valentinian having sent over Theodosius with a
formidable body of troops, that commander repelled
the barbarians, and recovered all the country between
the wall of Severus and the rampart of Antoninus,
which tract now received the name of Valentia,
and was added, as a fifth province, to the four into
which the more southern parts of the island were
divided. About the year 380, Maximus having withdrawn
the Roman forces from Britain, to support him
in aspiring to the government of the eastern provinces
of the empire, the Scots and Picts renewed their incursions
with dreadful success, until the arrival of the
legion under the command of Stilicho, which was sent
over to expel the northern invaders and to guard the
rampart, but which, on the death of Theodosius in 402,
was recalled to Italy to repel the Gothic invaders iinder
Alaric. It is believed to have been during the stay of
this legion in Britain that the wall was added to the
former line of defensive works across this part of the
country: this was a massive bulwark of stone, defended
by an outer ditch, and guarded by an interior chain of
forts and military stations, many vestiges of it still
being visible: it extended in a line nearly parallel with
Adrian's barrier, and at a very short distance from it.
The Britons being left without the safeguard of a Roman
force, and the extinction of the Roman authority
in the island speedily following, a number of petty states
sprang up, which were continually involved in sanguinary
dissensions, whereby the barbarians of the north were
more easily able to carry their devastations into the very
heart of South Britain. The district north of the Tyne,
under the name of Bernicia, formed at this period one
of the numerous independent sovereignties.
The establishment of the Saxon dominion in this
part of the country took place about the year 547,
when the Saxon chief, Ida, landed at Flamborough, and
after many obstinate conflicts, drove the Northumbrian
Britons from the vicinity of the coast, and subsequently
obtained' sole dominion in the province of Bernicia,
which appears to have comprised all the country
between the Tyne and the Frith of Forth. Having assumed
the title of King of Bernicia, he erected the
strong fortress of Bambrough, on the coast opposite the
Farn isles, in a remarkably eligible situation, and made
it his principal residence; his reign was one of almost
incessant warfare with the Scots and the fugitive Britons,
and he was at length slain in battle by Owen, in
560, being succeeded by his son Adda. At the same
period, Jilla, one of the chieftains who had come
over with Ida, made himself master of the province
or kingdom of De'ira, being the whole of the country
between the Tyne and the Humber. The two sovereignties
were united by Ethelfrith, grandson of
Ida, who having ascended the Bernician throne in
593, invaded De'ira, then under the government of
Edwin, son of JLlla, who had succeeded at the age of
three years, and by expelling this infant monarch and
espousing his sister Ethelfrith, became the first king of
Northan-hymbra-land, as it is called in the ancient Saxon,
signifying the land, or country, north of the Humber;
which name was contracted by the Anglo-Saxons into
Northymbraland, and has since been slightly corrupted
into Northumberland, being in modern times confined to
that portion of country only which lies on the eastern
side of the island, between the rivers Tyne and Tweed,
which was but a small part of the ancient Northumberland,
or Northumbria, as it is called according to the
Latin orthography. The young Edwin having found a
protector in Redwald, King of East-Anglia, Ethelfrith
waged war against the latter, and was slain in a battle
fought on the banks of the Idle, in Nottinghamshire;
upon which event Edwin, supported by the arms of
Redwald, entered the capital of Northumbria, and in
617 was restored to the throne. Cwichelm, King of
Wessex, having employed an assassin to murder Edwin
in his palace, and the attempt failing, Edwin marched
a powerful army against Cwichelm, and after devastating
the kingdom of Wessex, returned to Northumberland
in triumph. The reign of this prince was
distinguished by the introduction of Christianity into
the North of England, at the instance of his queen,
a daughter of the Christian king of Kent, under whose
influence the Roman missionary Paulinus succeeded in
converting the Northumbrian sovereign and his people.
Edwin was now the greatest prince of the Heptarchy,
distinguished both by his influence over the other kingdoms,
and by his strict and impartial administration of
justice in his own dominions. He subdued a considerable
part of Wales, including the isle of Anglesey, and
for some time all the British princes paid him tribute;
but the latter forming an alliance with Penda, King of
Mercia, their united forces defeated those of Edwin on
Hatfield Chase, in Yorkshire, who, with his son Osfrid,
perished in the battle: Edwin's widow and his other
children, together with the Archbishop Paulinus, were
now compelled to take' refuge in Kent, and Northumbria
was again divided into two kingdoms, and reverted
to paganism; Bernicia being taken possession
of by Eanfrid, the son of Ethelfrid, who now returned
from his exile in Scotland; and JDei'ra by Osric, a
cousin of Edwin. The former .of these princes having
perished by treachery, and the latter in battle against
Cadwallon the Briton, Oswald, brother of Eanfrid, in
634, again united the two provinces; this prince surprised
the camp of Cadwallon near Hexham, where,
after a sanguinary conflict, he gained a complete victory
over the Britons, who could never after successfully
make head against the Saxons. In this reign the see of
Lindisfarne was founded, and in a few years the church
of Northumbria was fixed on a solid and- permanent
basis. Oswald being slain in battle against Penda, the
pagan king of Mercia, at Oswestry in- Shropshire, the
latter ravaged Northumberland, but, being unable to
make himself master of the royal city of Bambrough,
he marched back to oppose the East Anglians, and the
ancient division of Northumbria was once more revived;
Oswy, the brother of Oswald, being elected king of
Bernicia, while Oswin, son of Osric, the last king of
De'ira, assumed the sceptre of the latter province. Penda,
King of Mercia, still exhibiting the most inveterate
malignity against the Northumbrians of Bernicia, again
marched against Oswy, who met, defeated, and slew
him near Leeds.
In 664, on the death of Adelwald, who had succeeded
his father Oswin on the throne of Dei'ra, Oswy
assumed the latter sovereignty. In the same year a
council was held in Whitby abbey, to determine the
proper time for the celebration of Easter. The dispute
was conducted with great acrimony, and terminated
against the opinion of the Scottish clergy; which
circumstance is thought to have had some influence
in protracting the subsequent wars between the Northumbrians
and their northern neighbours. Oswy died
in 670, and was succeeded by his son Egfrid, who,
after repelling an incursion of the Picts, waged a violent
war against the Mercians, which was terminated by the
mediation of Theodore, Archbishop of York, after a
sanguinary battle had been fought on the banks of the
Trent. By the unsuccessful wars of this prince, the
limits of the Northumbrian kingdom were afterwards
greatly diminished; the Welch made encroachments on
the western side, and the Picts on the northern, as far
as the Solway and the Tweed. Alefrid, or Alfred, the
natural son of Oswy, was raised to the throne on the
demise of his brother; he was a meritorious prince attentive
to the welfare of his subjects, and reigned in
peace over Northumbria for seventeen years. But from
the time of this sovereign's death, in 705, until the kingdom
became tributary to Egbert, King of Wessex, in
828, excepting only the vigorous reign of Eadbert, from
737 to 759, Northumberland seems to have been little
else than a scene of the most frightful anarchy; one
tyrannical usurper succeeding another on the throne,
and one after another falling by open rebellion, or
treacherous assassination; insomuch that the Emperor
Charlemagne declared that the Northumbrians were more
perfidious than pagans. It was under King Eardulf,
who had been liberated from eonfinement through the
intervention of that powerful potentate, by a bull from
Pope Leo III., that Northumberland first became tributary
to Wessex, being the last kingdom of the Octarchy
which acknowledged that subjection.
