Sir Benjamin Rudyerd or Rudyard (1572-31 May 1658), of West Woodhay in Berkshire, was an English politician and poet, Member of Parliament for various constituencies between 1620 and 1648, and a colonial investor who was one of the incorporators of the Providence Company in 1630.

 

Rudyerd was educated at Winchester College and St John's College, Oxford, and then joined the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar in 1600. As a young man his poetry, though not printed until after his death, won him many plaudits, and he was also respected as a critic. He became a close friend of the poet and playwright Ben Jonson, who addressed three published epigrams to him in 1616, the first of which began:

 

Rudyerd, as lesser dames to great ones use,

My lighter comes to kiss thy learned muse

 

He was also an associate of John Owen and John Hoskins (who once wounded him in a duel, although they later became firm friends). More valuable to him, however, was the admiration of the Earl of Pembroke, England's leading patron of the arts, who helped promote Rudyerd's political career, and he strengthened this association by marrying Elizabeth Harington, daughter of Sir Henry Harington and a relation of Pembroke. Rudyerd's most important surviving poems are a series written in answer to poems by the Earl.

 

In 1618, Rudyerd was knighted, and appointed for life to the lucrative post of Surveyor of the Court of Wards. (When the post was abolished in 1647, Parliament voted him £6,000 in compensation for its loss.) In 1621, he was elected to Parliament for the first time: his career in the House of Commons was long and, in the words of Brunton & Pennington, "unhampered by political consistency" though contemporaries nicknamed him the silver trumpet of Parliaments for his pleasing oratory. He served as MP for Portsmouth (in the Parliaments of 1621-2, 1624 and 1625), Old Sarum (1626), Downton (1628-9) and Wilton in the Short and Long Parliaments; most of these constituencies were ones where the Pembroke influence was strong. At first, Rudyerd was generally supportive of the court, in line with the policy of his patron Pembroke, and by 1624 seems to have been the government's unofficial spokesman in the Commons. He continued to support Buckingham after the accession of Charles I, and although he was one of the MPs named to assist in Buckingham's impeachment in 1626 took no public part in the trial.

 

By the end of the decade, however, he was less supportive of the Crown, taking a strongly critical line on the redress of grievances and denying the King's right to arrest without showing cause. Nevertheless, he assumed the role of mediator between the King and Parliament, arguing in a speech "This is the crisis of Parliaments: we shall know by this if parliaments live or die. If we persevere, the King to draw one way, the parliament another, the Commonwealth must sink in the midst." He resumed this role when Parliament was summoned again in 1640, after an 11-year hiatus, speaking on the first day of debate in the Short Parliament and concluding that "I would desire nothing more than that we proceed with such moderation as the parliament may be the mother of many more happy parliaments". But his first speech in the Long Parliament was less conciliatory, a vigorous attack on the King's "evil counsellors". He took the Parliamentary side on the outbreak of the Civil War, but does not seem to have been an enthusiastic supporter of the cause, and his attendance in the House was twice specially ordered. He was one of the MPs appointed to the Westminster Assembly in 1643. He was opposed to the trial of the King and was excluded from Parliament in Pride's Purge, after which he retired from public life.

 

During the gap between the Parliaments of 1629 and 1640, Rudyerd became interested in colonial developments in North America, and in 1630 was a co-founder of the Providence Company, which developed the colony which eventually became Rhode Island. Probably as a result, he was a member of the council appointed by the Long Parliament in 1643 for the government of the English colonies.

 

He died in 1658 at West Woodhay, the Berkshire manor house he had bought in 1634.

New Ridley is a hamlet in the county of Northumberland, England. It is in the parish of Stocksfield and the parliamentary constituency of Hexham. It is one of four "Ridleys" in the parish, along with Old Ridley, East Ridley and Ridley Mill.

 

Services in New Ridley include Stocksfield Golf Club and the Dr. Syntax public house. The pub is named after a racehorse of the same name which was in turn named after a fictional character created by the writer William Combe.

 

Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.

 

The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county 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, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck 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.

 

Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'. Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.

 

As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.

 

When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.

 

The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.

 

Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.

 

The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.

 

The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.

 

Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.

 

Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.

 

After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.

 

In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.

 

When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.

 

Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.

 

In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.

 

Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.

 

The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.

 

The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.

 

The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.

 

The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

 

A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.

 

The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.

 

Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.

 

In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.

 

During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.

 

The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.

 

From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill. This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.

 

Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.

 

In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.

 

Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.

 

After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.

 

Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry spread rapidly along the Tyne. Tanning, both of leather and of nets, was largely practised in the 13th century, and the salmon fisheries in the Tyne were famous in the reign of Henry I.

 

John Smeaton designed the Coldstream Bridge and a bridge at Hexham.

Stephenson's Rocket

Invention of the steam turbine by Charles Algernon Parsons

Where: Stephen Harper’s Calgary constituency offce, 1600 90th Ave SW

When: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 beginning at 10:00am

Update! Photos of the action

 

December 16, 2009 (Calgary, AB) – At 10:00 this morning, twenty citizens occupied Stephen Harper’s constituency office to offer the ultimatum of taking aggressive action on climate change before the end of the Copenhagen conference or resign as the Prime Minister of Canada. This is the eighth peaceful sit-in since November 23 when seven Albertans were arrested after demanding that Jim Prentice commit Canada to a fair, ambitious and binding treaty in advance of the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen.

 

“Prime Minister Harper is sabotaging efforts to solve the world’s climate crisis. Around the world Canada is being called a corrupt petro-state, is widely considered the worst blocker of negotiations, and is now even seeing calls for Canada to be banned from the Commonwealth” said Joel Woodhouse, who is currently inside the sit-in. “As Canadians, we are not going to tolerate more of the same from the prime minister so we’re giving him two options: sign on to the minimum reductions scientists say are necessary or resign your position as Prime Minister.”

 

The UN-established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that Canada faces serious threats to human health, major displacements of people and destruction of coastal infrastructure, chronic water shortages, and more. Worldwide, the Global Humanitarian Forum states that every year climate change causes over 300,000 human deaths, 325 million people to be severely affected, and economic losses of US$125 billion.

 

Yet Canada continues to obstruct the current round of climate negotiations in Copenhagen. The policies that Canada’s leaders are advocating in Copenhagen are the opposite of what Canadians want. Before the Copenhagen negotiations began, a poll found a full three-quarters of Canadians were “embarrassed” by Canada’s stance on climate change. During the negotiations, Stephen Harper’s inability to represent Canadian interests has become clear.

 

“Demanding a Prime Minister’s resignation may seem extreme. Frankly, we don’t know what alternatives remain. We have written letters to our representatives, we have requested meetings with our representatives and we have worked on climate change solutions in our communities for years,” says sit-in participant Susan Stratton. “Canada’s government is still obstructing climate talks and refusing to make any real change. This shows despicable disregard for future generations and for the millions already dying and losing their homes because of climate change. “

 

Updates on actions taking place across Canada are online at: canadaclimatejustice.wordpress.com.

Internet Governance,(IG), has been likened to a country where 0.1% are in charge of 99.9% of the population. 99.9% of Information Technologies (IT) users are uninformed consumers. In the case of IG, the vast majority of IT users are completely ignorant even of its existence. The legitimacy and effectiveness of IG is in direct proportion to the ability to create general awareness and engagement of IT users. The biggest challenge for all those concerned with IG today is the lack of awareness and engagement of the vast majority of IT users. IG has to become a topic of common debate and interest for everybody like peace, the environment and climate change are today.

