Northumberland

Northumberland, anciently Northumbria, is the northern-most county in England, bordering Scotland and the North Sea. Its county-town is Alnwick, where the Duke of Northumberland, the county's largest landowner, resides in his seat, Alnwick Castle. Not far distant, on the coast, is Bamburgh Castle, the largest fortress in the north, owned by Lord Armstrong.

The northern-most settlement of any consequence is the ancient port of Berwick-upon-Tweed, a few miles from the border.

Anciently Northumbria was a kingdom which, at its largest extent, one time stretched from York all the way up the North Sea coast to the Firth of Forth. Edinburgh was founded in the 6th century and initially built by the Northumbrians. The town of Hexham contains an abbey founded in AD674.

Northumberland is probably best known for Hadrian's Wall, the Roman wall erected from AD122 by the Emperor Hadrian against the barbarian Picts, after the Romans had abandoned the Antonine Wall about 120 miles to the north. Hadrian's Wall stretches from the east coast to the west. The still extant town of Wallsend lies close to the last eastern fort on Hadrian's Wall.

Sources

• Thomson, Hugh, Highways and Byways in Northumbria Macmillan, London, 1920.
• Lomas, Richard, A Power in the Land: The Percys, with a Foreword by His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, Tuckwell Press, East Linton, Scotland, 1999, ISBN: 1-86232-067-5