The short period of tranquillity it now enjoyed was
interrupted by the descents of the Danes, to which its
situation particularly exposed it, who inflicted upon it
a devastation still more horrible than it had ever before
experienced. Northumbria ceased to be an Anglo-
Saxon kingdom in 867, when' Ivar, the Dane, assumed
the government of all the country between the Humber
and the Tyne; the people north of the Tyne then chose
Egbert as their sovereign.; but ten years afterwards
Halfden completed the conquest of their country, which
he parcelled out amongst his Danish officers, and in
which the Danes became permanently settled, this being
a part of the territory which, by treaty with Alfred,
they were allowed peaceably to occupy. After Alfred's
death, the Northumbrian Danes soon threw off their subjection;
and when Athelstan ascended the English throne,
in 925, Sygtryg, the Dane, enjoyed the title of King of
Northumbria. To secure the attachment of the Anglo-
Danes, Athelstan gave one of his sisters in marriage to
the Northumbrian prince, who at the same time embraced
Christianity, but he afterwards returned to paganism,
and repudiated his wife; upon which Athelstan
led his army through the -whole extent of the Northumbrian
territory, and annexed it to his paternal dominions.
This conquest was finally completed by the great
battle of Brunanburh, in which Athelstan and his son so
signally overthrew the combined forces of the Scotch,
Welch, Irish, and Danes, and which, among the various
parts of the country where, by different antiquaries,
it has been thought to have taken place, has been supposed
by some to have been fought within the limits of
the present Northumberland. But the Northumbrian
Danes again revolted against Athelstan's successor,
Edmund, and subsequently against Edred, who desolated
their country, and under whom it ceased to be
a nominal kingdom, being reduced to an earldom. I*
was soon after involved in the Danish conquest of
all the North of England, which ensued upon the impolitic
massacre of the Danes of the South, by command
of Ethelred II. In the reign of Edward the Confessor,
an army of Northumbrians, under Malcolm, son
of the murdered Duncan, King of Scotland, and Siward,
Earl of Northumberland, entered Scotland, destroyed
the usurper Macbeth, and seated Malcolm on the throne.
The rapacity of Tostig, brother to Harold, afterwards
King of England, -who was appointed Earl of Northumberland
on the death of Siward, provoked the people
to revolt, and elect Morcar for their earl, which election
was confirmed by King Edward. After the death of
the latter, Harold espoused the sister of Morcar, and
defeated his brother Tostig, who attempted to resume
his authority in Northumberland. It was also at the
instigation of Tostig that Harfagar, King of Norway,
undertook the formidable invasion of England, which
terminated in Harold's memorable victory at Stamfordbridge,
when the expelled earl and the Norwegian king
were both slain.
In this part of England, the resistance to the
Norman conquerors was the most obstinate, and the
revolts against their power the most frequent and formidable.
The unsparing devastation which this persevering
resistance of the northern English brought
upon them from the vengeance of the Conqueror was
such, that this county, in common with the remainder
of that district, lay uncultivated and unpeopled for a.
century after. To this desolation is attributed the
omission in the Norman survey of the northern counties
of Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, and
Westmorland. Nearly a century later, however, about
the year 1170, it was included in the survey made by
order of Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, of all the
ancient demesne lands and possessions of his bishoprick,
which is recorded in a small folio volume, called
"Boldon Buke," still existing in the office of the bishop's
auditor, at Durham. The succession of the earls of
Northumberland after the Conquest may be thus briefly
summed up, nearly in the words' of Camden;- Copsi,
being made earl by William the Conqueror, expelled
Osulf, the former earl, who soon after slew him at
Newbiirn, bufr did not long survive this revenge, being
killed by a javelin from the hands of a robber. Gospatric
then purchased the earldom of the Conqueror,
but was soon deposed. Waltheof, the son of Siward,
succeeded him, but was soon after beheaded on a charge
of treason brought against him by his wife, niece to
the Conqueror. Walcher, Bishop of Durham, next enjoyed
the earldom, but was slain in a riotous assemblage
of the people. Robert Mowbray then attained this
honour, which he forfeited by attempting to depose
William Rufus in favour of Stephen, Earl of Albemarle.
King Stephen gave the earldom to Henry, son of David,
King of Scots; and his son William afterwards assumed
the title in right of his mother, who was of the family of
the Earls of Warren. Some time afterwards, Richard I.
sold it to Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, for life;
but when that king had been made prisoner in his return
from the Holy Land, the same bishop having contributed
what Richard considered too small a sum towards
his ransom, the king divested him of his earldom,
and the title lay dormant for about one hundred and
eighty years, until it was revived in the ancient family
of Percy, in which it still continues.
The period of the Norman Conquest may be regarded
as the commencement of that long era of rivalry .between
the English and the Scottish crowns, which occasioned
an almost uninterrupted series of hostilities
upon the common border of the two kingdoms, until
the accession of James VI. of Scotland to the English
crown. The military movements which took place in
this county during these five centuries are far too numerous
to be here detailed: the following are some 01
the most remarkable. In 1043, Alnwick was successfully
defended against Malcolm, King of Scots, and his eldest
son Edward, both of whom were surprised and slain by
Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland. In 1095,
Tynemouth castle, under Earl Robert de Mowbray (who
had revolted in consequence of his having received
no reward for his victory at Alnwick), after a siege of
two months, was taken by William Rufus; but the earl
escaped to Bambrough castle, which the king immediately
invested, but being unable to take it by siege,
he commenced a blockade, by building a castle, called
Malvoisin, to interrupt supplies from the surrounding
country, when the earl, endeavouring to escape, was
taken prisoner at Tynemouth, and his wife surrendered
Bambrough castle to the king, on his threatening to put
out her husband's eyes if she refused; the earl was
carried to Windsor castle, where he suffered a long imprisonment.
In 1073, Harbottle castle was taken by
William, King of Scotland, who shortly after, at the
siege of Alnwick, was defeated and made prisoner. In
1215 and 1216 Northumberland was ravaged by an
army of Flemings, under King John, in consequence of
the' barons of the county having done homage to Alexander
of Scotland, at Felton-hall. In 1244, at Ponteland,
peace was concluded between England and Scotland,
through the medium of the prior of Tynemouth. In
1295, Carham was burned by Sir William Wallace. In
1302, on Red Rigs, near Yeavering, ten thousand Scots,
under Earl Douglas, were defeated by Henry, Lord Percy,
and George, Earl of March. In July 1314, after the
battle of Bannockburn, Harbottle castle was taken by the
Scots. In 1316, Tynemouth priory was plundered by
the insurgents under Sir William Middleton and Walter
de Serlby, who were shortly after taken prisoners, sent
to London, and hanged. In 1318, Harbottle, Milford,
and Werk castles were demolished by the Scots; and,
in 1333, Bambrough castle, in which was Philippa,
Queen of Edward III., was ineffectually besieged by
them. In 1341, Newcastle was successfully defended
by Sir John Nevill, against David, King of Scotland.
In 1346, Hexham priory was pillaged, and the surrounding
country devastated, by David, King of Scotland.