I-Inform is an alliance for collaborative large scale IG awareness building and engagement with IT users everywhere.

 

Day 4

16 May 2013

ITU/ Claudio Montesano Casillas

Internet Governance,(IG), has been likened to a country where 0.1% are in charge of 99.9% of the population. 99.9% of Information Technologies (IT) users are uninformed consumers. In the case of IG, the vast majority of IT users are completely ignorant even of its existence. The legitimacy and effectiveness of IG is in direct proportion to the ability to create general awareness and engagement of IT users. The biggest challenge for all those concerned with IG today is the lack of awareness and engagement of the vast majority of IT users. IG has to become a topic of common debate and interest for everybody like peace, the environment and climate change are today.

I-Inform is an alliance for collaborative large scale IG awareness building and engagement with IT users everywhere.

 

Day 4

16 May 2013

ITU/ Claudio Montesano Casillas

Internet Governance,(IG), has been likened to a country where 0.1% are in charge of 99.9% of the population. 99.9% of Information Technologies (IT) users are uninformed consumers. In the case of IG, the vast majority of IT users are completely ignorant even of its existence. The legitimacy and effectiveness of IG is in direct proportion to the ability to create general awareness and engagement of IT users. The biggest challenge for all those concerned with IG today is the lack of awareness and engagement of the vast majority of IT users. IG has to become a topic of common debate and interest for everybody like peace, the environment and climate change are today.

I-Inform is an alliance for collaborative large scale IG awareness building and engagement with IT users everywhere.

 

Day 4

16 May 2013

ITU/ Claudio Montesano Casillas

Developing country partner education specialists and GPE members met for the EEMECA constituency meeting in Uzbekistan.

 

Uzbekistan, October 2019

Credit: Mirkamol Komilov

Internet Governance,(IG), has been likened to a country where 0.1% are in charge of 99.9% of the population. 99.9% of Information Technologies (IT) users are uninformed consumers. In the case of IG, the vast majority of IT users are completely ignorant even of its existence. The legitimacy and effectiveness of IG is in direct proportion to the ability to create general awareness and engagement of IT users. The biggest challenge for all those concerned with IG today is the lack of awareness and engagement of the vast majority of IT users. IG has to become a topic of common debate and interest for everybody like peace, the environment and climate change are today.

I-Inform is an alliance for collaborative large scale IG awareness building and engagement with IT users everywhere.

 

Day 4

16 May 2013

ITU/ Claudio Montesano Casillas

Prudhoe is a town in the south of Northumberland, England. It is 11 miles (18 km) west of Newcastle upon Tyne and just south of the River Tyne. Situated on a steep, north-facing hill in the Tyne valley, Prudhoe had a population of 11,675 at the 2011 census.

 

Nearby villages include Ovingham, Ovington, Wylam, Stocksfield, Crawcrook, Hedley on the Hill and Mickley.

 

The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon personal name Prud (from prūd, meaning 'proud') and hoe or haugh, 'a spur of land'.

 

There has been a castle at Prudhoe since ancient times, when England was at war with Scotland. The area now known as Castlefields was a fruit orchard, and the Scots were rumoured to have burnt this orchard while attempting to capture Prudhoe Castle. The castle, originally owned by the d'Umfraville family, then the Percys and now English Heritage, is considered to be the only medieval fortification in Northumberland never to have been captured by the Scots

 

In 1914, a Territorial Army drill hall was developed on Swalwell Close, which housed a company of the 4th Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers. The drill hall site (now disused) was scheduled to be redeveloped from 2018, with the scheme further delayed and complicated by the jailing of the owner for eight years in 2021.

 

During the Cold War, there was a Royal Observer Corps Underground Monitoring Post opposite Highfield Park; the surface features have since been demolished. It was one of approximately 1,563 similar underground monitoring posts built all across the UK during the Cold War to monitor the effects of a nuclear strike. They were operated by the Royal Observer Corps (ROC), mostly civilian volunteers, who worked in groups of three inside the posts. Prudhoe ROC post was opened in June 1962 and closed in September 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which saw the end of the Cold War.

 

Local government services for Prudhoe are provided by Northumberland County Council. The town is in the parliamentary constituency of Hexham. Prudhoe is the primary settlement within the Civil Parish of Prudhoe, which is situated in Tynedale. The Town Council meets at The Spetchells Centre, Front Street.

 

Traditionally Prudhoe has had more in common politically with places like Blaydon than the rest of Hexham constituency. For example, in 2013 both wards in Prudhoe returned Labour councillors, with the Conservatives only able to finish third. This contrasts with Hexham, where the Conservatives dominated, and especially other rural areas. However, in 2017, both Prudhoe wards were won by the Conservatives as they became the largest group on Northumberland County Council. In 2021 Prudhoe North returned to Labour when the ward was won by Angie Scott.

 

The town of Prudhoe is built on a steep, north-facing hill, with an elevation of up to 200 metres in the extreme south of the town. There is a prominent bend in the River Tyne, which the castle overlooks. To the south of Prudhoe is Prudhoe Moor, the very top of the town, and then a small valley where Prudhoe Hospital and Humbles Wood are located. As well as being steep and elevated, the land to the south of Prudhoe is heavily forested and rural. Further south are Hedley on the Hill, and then Ebchester over the County Durham border. Towards the north-east of Prudhoe Civil Parish is the steep Hagg Bank, which winds down to Hagg Bank Farm near Points Bridge on the riverside.

 

Via West Wylam and Eastwood Park, as well as Dukeshagg and Low Guards Wood, the eastern reaches of the town border the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead, Tyne and Wear; near the A695 bypass is Stanley Burn, which flows out into the River Tyne at Wylam.

 

Prudhoe was once a coal mining town. There is still evidence of the old coal mine at West Wylam, signified by a miner's cart when driving into Castlefields up Cockshot Dean. The cart was found in brambles nearby by a former mine employee. This was the site of West Wylam Colliery. The main drift entrance of the colliery is buried under the modern road.

 

The town has an industrial estate, called Low Prudhoe that lies alongside the A695 road, which now bypasses the town to the north. There are a few factories and several smaller businesses straddling the side of this road.

 

Prudhoe has one large factory operated by essity. Originally built by Kimberly-Clark, the mill was bought by SCA after the Monopolies Commission forced Kimberly-Clark to sell.[citation needed] The factory consists of the mill, housing the paper machines, converting lines, warehousing and Unifibres and makes paper products such as tissues. The site where SCA stands was first used by ICI for producing agricultural fertiliser (sulfate and ammonium sulfate).[citation needed] In 1963 this plant closed leaving behind the "Spetchells" chalk hills – heaps of waste product which were subsequently turfed over. After ICI closed, the site was owned by Cleveland Engineering, which produced automobile parts,[citation needed] and following its closure in 1969 Kimberly-Clark opened.

 

Once home to a 1200-patient large mental health hospital based on the Prudhoe Hall site, Prudhoe was then home to a 40-bed specialist mental health facility for children and young people, Ferndene, which is operated by Cumbria Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.

 

Prudhoe Castle is a Norman castle, which was for a long time involved in the border wars between England and Scotland. It was built by the de Umfraville family: the Norman Sir Robert de Umfraville was granted the freedom of Redesdale by William the Conqueror. For much of its history the castle was owned by the Percy family. It is now run by English Heritage. The castle is unique in being the only medieval defensive fortification in the whole of Northumbria (the modern counties of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south) to avoid capture by the Scots.

 

The majority of the surviving building work dates from the 12th century, although the site of Prudhoe Castle has strong Norman origins. In the 14th/15th centuries, the tower was extended to provide an extra level with turrets. Only the southwest turret survives to this day.

 

Prudhoe Hall (built 1868–70) and the Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Cuthbert in Prudhoe (built 1890–91, but incorporating the Cottier windows from an earlier smaller chapel built 1868–70) have some of Daniel Cottier's earliest stained glass. Matthew Liddell presumably commissioned Cottier to design the stained glass windows in both the main hall and the original chapel because his architect, Archibald Dunn, was impressed by the fact that Cottier had recently won a prize for the superb harmony of colours in his armorial window at the 1867 Paris International Exhibition. Indeed, Daniel Cottier has referred to his Paris prize in the graphite border of the large window in the main hall of Prudhoe Hall.

 

The stained glass in the small original chapel, which was opened on 19 October 1870, was eventually incorporated in the enlarged church of 1891 and then subsequently moved again a mile into the town of Prudhoe in 1904–05, when the Liddell family moved away from the area and could no longer support the Catholic mission, which Matthew Liddell had begun in 1870. The black-and-white photographs of the first chapel at Prudhoe Hall in Fr Paul Zielinski's book, The Church that Moved, show exactly the same windows containing the Cottier glass that have been retained in the larger church that replaced it. This means that the Cottier windows have been moved twice from their original site, and this would explain the necessity for so much extra remedial lead-work within some of the panes of glass, presumably repairing damage caused by two removals and two re-installations.

 

The small windows at Prudhoe Hall depicting idyllic naturalistic scenes of a rising sun over a river are especially beautiful, and seem to have a strong similarity to the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Made in about 1870, they pre-date by ten years or more the collaboration between Cottier and Tiffany in the 1880s in America. The swaying reeds in particular would seem to suggest that Cottier may well have been a significant influence on Tiffany before Tiffany returned the compliment, and Cottier brought some of his ideas back into his own artistic creations in Scotland.

 

There is a memorial stone to John Wesley set in a low wall on South Road (outside the former Prudhoe Council offices), the former main street of the town, commemorating his visits to the town.

 

Towards the eastern edge of Prudhoe is West Wylam, an area of largely social housing. It is home to an elderly care home, Prudhoe Town AFC, a small row of takeaways as well as a local NISA store and Eastwood Park; where several local football teams play their league games. The area also has allotments and Adderlane First School, which was opened in 1978. The last church on the estate, West Wylam Ebenezer Methodist Church, closed in 2014.

 

Prudhoe is linked to Newcastle upon Tyne and the A1 by the A695 which used to pass through the centre of the town along Front Street. The A695 road now bypasses the town to the north through the industrial estate at Low Prudhoe. The better transport links of the new bypass have allowed the industrial estate to expand alongside the new road to the east, named Princess Way after the royal who opened SCA Hygiene.

 

Northumberland County Council sought a significant landmark feature adjacent to the new bypass, and commissioned the Prudhoe Badger under their 'percent for art' policy. The sculpture is 30m long, and was constructed with the help of drystone wallers in stone and marble. It was designed to integrate with the rural environment, create awareness about ecology and provide a link with the nearby Countryside Centre. The badger sculpture is sited adjacent to the roundabout on the A695 road at Low Prudhoe.

 

The town is served by Prudhoe railway station on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, also known as the Tyne Valley Line. The line was opened in 1838, and links the city of Newcastle upon Tyne with Carlisle. The line follows the course of the River Tyne through Northumberland. Passenger services on the Tyne Valley Line are operated by Northern only after the May 2022 timetable change. The line is also heavily used for freight. The next railway stations are those at Wylam and Stocksfield.

 

The town has direct bus links to Newcastle, Hexham and the MetroCentre.

 

Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC North East and Cumbria and ITV Tyne Tees. Television signals are received from the Pontop Pike TV transmitter and one of the two relay transmitters (Newton and Fenham).

 

Local radio stations are BBC Radio Newcastle, Heart North East, Capital North East, Smooth Radio North East, Greatest Hits Radio North East, Metro Radio, Koast Radio and Radio Prudhoe, a community based station.

 

The town is served by the local newspapers, Hexham Courant and Chronicle Extra.

 

First schools:

Prudhoe Castle First School.

Prudhoe West First Academy (which celebrated its 100-year anniversary in 2009).

St Matthew's Catholic Primary.

 

Middle schools:

Highfield Middle School.

Ovingham Middle School.

Eastwood Middle School (closed in 2006 and is now home of Prudhoe Youth Football Club)

 

High schools:

Prudhoe Community High School.

 

Prudhoe is home to a number of churches, which form as a meeting place for the local community. The churches include:

The Parish Church of Saint Mary Magdalene (Church of England)

Prudhoe Methodist Church

Our Lady and Saint Cuthbert's Catholic Church

The Gate Church Prudhoe (formerly Prudhoe Community Church)

Edgewell Christian Centre

 

Prudhoe has its own senior football club, Prudhoe Town AFC, which formerly resided at Kimberley Park, West Wylam.

 

Tyne Riverside Country Park in Low Prudhoe lies on the southern bank of the River Tyne. The park includes the artificial chalk hills known as the "Spetchells" which have attracted some natural chalk-loving flora and fauna not normally found in the region. It has been proposed that they be made 'sites of scientific interest'. A public bridleway runs from the country park to Hagg Bank, over the Points Bridge to Wylam. Now forming a traffic-free part of National Cycle Network Route 72, it runs on the bed of a disused railway line to Newburn, Tyne and Wear, Newcastle upon Tyne, and on to the coast at Tynemouth.

 

Prudhoe Town Football Club are currently in the Wearside Football League, in the eleventh tier of the English football league system. The future of the club has recently been in doubt following the loss of its ground, Kimberley Park, in West Wylam.

 

Prudhoe Waterworld provides swimming and other fitness activities and is the home of Prudhoe Millennium Tapestry.

 

The town has a skatepark, Highfield Park, which is located at the top of Prudhoe.

 

Prudhoe is home to the North East Ferret Rescue, which helps unwanted and abandoned ferrets. It is the only active ferret rescue in the North East of England.

 

Notable people

Henry Travers (1874–1965), Oscar-nominated character actor who is perhaps best known as the angel Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life. He was born in Prudhoe, but grew up in Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Gaz Beadle, star of reality TV show, Geordie Shore from 2011 to 2017.

Jak Alnwick, Footballer (Goalkeeper), who currently plays for Scottish premiership team St. Mirren, and his brother Ben Alnwick, Footballer (Goalkeeper), who played for Bolton Wanderers, were born in Prudhoe.

John Callender – (1903–1980), English footballer, born at West Wylam

George Honeyman, Footballer (Midfielder), who currently plays for Millwall, was born in Prudhoe

Steven Savile, English science fiction and fantasy novelist and game writer, lived in Prudhoe between 1985–1991

 

Popular culture

Prudhoe is the hometown of Ruth Archer and her mother Heather Pritchard, in the long-running BBC radio serial The Archers.

 

International links

France – Prudhoe is twinned with Mitry-Mory, near Paris, France. Evidence of this partnership is seen when entering the town and there are several murals depicting the twinning.