In 1388, at Otterburn, on the 9th of August,
the English were defeated, having two thousand five
hundred men killed and wounded, and one thousand,
with their commander, Sir Ralph Percy, taken prisoners,
by the Scots, whose general, Earl Douglas, was
slain j which battle furnished the subject of the celebrated
ballad of Chevy Chase, in which, however, there
are material deviations from truth. In 1414, the
Scots were defeated at Yeavering, by Sir Robert Umfraville,
Lord Warden of the Marches; and in 1419,
Werk castle was taken by them, but retaken by the English.
In 1463, Margaret, Queen of Henry VI., having
landed from France at Berwick, advanced to Bambrough
castle, which she took, and proceeded to Hexham, near
which town was fought, on Lyvel's plain, on the 24th of
June, the celebrated battle in which she was defeated by
John Nevill, Lord Montague, brother of the great Earl
of Warwick, when her general, the Duke of Somerset,
with Lords Ros and Hungerford, were taken prisoners,
and she herself, with her son, Prince Edward, after
falling into the hands of banditti, at length escaped
into Scotland, and thence to Flanders. After this
victory, Bambrough and Dunstonbrough castles were
taken from the Lancastrians by the Earl of Warwick,
who also besieged the French garrison in that of Alnwick,
which, however, was rescued by the arrival of a
Scottish army under the Earl of Angus. A few days
before the battle of Hexham, a body of Lancastrians,
on their march to join the queen, had been defeated
by Lord Montague, on Hedgeley moor. James IV; of
Scotland, in his invasion of the north of England in
1513, took Etal castle; but a division of his army was
routed on Millfield plain, by the men of Durham, under
Sir William Bulmer; and on the 9th of September, on
Branxton-Westfield, near Flodden Hill, the Scotch sustained
that signal defeat from the English forces under
the Earl of Surrey, in which their king, with the flower
of his nobility, and about ten thousand men, was slain.
In 1523, Werk castle was successfully defended against
the Scots and their French auxiliaries, under the Scottish
Regent, the Duke of Albany. In 1640, the army of
the Scottish covenanters, under General Leslie, having
crossed the border, defeated the king's forces under
Lord Conway at Newburn.
On the brealdng out of the parliamentary war,
this was one of the four northern counties which,
together with the town of Newcastle, were placed by
the king under the command of the Earl of Newcastle,
who levied a considerable army in this part of England
at his own expense. In 1644, General Leslie again entered
Northumberland, and after capturing the castle
of Tynemouth, besieged Newcastle unsuccessfully; but
after a second siege, which continued from August 14th
to October 22nd, it surrendered to the Earl of Callender
and General Leven. At the time of, the unsuccessful
movement in the year 1648, in favour of the captive
king, Charles I., the garrison of Tynemouth castle having
declared for the king, it was taken by assault by the
parliamentarians, and its governor beheaded. In the
ill-concerted rebellion of 1715, the friends of the Stuart
family assembled on the 6th of October at Greenrigs,
under the conduct of Mr. Thomas Foster, member of
parliament for the county, and on Waterfalls-hill were
joined by the Earl of Derwentwater, after which they
proceeded to Rothbury. The next day they marched to
Warkworth, and on the 10th they passed through Alnwick
to Morpeth, where their number -was about three
hundred horse. Finding the gates of Newcastle shut
against them, they marched to Hexham, where they
proclaimed James III., and on the 19th returned to
Rothbury, where they formed a junction with the Scots
under Viscount Kenmure. On the 20th they marched
to Wooler, and thence proceeded to Kelso in Scotland.
Of the three marches into which the northern borders
were anciently divided, the Middle march, comprising
Tyndale and Reedsdale, was within the present limits
of this county, the greater part'of the Western march
being included in that of Cumberland, and of the eastern
in the detached portion of the county of Durham, which
extends to the mouth of the Tweed. Each of these
marches was governed by a lord-warden, with almost
unlimited authority. These border jurisdictions, and
their laws, were abolished in the early part of the seventeenth
century, on the accession of James VI. of Scotland
to the English throne. Many of the moss-troopers,
however, as the border plunderers were commonly
called, still continued their depredations, until they
were checked by an edict which prohibited all borderers,
except gentlemen of rank, from wearing weapons.
The civil war in the reign of Charles I., however,
afforded some of them an opportunity of resuming
their ancient practices; and in the reign of Charles II.,
several fresh statutes were enacted against the' mosstroopers,
who are stated in the preambles to have
been very numerous. So lately as the year 1701, the
police of Tyndale and of Reedsdale was maintained by
officers called country-keepers, who, for a certain sum,
ensured their respective districts against theft and
robbery. Many of the borderers were engaged in the
rebellion of 1715; but in the course of the last century,
their ancient peculiarities have entirely disappeared, and
their habits, manners, and customs, have become assimilated
to those of their countrymen in general.
Northumberland is contained in the diocese of Durham,
excepting the parishes of Allendale, Hexham
St. John Lee, and Throckington, which are included in
that of York; it is in the province of York, and forms
an archdeaconry, which includes the five deaneries of
Alnwick, Bambrough, Corbridge, Morpeth, and Newcastle,
and comprises eighty-seven parishes, of which
eighteen are rectories, forty-one vicarages, and the
remainder perpetual curacies. For purposes of civil
government it is divided into six wards, viz., those
of Bambrough (North and South), Castle (East and
West), Coquetdale (East, North, South, and West),
Glendale (East and West), Morpeth (East and West),
and Tindale (East, North-East, North-West, South, and
West). It contains the borough, market, and sea-port
town of Newcastle; the borough and market-town of
Morpeth; the market and sea-port town of North
Shields; the market-towns of Allendale, Alnwick,
Belford, Bellingham, Haltwhistle, Hexham, Rothbury,
and Wooler; and the small sea-port towns of Alnmouth,
Bamborough, Blyth, Hartley, Seaton, and Warkworth.
Two knights are returned to parliament for
the shire, and two representatives for each of the
boroughs; the county members are elected at Alnwick.
This county is included in the northern circuit: the
assizes are held at Newcastle, and the quarter sessions
alternately at Newcastle, Morpeth, Hexham, and Alnwick;
the county goal is at Morpeth; there are fortythree
acting magistrates. The rates raised in the county
for the year ending March 25th, .1827, amounted to
£78.923.17, the expenditure to £79,11717 of which
£69.290.7. was applied to the relief of the poor.
The surface, of the county is very various; along the
sea-coast it is nearly level, but nearer the middle it is
more diversified, and rises into large swelling ridges,
which are separated by the principal rivers; these districts
are well enclosed, and in some parts are adorned,
with woods and plantations, which, however, are but
thinly scattered. The whole western side of the county
is an open, mountainous, and uncultivated tract. ur
these mountainous districts, the parts around O£eviot
are the most valuable, being in general line
green hills, in an endless variety of form, and enclosing
numerous deep, narrow, and sequestered glens:
they extend from the source of the Coquet down
to Allenton, and thence northward to
Branton, Ilderton, Wooler, Kirknewton, an
and occupy an area of at least ninety thousand acres.
The other mountainous tracts are not marked by any
striking irregularities of surface, being in general open,
extensive, elevated, solitary wastes,, having little vege-
tation besides heath, and affording an extremely scanty
subsistence to the flocks that are depastured upon
them: the greatest expanse of these reaches from the
Roman wall to the borders of the Coquet, and beyond
that river includes the moors to the north of Rothbury.