United States – Prudhoe Bay, an area of northern Alaska containing the largest oil field in the US is named indirectly after Prudhoe. The explorer, John Franklin, who discovered the area, named it after his good friend, Baron Prudhoe of Prudhoe.

 

Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.

 

The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county 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, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck 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.

 

Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'. Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.

 

As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.

 

When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.

 

The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.

 

Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.

 

The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.

 

The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.

 

Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.

 

Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.

 

After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.

 

In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.

 

When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.

 

Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.

 

In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.

 

Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.

 

The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.

 

The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.

 

The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.

 

The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

 

A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.

 

The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.

 

Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.

 

In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.

 

During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.

 

The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.

 

From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill. This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.

 

Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.

 

In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.

 

Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.

 

After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.

 

Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry spread rapidly along the Tyne. Tanning, both of leather and of nets, was largely practised in the 13th century, and the salmon fisheries in the Tyne were famous in the reign of Henry I.

 

John Smeaton designed the Coldstream Bridge and a bridge at Hexham.

Stephenson's Rocket

Invention of the steam turbine by Charles Algernon Parsons

ETT members took action, as part of ETFO’s one-day rotating strike action, on January 20, 2020, to send a message to Doug Ford at his constituency office that it’s time for a fair deal for students and teachers.

 

The future of our shared public education system is at stake.

 

The Ford government continues to demand cuts at the Central Bargaining Table, while refusing to address critical issues such as protecting our world class Kindergarten model, providing staffing supports for Special Education, addressing violence in schools, and so many other items we know are essential to students, parents, and teachers.

 

We will not relent in our fight for the schools our students deserve.

 

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about any photo featured here, please contact Stephen Michalowicz, Communications Manager, ETT (smichalowicz@ett.on.ca).

Where: Stephen Harper’s Calgary constituency offce, 1600 90th Ave SW

When: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 beginning at 10:00am

Update! Photos of the action

 

December 16, 2009 (Calgary, AB) – At 10:00 this morning, twenty citizens occupied Stephen Harper’s constituency office to offer the ultimatum of taking aggressive action on climate change before the end of the Copenhagen conference or resign as the Prime Minister of Canada. This is the eighth peaceful sit-in since November 23 when seven Albertans were arrested after demanding that Jim Prentice commit Canada to a fair, ambitious and binding treaty in advance of the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen.

 

“Prime Minister Harper is sabotaging efforts to solve the world’s climate crisis. Around the world Canada is being called a corrupt petro-state, is widely considered the worst blocker of negotiations, and is now even seeing calls for Canada to be banned from the Commonwealth” said Joel Woodhouse, who is currently inside the sit-in. “As Canadians, we are not going to tolerate more of the same from the prime minister so we’re giving him two options: sign on to the minimum reductions scientists say are necessary or resign your position as Prime Minister.”

 

The UN-established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that Canada faces serious threats to human health, major displacements of people and destruction of coastal infrastructure, chronic water shortages, and more. Worldwide, the Global Humanitarian Forum states that every year climate change causes over 300,000 human deaths, 325 million people to be severely affected, and economic losses of US$125 billion.

 

Yet Canada continues to obstruct the current round of climate negotiations in Copenhagen. The policies that Canada’s leaders are advocating in Copenhagen are the opposite of what Canadians want. Before the Copenhagen negotiations began, a poll found a full three-quarters of Canadians were “embarrassed” by Canada’s stance on climate change. During the negotiations, Stephen Harper’s inability to represent Canadian interests has become clear.

 

“Demanding a Prime Minister’s resignation may seem extreme. Frankly, we don’t know what alternatives remain. We have written letters to our representatives, we have requested meetings with our representatives and we have worked on climate change solutions in our communities for years,” says sit-in participant Susan Stratton. “Canada’s government is still obstructing climate talks and refusing to make any real change. This shows despicable disregard for future generations and for the millions already dying and losing their homes because of climate change. “

 

Updates on actions taking place across Canada are online at: canadaclimatejustice.wordpress.com.

Internet Governance,(IG), has been likened to a country where 0.1% are in charge of 99.9% of the population. 99.9% of Information Technologies (IT) users are uninformed consumers. In the case of IG, the vast majority of IT users are completely ignorant even of its existence. The legitimacy and effectiveness of IG is in direct proportion to the ability to create general awareness and engagement of IT users. The biggest challenge for all those concerned with IG today is the lack of awareness and engagement of the vast majority of IT users. IG has to become a topic of common debate and interest for everybody like peace, the environment and climate change are today.

I-Inform is an alliance for collaborative large scale IG awareness building and engagement with IT users everywhere.

 

Day 4

16 May 2013

ITU/ Claudio Montesano Casillas

Internet Governance,(IG), has been likened to a country where 0.1% are in charge of 99.9% of the population. 99.9% of Information Technologies (IT) users are uninformed consumers. In the case of IG, the vast majority of IT users are completely ignorant even of its existence. The legitimacy and effectiveness of IG is in direct proportion to the ability to create general awareness and engagement of IT users. The biggest challenge for all those concerned with IG today is the lack of awareness and engagement of the vast majority of IT users. IG has to become a topic of common debate and interest for everybody like peace, the environment and climate change are today.

I-Inform is an alliance for collaborative large scale IG awareness building and engagement with IT users everywhere.

 

Day 4

16 May 2013

ITU/ Claudio Montesano Casillas

Andrei Barburas, CRSO/Information Officer at the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), in The Hague, The Netherlands.

 

Internet Governance,(IG), has been likened to a country where 0.1% are in charge of 99.9% of the population. 99.9% of Information Technologies (IT) users are uninformed consumers. In the case of IG, the vast majority of IT users are completely ignorant even of its existence. The legitimacy and effectiveness of IG is in direct proportion to the ability to create general awareness and engagement of IT users. The biggest challenge for all those concerned with IG today is the lack of awareness and engagement of the vast majority of IT users. IG has to become a topic of common debate and interest for everybody like peace, the environment and climate change are today.

I-Inform is an alliance for collaborative large scale IG awareness building and engagement with IT users everywhere.

 

Day 4

16 May 2013

ITU/ Claudio Montesano Casillas

Internet Governance,(IG), has been likened to a country where 0.1% are in charge of 99.9% of the population. 99.9% of Information Technologies (IT) users are uninformed consumers. In the case of IG, the vast majority of IT users are completely ignorant even of its existence. The legitimacy and effectiveness of IG is in direct proportion to the ability to create general awareness and engagement of IT users. The biggest challenge for all those concerned with IG today is the lack of awareness and engagement of the vast majority of IT users. IG has to become a topic of common debate and interest for everybody like peace, the environment and climate change are today.

I-Inform is an alliance for collaborative large scale IG awareness building and engagement with IT users everywhere.

 

Day 4

16 May 2013

ITU/ Claudio Montesano Casillas

The current house was commissioned in 1759 by Nathaniel Curzon and designed by Robert Adam.[11] George Nathaniel Curzon is Kedleston's first Marquess Curzon, the first son of the fourth Baron Scarsdale.[18] The second Baroness Ravensdale was Irene Mary Curzon (1896–1966).[citation needed] The third Baron Ravensdale (b. 1923), was Sir Nicholas Mosley, born to George Curzon's daughter, Cynthia Blanche Mosley (1898–1933).[19] The first Earl Howe included Curzon-Howe Richard William (1796–1870);[3] Curzon-Howe George Frederick (1821–1876).[20] The third Earl Howe going forward included the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh Earl Howe as Curzon-Howe Richard William (1822–1900), Curzon Richard George (1861–1929), Curzon Francis Penn (1884–1964), Curzon Richard Assheton (1908–1984), and Curzon Frederick Richard (b. 1951), in that order.[5][21][16]

 

On the death of the second Viscount Scarsdale, Richard Curzon in 1977, expenses compelled the heir, his cousin (Francis Curzon), to transfer the property to the care of the National Trust.[22]

 

Places and facilities named after the Curzon family name include Curzon Street believed to have been named after the third Viscount Howe, Mr. George Howe, and later transferred to another member of the family whose last name was Curzon.[23] Curzon Avenue is a street in England's North West expanse, specifically Northwich, in the Weaver Vale constituency.[24] In the world of athletics, Curzon Ashton F.C. is a soccer club situated in Ashton-Under-Lyne, which traces its history to the family's name owing to a few members of the family who participated in football. The key parks bearing the Curzon family name include Roker Curzon Park (Sunderland), Curzon Park (in Chester),[25] and Curzon Park Abbey (a monastery of nuns).[26]

 

Exterior

 

Kedleston Hall was Brettingham's opportunity to prove himself capable of designing a house to rival Holkham Hall. The opportunity was taken from him by Robert Adam who completed the North front (above) much as Brettingham designed it, but with a more dramatic portico.

The design of the three-floored house is of three blocks linked by two segmentally curved corridors. The ground floor is rusticated, while the upper floors are of smooth-dressed stone. The central, corps de logis, the largest block, contains the state rooms and was intended only for formal entertaining. The East block was a self-contained country house in its own right, containing all the rooms for the family's private use, and the identical West block contained the kitchens and all other domestic rooms and staff accommodation.

 

Plans for two more pavilions (as the two smaller blocks are known), of identical size and similar appearance, were never executed. These further wings were intended to contain, in the south-east a music room, and in the southwest a conservatory and chapel. Externally these latter pavilions would have differed from their northern counterparts by large glazed Serlian windows on the piano nobile of their southern facades. Here the blocks were to appear as of two floors only; a mezzanine was to have been disguised in the north of the music room block. The linking galleries here were also to contain larger windows, than on the north, and niches containing classical statuary.

 

The north front, approximately 117 yards [107 m] in length, is Palladian in character, dominated by a massive, six-columned Corinthian portico; however, the south front (illustrated right) is pure neoclassical Robert Adam. This garden facade is divided into three distinct sets of bays; the central section is a four-columned, blind triumphal arch (based on the Arch of Constantine in Rome) containing one large, pedimented glass door reached from the rusticated ground floor by an external, curved double staircase. Above the door, at second-floor height, are stone garlands and medallions in relief.

 

The four Corinthian columns are topped by classical statues. This whole centre section of the facade is crowned by a low dome visible only from a distance. Flanking the central section are two identical wings on three floors, each three windows wide, the windows of the first-floor piano nobile being the tallest. Adam's design for this facade contains huge "movement" and has a delicate almost fragile quality.

 

Interior

 

A cross section through the hall and saloon

The neoclassical interior of the house was designed by Adam to be no less impressive than the exterior. Entering the house through the great north portico on the piano nobile, one is confronted by the marble hall designed to suggest the open courtyard or atrium of a Roman villa.

  

Marble Hall 1763, decoration completed in 1776-7

Twenty fluted alabaster columns with Corinthian capitals support the heavily decorated, high-coved cornice. Niches in the walls contain classical statuary; above the niches are grisaille panels. The floor is of inlaid Italian marble. Matthew Paine's original designs for this room intended for it to be lit by conventional windows at the northern end, but Adam, warming to the Roman theme, did away with the distracting windows and lit the whole from the roof through innovative glass skylight.

 

At Kedleston, the hall symbolises the atrium of the Roman villa and the adjoining saloon the vestibulum. The saloon, contained behind the triumphal arch of the south front, like the marble hall rises the full height of the house, 62 feet to the top of the dome, where it too is sky-lit through a glass oculus. Designed as a sculpture gallery, this circular room was completed in 1763. The decorative theme is based on the temples of the Roman Forum with more modern inventions: in the four massive, apse-like recesses are stoves disguised as pedestals for classical urns. The four sets of double doors giving entry to the room have heavy pediments supported by scagliola columns, and at second-floor height, grisaille panels depict classical themes.

  

A neoclassical drawing room at Kedleston photographed in 1915.

From the saloon, the atmosphere of the 18th-century Grand Tour is continued throughout the remainder of the principal reception rooms of the piano nobile, though on a slightly more modest scale. The "principal apartment", or State bedroom suite, contains fine furniture and paintings as does the drawing room with its huge Venetian window; the dining room, with its gigantic apse, has a ceiling that Adam based on the Palace of Augustus in the Farnese Gardens.

 

The theme carries on through the library, music room, down the grand staircase (not completed until 1922) onto the ground floor and into the so-called "Caesar's hall". On the departure of guests, it must sometimes have been a relief to vacate this temple of culture and retreat to the relatively simple comforts of the family pavilion.

 

Below the Rotunda is the Tetrastyle Hall, which was converted into a museum in 1927. The kitchen is an oblong shape with a balustraded gallery at one end. This links the room to other household offices on each side.

 

Also displayed in the house are many curiosities pertaining to George, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, who succeeded to the house in 1916 and who had earlier served as Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905. Lord Curzon had amassed a large collection of subcontinental and Far Eastern artefacts. Also shown is Lady Curzon's Delhi Durbar Coronation dress of 1903. Designed by Worth of Paris, it was known as the peacock dress for the many precious and semi-precious stones sewn into its fabric. These have now been replaced by imitation stones; however, the effect is no less dazzling.

 

In addition to that described above, this great country house contains collections of art, furniture and statuary. Kedleston Hall's alternative name, The Temple of the Arts, is truly justified.

 

Gardens and grounds

 

A sketch by Robert Adam for the Fishing Room and Boat House at Kedleston. Circa 1769

 

Fishing Room and Boat House built 1770-72

The gardens and grounds, as they appear today, are largely the concept of Robert Adam. Adam was asked by Nathaniel Curzon in 1758 to "take in hand the deer park and pleasure grounds". The landscape gardener William Emes had begun work at Kedleston in 1756, and he continued in Curzon's employ until 1760; however, it was Adam who was the guiding influence. It was during this period that the former gardens designed by Charles Bridgeman were swept away in favour of a more natural-looking landscape. Bridgeman's canals and geometric ponds were metamorphosed into serpentine lakes.

  

The Bridge by Robert Adam built 1770-71

Adam designed numerous temples and follies, many of which were never built. Those that were include the North lodge (which takes the form of a triumphal arch), the entrance lodges in the village, a bridge, cascade and the Fishing Room. The Fishing Room is one of the most noticeable of the park's buildings. In the neoclassical style it is sited on the edge of the upper lake and contains a plunge pool and boat house below. Some of Adam's unexecuted design for follies in the park rivalled in grandeur the house itself.