The whole of the mountainous tracts are included in the
three wards of Tindale, Coquetdale, and Glendale; and
comprise about four hundred and fifty thousand acres
,of land, which is unfit for any kind of cultivation.
These three wards, however, contain also a considerable
portion of enclosed and cultivated country; and the
three others, namely Bambrough ward, Morpeth ward,
and] Castle ward, all which adjoin the sea-coast, being
without any mountainous tracts, have long been under
cultivation: the vast beds of coal, also, which these
three possess, and the increased population which the
coal trade has occasioned in them, give them a decided
pre-eminence in wealth, although in magnitude they are
far inferior, occupying less than one-fourth of the whole
county. At the distance of a mile from the main land,
opposite the mouth of the river Coquet, is Coquet island,
which is about a mile in circumference. The Farn
islands, situated off the coast, to the south of Coquet
Island, form two groups of islets and rocks, seventeen
in number, several other rocky points appearing above
the surface of the sea at low water; the one nearest to
the shore, from which it is distant a mile and sixty-eight
chains, is called House island.
The climate, with regard to temperature, is very variable,
and generally changes to extremes. Upon the
mountains snow often continues for several months,
and frequently to a considerable depth, when none is to
be seen in the lower districts. In the spring months,
cold, piercing, easterly winds are the most prevalent;
and the longest droughts experienced are always accompanied
by them; in some parts of Northumberland,
in consequence of the slow progress of vegetation
whenever they continue for a few weeks, they have
received the provincial name of sea pines; and so
great is the cold attending them, that hardly any benefit
is experienced from rain which falls during their
prevalence. Mild breezes from the west and south are
rarely experienced earlier in the year than the month of
June; they are the certain harbingers of rain and vigorous
vegetation, and are the most prevailing winds
during the summer and autumn; in the latter season
they often blow with tempestuous fury, and frequently
do great damage by shaking out the grain from the
ears of corn.
The various soils are disposed as follows; a strong
fertile clayey loam occupies the level tract of country
along the sea-coast, and, in its whole length, almost
every where extends as far inland as the great north
road from London to Edinburgh: it is well adapted
to the culture of wheat, pulse, and clover, and to
the purposes of grazing. Sandy, gravelly, and dry
loam, or what is generally called a turnip soil, is
found on the banks of the Tyne, from Newburn to
Haltwhistle; on those of the Coquet about and above
Rothbury; on those of the Aln, from its mouth to
Alnwick; and on the borders of the Tweed; but a still
greater extent of this kind of soil is found in the
vales of Breamish, Beaumont, and the river Till. The
hills surrounding the Cheviot mountains are mostly of
a dry, sharp-pointed, gravelly loam. Moist loams on a
cold, wet, and clayey bottom occupy a large portion of
the county, prevailing most in the middle and southeastern
parts of it: the soil which is composed of
them is unsafe for sheep, and unfit for turnips, and is
principally employed in the production of grain, the
rearing of young cattle, and the feeding of ewes and
lambs. Black peat-earth is the prevailing soil in most
of the mountainous districts, and is found in many
places in the lower parts of the county.
On the arable lands the following rotations of crops
are commonly practised, viz.: on the clayey soils, first,
fallow; second, wheat; third, clover for one or two years,
pastured by sheep; fourth, beans or peas: on dry strong
loams, first, turnips; second, barley j third and fourth,
clover or grass seeds, pastured for two or. three years
by sheep, and a small number of cattle; fifth oats;
sixth, beans or peas; seventh, wheat; and lastly, on the
sandy and dry loams, after having been ploughed from
grass, first, oats; second, turnips; third, barley or wheat,
with clover, which is pastured for three or more years by
sheep and a small number of cattle. Wheat is extensively
cultivated, the produce varying considerably, but aver
aging from twenty-four to thirty bushels per acre. Rye
was formerly the principal grain grown upon all the light
dry soils, but it is now only grown on very sandy land;
the produce is from twenty to thirty bushels per acre;
the chief part of the rye grown here, and considerable
quantities which are imported from abroad, are consumed
in the southern parts of the county, where it
forms the common bread of the labouring class; after
being leavened until it gains a considerable degree of
acidity, it is made into loaves and baked in a large
brick oven, or made into cakes of one and a half
or two inches thick, called " sour cakes," and baked
on the girdle: this is very firm, solid, and darkcoloured,
and retains its moistness longer than any
other kind of bread. "Wheat and rye mixed, provincially
called maslin, is sown in some parts of the
county, and bread made from the grain thus raised,
which is of finer quality than when the two species
are grown separately, is esteemed by many as much
superior to that made from wheat alone. Barley is
grown to a considerable extent, being generally sown
after turnips; the produce is from thirty to sixty
bushels per acre; great quantities of this grain are
made into pearl or shelled barley, or pot-barley, as it is
here called, not only for home consumption, but also
for exportation, very few corn-mills in the northern
part of the county being found without the appendage
of a barley-mill: the common bread of the labouring
people in the northern parts is made from this grain,
with the addition of grey peas or beans, in the proportion
of one-third: the meal is kneaded with water,
made into unleavened cakes, and immediately baked
on a girdle; very little being ever leavened, or baked
in loaves. Oats are grown in every part of the county;
the varieties cultivated are numerous: the produce of
common oats is from twenty to forty bushels per
acre, that of the Poland and the Dutch kind from
forty to sixty: those grown in Glendale are of remarkably
fine quality and appearance, being known in the
London market by the name of Berwick oats: oatmeal,
both for home-consumption and for exportation, is
prepared to a considerable extent: it is a principal
article of food with the great mass of the inhabitants,
not only in the form of bread, but in crowdies,
or hasty-pudding, provincially called " meal kail,"
which is taken for breakfast and supper, with butter,
or, more commonly, skimmed milk, being with the
latter an agreeable, nutritive, and healthy food. The
wheat is invariably cut with sickles; oats and barley
are sometimes, though very seldom, mown.
Beans have, from time immemorial, been a prevailing
crop on all the strong lands, especially along the
southern part of the sea-coast: twenty bushels per
acre are considered a fair average produce. Peas
were formerly a more general crop than at present;
from twenty-five to thirty bushels per acre are considered
a good crop. Turnips and tares are of common
cultivation: the former are chiefly applied to the feeding
and rearing of cattle and sheep, but small quantities
are reserved for seed; the average produce
being about twenty bushels, or half a ton, per acre;
the latter are principally consumed as green food for
horses. Potatoes are also much grown, and are fre
quently given raw as spring food to horses; cabbages
are of less frequent cultivation. Rape, together with
a little rye, is often sown for early spring food for
sheep. The artificial grasses most commonly cultivated
are red clover, white clover, and ray-grass, with which
are sometimes mixed rib-grass and hop-medic: few of
these are ever grown alone, except' the red clover.
Woad is cultivated at- Newburn, on the banks of the
Tyne. Of natural meadows, which term is generally
understood to mean such lands as are occasionally
overflowed by rivers, and receive no other manure
than what is deposited by such inundations, this
county has very few; what are here called meadows
being such old grass lands as are employed for growing
hay almost every year, the greatest part of which are
upland, and generally produce from one ton to a ton
and a half per acre: the aftermath, or fog, as it is
herecalled, is mostly consumed in fattening oxen and
cows. Natural pastures, or old grass lands, are most
prevalent along the sea-coast, and are frequently pastured
with both sheep and oxen.