 

A "View Tower" designed in 1760 – 84 feet high and 50 feet wide on five floors, surmounted by a saucer dome flanked by the smaller domes of flanking towers — would have been a small neoclassical palace itself. Adam planned to transform even mundane utilitarian buildings into architectural wonders. A design for a pheasant house (a platform to provide a vantage point for the game shooting) became a domed temple, the roofs of its classical porticos providing the necessary platforms; this plan too was never completed. Among the statuary in the grounds is a Medici lion sculpture carved by Joseph Wilton on a pedestal designed by Samuel Wyatt, from around 1760–1770.[27][28]

 

In the 1770s, George Richardson designed the hexagonal summerhouse, and in 1800 the orangery. The Long Walk was laid out in 1760 and planted with flowering shrubs and ornamental trees. In 1763, it was reported that Lord Scarsdale had given his gardener a seed from rare and scarce Italian shrub, the "Rodo Dendrone" (sic).

 

The gardens and grounds today, over two hundred years later, remain mostly unaltered. Parts of the park are designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, primarily because of the "rich and diverse deadwood invertebrate fauna" inhabiting its ancient trees.[29]

 

Later history

The Curzon family, whose name originates in Notre-Dame-de-Courson in Normandy, have been in Kedleston since at least 1297, and have lived in a succession of manor houses near to or on the site of the present Kedleston Hall. The present house was commissioned by Sir Nathaniel Curzon (later 1st Baron Scarsdale) in 1759. The house was designed by the Palladian architects James Paine and Matthew Brettingham and was loosely based on an original plan by Andrea Palladio for the never-built Villa Mocenigo.

 

At the time a relatively unknown architect, Robert Adam, was designing some garden temples to enhance the landscape of the park; Curzon was so impressed with his designs that Adam was quickly put in charge of the construction of the new mansion.

 

Second World War

In 1939, Kedleston Hall was offered by Richard Curzon, 2nd Viscount Scarsdale, for use by the War Office.[30] The Hall was used in various ways during the War, including as a mustering point and army training camp.

 

It also formed one of the Y-stations used to gather signals intelligence by collecting radio transmissions which, if encrypted, were subsequently passed to Bletchley Park for decryption.[31]

 

National Trust

By the 1970s Kedleston Hall had become too expensive for the Curzon family to maintain. When Richard Curzon, 2nd Viscount Scarsdale, died, his cousin Francis Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale, offered the house, park and gardens to the nation in lieu of death duties. A deal was agreed with the National Trust that it should take over Kedleston, along with an endowment, while still allowing the family to live rent-free in the 23-room Family Wing, which contained an adjoining garden and two rent-free flats for servants or other family members.[22] Richard Curzon and his family currently reside there.

 

In 2020, the Trust was working on a plan to include coverage about the owners of its properties who had links to colonialism and slavery. That had included Kedelston Hall; although Lord George Nathaniel Curzon had no links to slavery, he was president of The National League for Opposing Women's Suffrage and worked to prevent giving women the right to vote. Visitors to the Hall will find a display in the Billiard Room[32] exploring his role in the Anti-Suffrage movement.[33][34][35]

Accession Number: spa.si.192

 

Text on reverse of photograph reads "Mr Ian Smith. Prospective Parliamentary candidate for the SNP in the Kinross and Wes Perthshire constituency was formally adoped at a meeting in Atholl Palace Hotel, Pitlochry. The platform party at the meeting, left to right. Douglas Crawford (MP Perth and East Perthshire), Dr R McIntyre former MP for Motherwell, former Stirling council Provost and SNP chairman), Mr Anthony Ferguson (Constitutency Chairman), Mr Smith, Mr Billy Wolfe (Party Chairman), Donald Stewart MP and Arthur Donaldson (former SNP chairman 1960-69, who had stood in the seat in 1959 and 1963)

 

Billy Wolfe was born in 1924 and educated at George Watson College in Edinburgh, qualifying as a chartered accountant. He served in the Scottish Horse Regiment in the Second World War and was actively involved in the Saltire Society. In 1959 he joined the SNP. In 1962 he stood as the party's candidate in the West Lothian by-election and came a surprise second. Mr Wolfe was leader of the SNP between 1969 and 1979. This coincided with the October 1974 general election when the SNP won 11 seats. Mr Wolfe was succeeded as leader by Gordon Wilson. He then took on the role of SNP party president and until 2008 served on the party’s national executive committee and national council. For further information about Billy Wolfe please see the following website remember.snp.org/tributes/view/billy_wolfe

 

Donald James Stewart was SNP Member of Parliament from 1970 to 1987 for the Western Isles. He also served as President of the SNP from 1982 to 1987. For further biographical detail please see his obituary in the Independent www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-donald-stewart...

 

This picture forms part of the Scots Independent donation to the Scottish Political Archive. The Scots Independent is a monthly Nationalist newspaper. The paper was founded in 1926 and is the longest surviving political newspaper in Scotland in the twentieth century. For further information about the Scots Independent please visit their website at www.scotsindependent.org

 

The Scottish Political Archive is housed at the University of Stirling. The archive is home to the oral interviews, personal papers and associated material from prominent Scottish politicians. For further information about the work of the archive please visit our website www.scottishpoliticalarchive.org.uk

Candidates from the NA-38 constituency in Kurram Agency in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) participate in the first-ever candidate radio discussions to better inform FATA voters.

 

Photos, press releases and full transcripts (Urdu and English) of all FATA radio candidate forums are available for download at the following link: bit.ly/11CBmmQ

 

Individual radio forums were held for most FATA constituencies with MNAs competing for election to the National Assembly of Pakistan.

2022-09-26: President of the African Development Bank Group, Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina sharing a frame with (L-R) Gauthier Bourlard, Director and Special Advisor for Multilateral Development Banks, International Financial Institutions and Non-Regional Shareholders Relations, Office of the President; Mette Knudsen, Executive Director Nordic-Indian-Irish Constituency, AfDB; Sigrún Rawet, Alternate Bank Governor for Sweden, Deputy Director General & Head of Global Agenda Department; Pernilla Liljeson, Head of Section for Multilateral Development Banks, Global Agenda Department, MFA; Johanna Nuder, Desk Officer at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Government Offices of Sweden; Nadia Hamel, Analyst, institutional and Initiatives Delivery; Mr. Olajide Oyewusi, Special Assistant to the President of AfDB during visit to Stockholm - Bilateral meeting with Director-General for International Development Cooperation.

Young people from YOUNGO – the youth constituency under the UNFCCC – are taking action today inside the UN climate talks. Silently holding placards bearing the words ‘Equity is the Pathway to Ambition’, they issue a powerful reminder to negotiators from developed countries that it is their responsibility to take the lead in acting on climate change. YOUNGO demands a renewed drive for progress at the climate talks; progress which is based on science and equity.

 

“We have had loud and fun actions so far. But today we are silent, reminding negotiators of the respect that the fundamental principles of this Convention require. Some governments believe they can simply overwrite the principles of a global convention but these are based on equitable values which are not up for negotiation. It is only by following a pathway which is equitable and just that we will be able to make real strides in the fight against climate change.” said Maja Gudim Burheim from the Norwegian organisation, Changemaker.

 

READ THE PRESS RELEASE HERE: pusheurope.eu/media/pressrelease-24052012/

Internet Governance,(IG), has been likened to a country where 0.1% are in charge of 99.9% of the population. 99.9% of Information Technologies (IT) users are uninformed consumers. In the case of IG, the vast majority of IT users are completely ignorant even of its existence. The legitimacy and effectiveness of IG is in direct proportion to the ability to create general awareness and engagement of IT users. The biggest challenge for all those concerned with IG today is the lack of awareness and engagement of the vast majority of IT users. IG has to become a topic of common debate and interest for everybody like peace, the environment and climate change are today.

I-Inform is an alliance for collaborative large scale IG awareness building and engagement with IT users everywhere.

 

Day 4

16 May 2013

ITU/ Claudio Montesano Casillas

Where: Stephen Harper’s Calgary constituency offce, 1600 90th Ave SW

When: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 beginning at 10:00am

Update! Photos of the action

 

December 16, 2009 (Calgary, AB) – At 10:00 this morning, twenty citizens occupied Stephen Harper’s constituency office to offer the ultimatum of taking aggressive action on climate change before the end of the Copenhagen conference or resign as the Prime Minister of Canada. This is the eighth peaceful sit-in since November 23 when seven Albertans were arrested after demanding that Jim Prentice commit Canada to a fair, ambitious and binding treaty in advance of the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen.

 

“Prime Minister Harper is sabotaging efforts to solve the world’s climate crisis. Around the world Canada is being called a corrupt petro-state, is widely considered the worst blocker of negotiations, and is now even seeing calls for Canada to be banned from the Commonwealth” said Joel Woodhouse, who is currently inside the sit-in. “As Canadians, we are not going to tolerate more of the same from the prime minister so we’re giving him two options: sign on to the minimum reductions scientists say are necessary or resign your position as Prime Minister.”

 

The UN-established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that Canada faces serious threats to human health, major displacements of people and destruction of coastal infrastructure, chronic water shortages, and more. Worldwide, the Global Humanitarian Forum states that every year climate change causes over 300,000 human deaths, 325 million people to be severely affected, and economic losses of US$125 billion.

 

Yet Canada continues to obstruct the current round of climate negotiations in Copenhagen. The policies that Canada’s leaders are advocating in Copenhagen are the opposite of what Canadians want. Before the Copenhagen negotiations began, a poll found a full three-quarters of Canadians were “embarrassed” by Canada’s stance on climate change. During the negotiations, Stephen Harper’s inability to represent Canadian interests has become clear.

 

“Demanding a Prime Minister’s resignation may seem extreme. Frankly, we don’t know what alternatives remain. We have written letters to our representatives, we have requested meetings with our representatives and we have worked on climate change solutions in our communities for years,” says sit-in participant Susan Stratton. “Canada’s government is still obstructing climate talks and refusing to make any real change. This shows despicable disregard for future generations and for the millions already dying and losing their homes because of climate change. “

 

Updates on actions taking place across Canada are online at: canadaclimatejustice.wordpress.com.

Telok Blangah Constituency held their Welcome 2014 at the West Coast Park with recreation and games activities for the participants.

The Africa Group 1 Constituency Meeting takes place at the International Monetary Fund.

 

IMF Photo/Cory Hancock

18 April 2022

Washington, DC, United States

Photo ref: CH220418057.arw

 

The National Assembly of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) (Korean: 국회, Gukhoe, hanja: 國會) is a 300-member[2] unicameral legislature. The latest legislative elections were held on 11 April 2012. Single-member constituencies comprise 246 of the National Assembly's seats, while the remaining 54 are allocated by proportional representation.[3] Members serve four-year terms.

The unicameral National Assembly consists of at least 200 members according to the Constitution. In 1990 the National Assembly had 299 seats, 224 of which were directly elected from single-member districts in the general elections of April 1988. Under applicable laws, the remaining seventy-five representatives were appointed by the political parties in accordance with a proportional formula based on the number of seats won in the election. By law, candidates for election to the National Assembly must be at least thirty years of age. As part of a political compromise in 1987, an earlier requirement that candidates have at least five years' continuous residency in the country was dropped to allow Kim Dae-jung, who had spent several years in exile in Japan and the United States during the 1980s, to return to political life. The National Assembly's term is four years. In a change from the more authoritarian Fourth Republic and Fifth Republic (1972–80 and 1980–87, respectively), under the Sixth Republic, the National Assembly cannot be dissolved by the president.

Bywell is a village and civil parish in Northumberland, England. It is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne opposite Stocksfield, between Hexham and Newcastle. The parish has a population of around 380 and Newton is now its most populous settlement.

 

Bywell means bend in the river. Bywell is situated on a bend on the River Tyne. That is how the village got its name.

 

Bywell is in the parliamentary constituency of Hexham.

 

An electoral ward of the same name exists. This ward stretches east to Wylam with a total population of 4,534.

 

Landmarks

Bywell Castle is a gatehouse tower built in the early 15th century for Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland.

 

St Andrew's Church, now redundant, is situated near Bywell Hall and has a fine tower of the Anglo Saxon period, considered to be the best in the county — 55 feet (17 m) high and about 15 square feet (1.4 m2). Part of a cross is another reminder of the early period, when the church then had narrow nave, chancel and apse. It was very much enlarged in the thirteenth century in a time of local prosperity. In the nineteenth century it was extensively restored, and a lot of medieval grave covers were built into the walls of the church very attractively. The thirteenth-century font was where Robert Surtees, the sporting novelist was baptized. He was born at the Riding on 26 August 1806. There are monuments to Fenwicks of Bywell and Bacons of Styford. St Andrew's Church is now surplus to requirements and is preserved as part of our heritage. The vicarage was demolished in 1852, and Mr Beaumont gave land for building another at Riding Mill.

St Peter's Church is different in situation, among the trees and close to the river. It has a square medieval tower, and the church was extended in the thirteenth century. A close examination of the stonework will reveal features of the Saxon period, and there is evidence of more extensive buildings. There is a tide dial on the south wall. The north chantry or chapel was for many years used as a school. One lancet window is a memorial to the curate Henry Parr Dwarris, who was drowned in the Tyne. There is a monumental brass to Wentworth Canning Blackett Beaumont, Viscount Allendale, born at Bywell Hall in 1860. He presented the Sele and Priory grounds to the people of Hexham. Another inscription commemorates William Wailes (1881), artist in stained glass. The church is also partly 8th century in date and it is possibly the building in which Bishop Egbert of Lindisfarne was consecrated in AD 802.

The high garden wall to the south-west of the old vicarage is known locally as the "spite wall". It was built to hide the vicarage from the view of the Hall. When the village of Bywell was cleared, the vicar could not be made to leave.

 

Land Owners

Lord and Lady Allendale own much of the land surrounding Bywell. They also own a good chunk of Bywell itself. A substantial amount of Bywell is not open to the public.

 

The village is served by Stocksfield railway station on the Tyne Valley Line. The line was fully opened in 1838, and links the city of Newcastle upon Tyne with Carlisle in Cumbria. The line follows the course of the River Tyne through Northumberland.

 

Passenger services on the Tyne Valley Line are operated by Northern. The line is also used for freight.

 

The station is about 1 mile (1.6 km) away on the south side of the River Tyne, in the village of Stocksfield.

 

Bywell is in close proximity to the A69 dual carriage-way, although you have to go up a B road to get to the A69.

 

Bywell is in the catchment area for Ovingham First School, despite Broomley First school in Stocksfield being closer. Bywell is in the catchment area for Ovingham Middle School and Prudhoe Community High School. Mowden Hall School is a private preparatory school in Newton Hall, in the north of Bywell Parish.

 

Each year in May, Lord and Lady Allendale hold a hunter trial course in aid of the Charlotte Straker Project.