The greatest number of oxen is grazed in the eastern
part of the county, and a few in the vicinity of
Whittingham: they are bought in May or June, and sold,
as they become ready, to supply the large fleets of colliers
and other trading vessels belonging to the ports
of Newcastle, Shields, Sunderland, Hartley, and Blyth.
A great number of sheep is fattened on grass in the
same manner, and many for the same purpose; but a
large portion of the lands being liable to give them the
rot, the occupiers only venture to have ewes for one
year: the lambs are sold fat in the months of May,
June, and July, and the ewes are then fattened and
sold in October and November. It was formerly a
general practice to milk ewes after the lambs had been
weaned, for six, eight, or ten weeks, and from this
milk a great quantity of cheese was made; but it
has almost wholly been discontinued. In the vicinity
of Wooler, a large tract of low flat ground, called
houghs, adjoining the rivers Till and Glen, being subject
to frequent inundation, both that and haughs of
a similar kind at Turvilaws, Doddington, Ewart, &c.
have been successfully protected by means of embankments
of from three to five feet high. Lime is very
extensively applied as a manure, and has superseded
the use of stone-marl, which was employed in considerable
quantities on the borders of the Tweed; shellmarl
is used with great advantage in sonic small tracts.
Marine plants, thrown on shore by the tide, and here
called sea-wrack, or sea-ware, are also applied with
great effect for the same purpose, whenever they can be
obtained: coal-ashes are much used in the vicinity of
the principal towns, as a dressing for grass land.
Almost the only kind of cattle bred is the" shorthorned
breed, which has been long established in
every part of the county. In Chillingham park is
a peculiar race of wild cattle, their colour being invariably
white, with black about the mouths; the whole
of the inside of the ear and about .one-third of the
outside, from the tip downwards, being red: the horns,
which are very fine and are bent upwards, are white,
with black tips; some of the bulls have a thin upright
mane of about an inch and a half, or two inches
long: their disposition, which is ferocious, has many
singularities: the weight of the oxen is from thirtyfive
to forty five stones per quarter, that of the cows
from twenty-five to thirty-five $ and their flesh is finely
marbled and of excellent flavour. Some of the graziers
purchase, for the purpose of fattening, an excellent
breed of small cattle, called Kyloes, which are brought
from the Highlands of Scotland, and sold at Falkirk
trysts, or meetings, or at Newcastle October fair. The
few dairies which the county contains are chiefly fot
the supply of Newcastle and the other populous towns
with milk and fresh butter; but the breeding of young
cattle is practised in almost every part of it, and upon
the large farms many cows are kept, much more for
this purpose than for the profit of the dairy. Oxen are
sometimes, but not generally, worked. Of sheep, Northumberland
contains three distinct breeds, the Cheviots
the heath, and the long woolled. The Cheviot are a very
hardy and valuable mountain sheep, without horns, and
their faces and legs generally white -. when fat they weigh
ff om twelve to eighteen pounds per quarter: they are bred
only on the hilly districts in the north-western part of
the county, and are seldom found much farther south
than Preedwater: none of them are bred on the mountain
of Cheviot itself, the higher districts being pastured
with old sheep. The heath sheep have a fierce wildlooking
eye, and short firm bodies, covered with fleeces
of long, coarse, shaggy wool: they are an exceedingly
active and hardy race, the best adapted for
high, exposed, .heathy districts, like that which they
occupy, from the western parts of the county of Durham
to the North Tyne. The old breed of long-woolled
sheep, which formerly occupied the lower districts ot
the county, were called mugs, probably from their faces
being covered with a muff of wool close up to the eyes;
these, however, have been much improved in consequence
of the introduction of the New Leicester sheep
among them; the weight of the carcass in generalis
from eighteen to twenty six pounds per quarter; tn
fleece, upon an average, weighs seven pounds and a
half: many of this kind are bred to be sold to tne
graziers to fatten. Scarcely any are bred in Castle war?,
or the south-eastern part of Morpeth ward.
ere kept in small numbers on many parts of the Cheviot
hills, where the shepherds assert that the sheep are
healthier in consequence: the chief profit obtained from
them is by the sale of then- milk to invalids, who resort
to Wooler during the summer season. The Berkshire
hogs and the large white breed of swine were formerly
the most prevalent in this county; but they have
been in a great measure superseded by the small, black,
Chinese breed, besides which there is a small white
breed of still more modern introduction. The horses
are of various sorts, amongst which are excellent hunters,
and road and carriage horses, besides the draught
horses, which are in general middle-sized and active,
well adapted to the husbandry of the country; the
best draught-horses are obtained from Clydesdale, in
Scotland; they are strong and hardy, being about fifteen
and a half or sixteen hands high. Rabbits are
found in considerable numbers among the sand hills
on the sea-coast: foxes are also very numerous, and are
very destructive to the young lambs. The nocturnal
frosts, and the north-east winds, which are here so prevalent
in the spring, are very hurtful to fruit crops; so
that orchards are but rarely seen, at least nine-tenths
of the apples consumed in the county being imported
from Kent, Essex, and other southern counties. The
commons capable of being converted into profitable
tillage land are now very trifling; but the extent of
the open mountainous districts incapable of affording
profit by cultivation with the plough, is very great.
Woods growing in a natural state are found chiefly
on the banks of the rivers, those of the greatest extent
being on those of the North and South Tyne, the Wansbeck,
the Coquet, and their tributary streams 5 they
comprise much valuable oak timber. The demand for
small wood at the collieries and lead-mines has induced
the proprietors of woods on the Derwent, Tyne, &c., to
cut the oak, ash, and elm, which they contain, at from
twenty-five to thirty years' growth; birch, willow, and
alder, at a somewhat shorter growth j and hazel, for
corf-rods, once in three or four years; these corves are a
"kind of large wicker baskets used for drawing up the
coal from the pits. Flourishing plantations, on an extensive
scale, are scattered over the county. among the
great variety of the trees of which they are composed,
the larch is one of the most prevalent and conspicuous.
On the edges of the moors towards the western parts of
the county a few peats are burned, but in every other
part of it coal is generally used as fuel.
Of the rarer birds, the golden eagle is sometimes to
be seen on the highest summits of the Cheviot hills,
and the osprey breeds annually near Greenley lake.
The common and the moor-buzzard are frequently seen;
several species of owls, and the butcher-bird, inhabit
the woods and mountainous wilds; the heron frequents
the waters in Glendale; and the moors about Wal-
Jington, Elsdon, &c., abound with red grouse. The
cormorant breeds in the cliffs of the Farn islands; and
wild geese and ducks, with a variety of other aquatic
birds, are often found on Prestwick Car and other
waters. Among the fish on this coast are the lump-fish
and the porpoise. Vast quantities of cod are taken
weekly, and furnish a cheap food to the labouring poor.
:Ling, haddock, sole, plaice, flounders, turbot, herrings,
skate, and thornbacks, are very plentiful. Mackarel,
basse, gar, sturgeon, and halibut, are very scarce. The
lamprey is frequently taken near the mouths of the
large rivers, and the conger-eel abounds in the sea sands.
A great variety of flat fish is found in the Tyne and
other rivers. Crustaceous (and testaceous fishes are
taken in great diversity on the sea-coast, of which the
most valuable is the lobster: it is said that between
£12,000 and £15,000 worth of lobsters were caught
in one year between Newbiggin and Newton. Cockles
are very plentiful along the coast, the best and largest
being found at Budle: oysters of an excellent quality
are sometimes taken among the sea rocks. Every
variety of trout abounds in the rivers, rivulets, and other
waters of this county.
The most important mineral productions are coal and
lead. The great coal field of the north-eastern extremity
of England, which extends over the greater part of this
county, and the neighbouring one of Durham, forms a
most important object in the national economy. This
district is included within an irregular triangle, having
its apex at Berwick upon Tweed, and its base upon the
river Tees; it consists of a series of beds, which, including
several smaller ones of nearly the same material,
amount to two hundred and twenty-nine: they consist
of five different substances, some of which alternate with
each other several times, viz., coal, sandstone, slate-clay
or shale, limestone, and basalt. All the beds of coal dip
towards the east, so that the lowest of them, which rises
to the surface at Cross Fell, in Cumberland, is calculated
to lie three hundred and eighty-seven fathoms below the
lowest of the Newcastle beds, a little eastward of that
town. The whole district has been divided into two
separate formations, which are distinguished as the
" Independent Coal Formation," and the "Newcastle Coal
Formation," and familiarly into " lead measures" and
"coal measures." The tract termed the lead measures,
from the veins of lead which abound in a particular part
of it, extends from Berwick on the north, to the [Tees on
the south j its northern part being bounded, on the east
by the sea, and on the west by the Cheviot hills; and
its southern part, on the east by the coal measures, and
on the west by a range of high land, of which Cross
Fell is the apex. The coal measures extend from the river
Coquet on the north, nearly to the Tees on the south,
the length of this tract being about fifty-eight miles, and
its greatest breadth about twenty-four. The leading distinction
between the two formations appears to be this;
that of the numerous and various organic remains which
have been found in the course of the mining operations
inbothof them, those discovered in the strata constituting
the coal measures are exclusively vegetable, or belonging
to fresh water; while in the strata of the lead measures
are found both sandstone and limestone, containing marine
shells, or impressions of them. The beds of the
coal, and of the other strata composing the coal measures,
are not every where of uniform thickness, but,
from the best information, their thickness is calculated
at one thousand six hundred and twenty feet; and the
lead measures, whichpass beneath them, and are tolerably
regular, are estimated at two thousand seven hundred and
forty-nine feet. The beds of coal rise to the surface one
after the other, each to the eastward of that which immediately
precedes it in point of age; they are sometimes
visible, but are more frequently covered by alluvial
soil. The latter contains masses of the different rocks
composing the whole district, and among them portions
of hard black basalt are found every where in abundance:
of this stone the ancient Britons formed the heads of
their battle-axes, which are usually denominated celts:
Barbed arrow-heads of pale-coloured flint, neatly
finished, are frequently found on the moors, and are
provincially called elf-bolts. This alluvium also contains
portions of the trap rocks of the Cheviot range;
and masses of fine granite are scattered over the surface
of the whole county. In the coal measures, potters
clay of a blueish, and sometimes of a yellow,
colour, is found immediately below the vegetable soil,
and is used for making coarse earthenware, bricks,
and tiles. The number of beds of coal in the lead measures
has not been precisely ascertained; seven have
been enumerated, of which only four exceed three or
four feet in thickness, and consist of a slate coal, similar
to the Scotch, Welch, or Staffordshire, and which does
not cake; it is used only for home consumption, and for
burning lime, for which latter purpose it is peculiarly
adapted, being also generally found together with limestone;
the mines are very numerous between. Berwick
and the river Coquet, south of which there are but few
in the tract termed the lead measures, and the coal is
very inferior in quality to that of the mines north of
that river; these mines are very shallow, and it is remarkable
that the beds of coal and the strata between
which they lie undulate with the surface of the country,
which is not the case with the coal measures. The
whole surface of the coal measures has been calculated
at one hundred and eighty square miles; the majority
of the numerous mines are situated on both sides of
the river Tyne, and not far distant from its banks. In
these measures forty beds .of coal have been seen, but
of that number many are of inconsiderable thickness;
the two most important are those distinguished by the
names of the high main and the low main; the'thickness
of the former being six feet, and that of the latter six feet
six inches. The high main coal is about sixty fathoms
above the low main, which, at St. Anthon's colliery near
Newcastle, is a hundred and thirty-five fathoms from
the surface -. between them occur eight beds of coal,
one of which is four feet thick, and another three:
seven beds have been found under the low main, but
the quality is inferior. Thus the quantity of coal in the
district termed the lead measures is far less considerable
than that in the coal measures, besides which, the superiority
of the latter over every other is well known.
The quantity of coal raised annually iii this district,
and exported from Shields and Sunderland to
London, and the whole eastern and southern coasts
of Great Britain, is immense; and there is a curious
distribution of the trade consequent upon the reiative
magnitudes of the rivers Tyne and Wear. The
Tync vessels, being large, are chiefly destined for the
London market j the Wear vessels, on the contrary,
are so small that they can make their way into all
the small rivers and harbours, so that they supply
the whole eastern coasts, and the southern as far
westward as Plymouth. Besides the coal exported to
different parts of England, a large quantity is consumed
in the two counties, which cannot easily be calculated.
About forty years ago a practise was adopted at the
pits, where the coal was of a fragile nature, of erecting
screens to separate the small from the larger coal.
This system is now become universal, and immense
heaps of coal are thus raised at the mouths of the pits:
these soon take fire from the heat of the decomposing
pyrites, and continue to burn, for several years. Not
less than one hundred thousand chaldrons are thus annually
destroyed on the Tyne, and nearly an equal quantity
on the Wear. The choak damp, the fire-damp, and
the after-damp, or stythe, are the mining terms for the
gases with which the coal mines are affected, and of these
the second, both from its immediate violence and as
occasioning the other kinds of damp, is the most to be
dreaded; the accidents arising from it have become more
frequent of late years, although every possible precaution
is taken in examining and in ventilating the mines.
The beds of sandstone in the lead measures, when
coarse-grained, are called grit, which is quarried for
mill-stones, whence the beds are termed mill-stone grit.
In the coal measures, sandstone is termed post by the
miners; but when the bed is very hard it is .termed
whin. A hard bituminous shale often forms the floor of
the coal beds, and is used by the manufacturers of firebricks.
No beds of limestone occur in the coal measures
j but in the lead measures there are about twenty,
varying in thickness from three feet to sixty or'seventy,
making an aggregate thickness of five hundred and,
sixty-seven feet: they are generally hard, of- a blue
colour, not crystalline, and are without petrifactions,
except two of the beds, one of which is full of madrepores,
and hard enough to receive a polish; the other
is full of shells, and is called the cockle-shell limestone.
The lead veins, which occupy but a small part of the
large district named from them, are chiefly situated in
a space of about fifteen miles from north to south, and
twenty from east to west, the southern boundary of
which, lying partly in this county and partly in that
of Durham, may be defined to be a line extending about
twenty miles eastward from Cross Fell. In this district
there are two descriptions of nearly vertical veins: those
which run north and south, or nearly so, are without lead,
and are frequently filled with quartz; those running east
and west contain it in great abundance; the latter are
the most numerous, and have been wrought for at least
two hundred years; some are only a few inches wide,
while others are several fathoms: they also vary in
width in the different veins through which they pass.
The only lead-ore procured in abundance from these .
mines is galena: it contains silver, the proportion
of which varies from two to forty-two ounces in the
fother of twenty-one hundred-weight: the average is
twelve ounces; but eight are considered to be worth
extracting. When it is of good quality, thirty-two
hundred-weight of clean ore yield twenty hundredweight
of lead. Basalt is found both in the lead
and coal measures; in the first it occurs in the form
of beds, interstratified with beds of sandstone, limestone,
&c., in veins, and in masses lying on the sur*
face, termed over-lying masses: in the latter situation it
occurs in the general form of a long range, crossing the
country from south-west to north-east, north of the leadmines.
Further north other masses are visible, and still
further basaltic eminences form a striking feature in the
country between Aluwick and Berwick, and have frequently
been chosen for the sites of castles, as at
Dunstanbrough, Bambrough, and Holy Island. Some
of the small islands near the coast are also composed
of this rock. The number of basaltic veins, or dykes,
traversing the coal measures is very considerable; the
largest, in the immediate neighbourhood of Newcastle, is
that which passes through Coley-hill, about four miles
west of the town, which is twenty-four feet wide, and in
which a long range of quarries has been opened, in some
places to the depth of fifty feet.
The richest fields of lead-ore are at Allenhead and
Coalcleugh, which, with the other five mines in the
parish of Allendale, furnish an annual produce of
about two thousand five hundred tons of lead. Leadore
is, also found in some of the northern parts of
the county: a strong vein is now worked near Fallow
field 5 and strings of ore have be.en discovered on
the coast at Elwick, and on the eastern side of Holy
Island. Arsenic is found in the lead mines.. The washing
of the ore and the other operations at these mines
have been much. facilitated during the last thirty years
by the introduction of improved machinery. The ore is
wrought by a measure containing eight hundred-weight
of clear ore, called a bing; most of the proprietors have
smelting-mills of their own, where they smelt the ore,
take out the silver it contains by refining, and then cast
the lead into pigs, of one hundred-weight and a half
each. Ore of zinc is found in great abundance in
most of the veins producing lead-ore; but its distance
from any brass-works and the want of water-carriage
render it of little value: in these mines is also found
a great variety of the different kinds of spar. Iron-ore
is found both in the coal and lead districts. Immense
quantities of iron pyrites lie imbedded in the strata
of .indurated clay through all the coal-field. The ironworks
at Lemington are chiefly supplied with this
metal from the neighbouring collieries. Ir.on-stone is
still more abundant in the shale of the lead-mines; but
owing to the high price of fuel, and the great distance
from any water-carriage, it cannot be manufactured
to advantage. There were formerly furnaces at Leehall,
near Bellingham, and at Bebside: iron-ore was
got about four miles west of Blyth; and the Carron
Company were once accustomed to collect on Holy
Island a part of the ore smelted at their furnaces. The
remains of some ancient blomeries are found in different
parts of Northumberland, seeming to indicate that
the Romans were acquainted with these iron mines,
which is further evinced by a Roman altar, found at
Benwell, inscribed to Jupiter Dolichenus, the deity who
presided over iron.
The great coal trade of this district has been flourishing
for the last five centuries, and has been constantly
increasing with the increasing population of the country.
Of the quantity raised it is not easy to form an exact
estimate; but it is supposed to be about equal in extent
to the exports of this article from the river Tyne,
in which a considerable quantity from the county
of Durham is included, the latter being reckoned
equal to the quantity consumed within this county.
The average annual export of coal from Newcastle,
Sunderland, Hartley, and Blyth, for five years, ending
with 1826, was one million three hundred and thirtythree
thousand seven hundred and seventy Newcastle
chaldrons; which, added to the home consumption and
waste, estimated at three hundred and forty thousand
chaldrons, makes the aggregate amount of coal raised
annually from the mines in the counties of Durham and
Northumberland, one million six hundred and seventythree
thousand seven hundred and seventy chaldron
equal to four millions four hundred and thirty-five
thousand four hundred and ninety tons and a half,
nearly two-thirds of which was shipped at the different
ports. The facilities derived from the introduction
of steam machinery at these collieries has been
immense 5 for, besides working the hydraulic machinery
and drawing up the coal from the pits, it is now
employed at nearly all the collieries in propelling the
coal wagons along the rail-ways to the different staiths,
or loading-places on the Tyne.
Limestone abounds through the whole of Bambrough
ward, and that part of Glendale ward lying
east of the river Till; and thence it stretches, in a
south-westerly direction, through the central parts of
the county, being found at Shilbottle, Long Framlington,
Hartburn, Ryall, Corhridge,.&c., and at numerous other
places to the westward of these. Freestone, of various
kinds, abounds in almost every part of the county, and
is applied to all the purposes of building; many of
the quarries afford tolerably good slate for roofing, and
flag-stones for floors; and at some of them are obtained
excellent grind-stones, of which many are exported.
Whinstone, of the blue kind, is found in many parts
of the county, particularly in that called Bambroughshire;
and the district on the western side of the
river Till, including all the Cheviot mountains, produces
scarcely any other mineral substance than brown,
red, or grey whinstone, which is a superior material
for making roads, and is sometimes carried several
miles for that purpose. Stone-marl abounds in many
places near the Tweed; and shell-marl is found in a
few places in Glendale ward: clay-marl is also found
in small quantities, but in situations unfavourable to
its being used as manure.
The staple manufactures of the county are principally
derived from, or connected with, the coal trade
and mines, such as ship-building, rope-making, and the
production of the several articles made at the forges;
foundries, copperas-works, soda, or marine alkali manufactories
j white-lead works, potteries, glassworks, &c.
Hexham has long been known for its manufacture of
gloves, called "Hexham Tan." A manufacture of strawplat
is carried on to a considerable extent in the county,
and in some of its branches much ingenuity is displayed.
The coal trade is the chief basis of the commerce
of the county, and the principal source of its wealth,
as well as a nursery for some of the best seamen in
the world. The principal exports from the Tyne, besides
coal, are lead, shot, cast and wrought iron, grindstones,
bricks, earthenware, and glass. The exports
through the medium of the port of Berwick are chiefly
corn, flour, oatmeal, shelled barley, potatoes, eggs,
pork, and wool, which are conveyed coastwise. The
foreign trade is chiefly to the north of Europe. The
port of Alnmouth also employs a few vessels in exporting
corn, flour, &c.; and during the summer season a
few are engaged in carrying lime from the neighbourhood
of Bambrough to different parts of Scotland.
Among the chief imports are corn, flax, hemp, linen,
yarn, timber, and iron.
The principal rivers are the Tyne, the Tweed, the
Coquet, the Aln, the Blyth, the Wapsbeck, and the Till.
The Tyne is formed by the confluence, a little above
Hexham, of two streams of nearly equal magnitude, called
the North Tyne and the South Tyne; the former has
its. sources in the mountainous heaths, on the extreme
western confines of the county, and runs in a southeasterly
direction towards Hexham. The South Tyne,
rising behind Cross Fell in the county of Cumberland,
enters the south-western extremity of the county, and
runs directly east to its junction with the North Tyne,
their united waters pursuing the same direction by Hexham
to Newcastle, and thence to Shields, immediately
below which the Tyne falls into the North sea: the
tide flows up this river to a- short distance above Newburn;
it is navigable up to Newcastle for vessels of
three or four hundred tons' burden, the larger vessels
loading at Shields; about forty steam-boats now ply
upon it between Newcastle and Shields. The conservancy
of the Tyne belongs to the corporation of Newcastle,
by grant -of Edward II.; and their jurisdiction,
extends to high-water, mark on' both sides of the
river, from Spar-Hawk, a rock at the mouth of the
haven, to Hedwin streams, above Newburn, a distance
of nineteen miles. The Tweed forms the northern
boundary of the county for a few miles in the vicinity
- of Wark. The Tyne and Tweed have been long famous
for their salmon fisheries, more especially the latter, in
which the fish, taken are the salmon, bull-trout, whitling,
and large common trout, nearly the whole of which are
sent to London, in pounded ice, by means of fast-sailing
vessels, called smacks, constructed for the purpose:
they are from seventy to one hundred and twenty tons
burden; twelve men on an average being employed in
each. The Coquet, rising among the Cheviot hills, pursues
an easterly course by Allenton, Rothbury, and Felton,
to Warkworth, immediately below which it falls into
the sea. The Aln has a source similar to that of the
last-mentioned river, but its course is much shorter,
although in the same direction, and only a few miles
to the north of it: it passes by Whittingham and Alnwick,
and falls into the sea at Alemouth, or Alnmouth.
The Blyth rises to the east of the course of the North
Tyne, and discharges itself into the sea at Blyth, the
small harbour of which it constitutes. The Wansbeck,
which runs a few miles to the northward of the lastmentioned,
is formed by different small streams,
which, descending from the mountain wastes, unite
before they reach Morpeth, their combined waters
continuing an easterly course to the sea, which they
join at Cambois, a few miles below that town. The
Till, which is the largest stream that joins the Tweed
from this county, rises among the Cheviot hills, where
it is called the Brennich, and has upon it the cataract
called Linhope-spout, a fall of fifty-six feet: this name
it retains until it has passed Wooler, at first running
eastward; but it afterwards assumes a northerly course,
receiving from the same mountainous tract the waters
of different smaller streams, the principal of which is the
Glen, and passing by Chillingham, Doddington, and Ford,
below the latter village it soon enters the detached part
of the county of Durham. The river Derwent forms
the southern boundary of the county for the distance
of some miles, both to the east and west of Allensfordand
afterwards running through a small part of the
county of Durham, it joins the Tyne above Newcastle.
The road from London to Berwick, through York, enters
this county from Chester le Street, in Durham, and
runs the whole length of it, passing through Newcastle,
Morpeth, Alnwick, and Belford, to Berwick. A railroad
from Newcastle to Carlisle has been long projected
which it is thought will be of great convenience to thosetwo
commercial towns, and to all the intermediate
country: contractors to commence and complete this
great undertaking were advertised for about the year 1828.
The principal Roman remains, which, indeed, are
among the most interesting in the island, are those
of the great barrier constructed as a security against
the incursions of the North Britons. Of the eighteen
stations along its line, the sites of eleven are in
this county, viz., Segedunum, Pons JElii, Condercum,
Vindobala, Hunnum, Cilurnum, Procolitia, Borcovicus,
Vindolana, Msica, and Magna, which are here enumerated
as they occur in succession, from the mouth
of the Tyne, westward, and which were atWallsend,
Newcastle, Benwell, Rutchester, Halton-Chesters, Walwick-
Chesters, Carrawbrugh, House-Steads, Little Cheaters,
Great Chesters, and Caervoran, respectively. Of
all these there are traces, more or less distinct; and
numerous remains of Roman buildings, utensils, coins,
&c., of almost every description, have been discovered
among their foundations, and deposited in various
antiquarian repositories. The most extensive remains of
a Roman, or Roman-British, town, are those at House-
Steads, where they occupy a space of two miles and
a half in length. The most conspicuous fragments
of the wall' itself are at Dentonburn, Heddon on
the Wall, Harlowhill, and near Chollerford bridge,
on the Tyne. In addition to the stations along the
wall, there were others in this county, at Old Town,
Bellingham, Corchester, Hexham, Tynemouth, Elsdon,
and Rochester; which have also furnished various and
interesting remains. Besides the paved way which ran
from turret to turret, immediately within the wall, another
was carried by the most direct course from one
station to another, and is still distinguishable in different
places. The Watling-street traversed the county from
south to north, entering it at Corbridge on the Tyne,
and crossing the great wall at Portgate, a mile and a half
beyond which it separates into two branches, the one running
north-north-east, and entering Scotland, near Berwick,
the other north-north-west, crossing the border
at Black Halls: the former branch, commonly called
the D.evil's causeway, passes on the east side of Kirk-
Heaton, and crossing the Wansbeck, proceeds by the
west of Hartburn church, in a straight line between
Netherwitton and Wittonshiels, to Brinkburn Abbey: it
may be distinctly traced across Rimside Moor, whence
it proceeds by Glanton, Horton castle, Lowick, and
Ancroft, to Cornmills, where it crosses the Tweed.
The other line runs by Swinburn castle, Corsenside,
Elishaw, Rochester, and over the head of the Coquet,
between Chewgreen and Thirlmoor, to Black-Halls.
The vicinal road called the Maiden Way, supposed to
be a, corruption of Made-way, runs from Gaervoran,
on the western side of the county, to Whitley castle,
and thence to Whellop castle in Westmorland. The
ecclesiastical architecture of Northumberland has little
that is especially remarkable: the number of churches,
in proportion to the size of the county, is but small,
some of the parishes being very extensive, particularly
in the more barren and mountainous P01""8
of it. The religious houses, too, *owing, it is probable,
partly to the unfruitfulness of a great part of the
county, and to the great insecurity of its border situation,
during the whole period of the- existence of those
establishments, were not numerous, amounting only
to about forty-nine, including hospitals and colleges.
There are some remains of the abbeys .of Alnwick,
Blanchland, and Hume; but the chief monastic ruins
are those of the priories of Brinkbum, Hexham, and
Tynemouth; the anciently conventual church of Hexham
is one of the finest ecclesiastical buildings in the
county. There are medicinal springs at Eglingham,
Halliwell, Snowhope, and Thurston, but none of them
are much frequented. There are numerous ancient
castles remaining, either wholly or in part; amongst
which that of Bambrough is of the highest antiquity,
while that of Alnwick is the most extensive, and one
of the greatest historical celebrity: in this class of remains
are several of the ancient border towers, of comparatively
small dimensions, but of strong though simple
construction. Alriwick Castle, so long the seat of
the noble family of Percy, with its modern additions,
also takes the lead amongst the present mansion-houses
of Northumberland. On the mountain streams there
are several falls of considerable height, but owing to
the very great barrenness of the tracts in which they
are situated, they are less picturesque than those of
the adjoining county of Durham. The lawless and predatory
habits of the ancient borderers, so large a portion
of whom inhabited this county, are well known j
they were finally suppressed about the commencement
of the last century; and the numerous ballads
in which the achievements of these half- licensed brigands
were celebrated, have, like the ballad of Robin
Hood, ceased to engage the public mind, but have assumed
a less changeable form in the volumes of Percy
and of Scott, as lasting memorials of a state of manners
which, at least in Britain, has probably disappeared for
ever.