 

Since 2013 the Northumberland County Show has been held around in the grounds of Bywell Hall.

 

Wentworth Canning Blackett Beaumont, Viscount Allendale (1860-1923) was born at Bywell Hall

 

Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.

 

The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county 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, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck 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.

 

Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'. Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.

 

As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.

 

When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.

 

The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.

 

Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.

 

The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.

 

The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.

 

Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.

 

Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.

 

After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.

 

In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.

 

When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.

 

Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.

 

In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.

 

Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.

 

The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.

 

The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.

 

The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.

 

The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

 

A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.

 

The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.

 

Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.

 

In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.

 

During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.

 

The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.

 

From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill. This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.

 

Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.

 

In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.

 

Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.

 

After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.

 

Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry spread rapidly along the Tyne. Tanning, both of leather and of nets, was largely practised in the 13th century, and the salmon fisheries in the Tyne were famous in the reign of Henry I.

 

John Smeaton designed the Coldstream Bridge and a bridge at Hexham.

Stephenson's Rocket

Invention of the steam turbine by Charles Algernon Parsons

Sudbury (/ˈsʌdbəri/, Suffolk dialect: /ˈsʌbri/) is a small market town in the English county of Suffolk. It is located on the River Stour near the Essex border, and is 60 miles (97 km) north-east of London. At the 2011 census, the town has a population of 13,063, rising to 21,971 including the adjoining parish of Great Cornard. It is the largest town of Babergh district council, the local government district, and is represented in the UK Parliament as part of the South Suffolk constituency.

 

Evidence of Sudbury as a settlement originates from the end of the 8th century during the Anglo-Saxon era, and its market was established in the early 11th century. Its textile industries prospered during the Late Middle Ages; the wealth of which funded many of its buildings and churches. The town became notable for its art in the 18th century, being the birthplace of Thomas Gainsborough, whose landscapes offered inspiration to John Constable, another Suffolk painter of the surrounding Stour Valley area. The 19th century saw the arrival of the railway with the opening of a station on the historic Stour Valley Railway, and Sudbury railway station forms the current terminus of the Gainsborough Line. During World War II, US Army Airforce bombers operated from RAF Sudbury.

 

Today, Sudbury retains its status as a market town with a twice-weekly market in the town centre in front of the redundant St Peter's Church, which is now a local community point for events such as concerts and exhibitions. In sport, the town has a semi-professional football club, A.F.C. Sudbury, which competes at the seventh level of the football pyramid.

 

Early history[edit]

Sudbury’s history dates back into the age of the Saxons.[2] The town’s earliest mention is in 799 AD, when Aelfhun, Bishop of Dunwich, died in the town.[3] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the town as Suthberie ("south-borough"), presumed to distinguish it from Norwich or Bury St Edmunds, to the north.[2] The town is also mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, as a market town where the local people came to barter their goods.[3] The market was established in 1009.[4]

 

A community of Dominicans arrived in the mid-13th century and gradually extended the size of their priory, which was one of three Dominican priories in the county of Suffolk.[5] Sudbury was one of the first towns in which Edward III settled the Flemings,[2] allowing the weaving and silk industries to prosper for centuries during the Late Middle Ages. As the main town in the area, Sudbury prospered too, and many great houses and churches were built, giving the town a major historical legacy. The Woolsack in the House of Lords was originally stuffed with wool from the Sudbury area, a sign of both the importance of the wool industry and of the wealth of the donors.

 

One citizen of Sudbury, Archbishop Simon Sudbury showed that not even the Tower of London guarantees safety. On 14 June 1381 guards opened the Tower’s doors and allowed a party of rebellious peasants to enter. Sudbury, inventor of the poll tax, was dragged to Tower Hill and beheaded.[6] His body was afterwards buried in Canterbury Cathedral, but his skull is kept in St. Gregory’s with St. Peter’s Church,[7] one of the three medieval churches in Sudbury. Simon's concerns for his native town are reflected in the founding of St Leonard's Hospital in 1372, a place of respite, towards Long Melford, for lepers.[8] For the College of St Gregory, which he founded in 1375 to support eight priests, he used his father's former house and an adjoining plot.[9]

 

From the 16th to 18th century the weaving industry was less consistently profitable and Sudbury experienced periods of varying prosperity.[10] By means of the borough court, the mayor and corporation directed the affairs of the town. They built a house of correction (1624) for 'rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars' and tried to finance the reconstruction of Ballingdon Bridge, which disappeared during a storm on 4 September 1594. Among theatrical companies they paid to visit Sudbury were Lord Strange's Men (1592) and the King's Men (1610). Minor infringements, such as not attending church, were punished by fines, for worse offenders there was a stocks or a whipping. During the Civil War a 12-strong band of watchmen was created to prevent the town's enemies, presumed to be Royalists, burning it down.[11]

 

Sudbury and the surrounding area, like much of East Anglia, was a hotbed of Puritan sentiment during much of the 17th century. Sudbury was among the town's called "notorious wasps' nests of dissent."[12] During the decade of the 1630s, many families departed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony as part of the wave of emigration that occurred during the Great Migration.

 

By the 18th century the fees charged to become a freeman, with voting rights, were exorbitant and the borough of Sudbury, along with 177 other English towns, was reformed by a Municipal Reform Act (1835).

  

Statue of Thomas Gainsborough on Market Hill

During the 18th century Sudbury became famous for its local artists. John Constable painted in the area, especially the River Stour. Painter Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury in 1727, and was educated at Sudbury Grammar School.[13] His birthplace, now named Gainsborough's House, is a museum to his work and is open to the public. It houses many valuable pictures and some of his family possessions. A statue of Gainsborough was unveiled in the town centre outside St Peter’s Church on Market Hill in 1913.[3]

 

Victorian times to present day[edit]

The 1832 Reform Act saw the villages of Ballingdon and Brundon appended to the town.[14] In the 1841 general election Sudbury became the first place in the UK to elect a member of an ethnic minority to parliament, with David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre, the son of an Indian queen, winning the seat. However, he was not allowed to take his place in parliament as he was subsequently declared insane.[15]

 

Sudbury's Catholic Church, Our Lady Immaculate and St. John the Evangelist, was designed by Leonard Stokes and erected in 1893. The shrine of Our Lady of Sudbury sits within its nave.[16]

 

During the Second World War an American squadron of B-24 Liberator bombers of the 834th Squadron (H), 486th Bomb Group (H), 8th Air Force was based at RAF Sudbury. This squadron performed many important bombing and photographic missions during the war, but is perhaps best known as the "Zodiac Squadron", as its bombers were decorated with colourful images of the twelve signs of the zodiac painted by a professional artist named Phil Brinkman,[17] who was taken into the squadron by its commander, Capt. Howell, specifically for the purpose of painting the bombers. Now most of the airfield buildings have been demolished, including the control tower. Sections of perimeter track, aircraft hard stand areas, and two narrow crossing lengths of former runways, provide footpaths between Chilton, Newmans Green and Great Waldingfield.

 

The Sudbury Society was formed in 1973 after a successful campaign to save the town's corn exchange from developers. However, in protecting its ancient centre the town has not shut itself off from modern development. As the town has expanded (to a population in 2005 of 12,080) modern retail and industrial developments have been added on sites close to the centre and on the eastern edge at Chilton. The 18th and 19th century houses near the town centre have been added to by modern developments. wikipedia

St Peter and St Paul, Eye, Suffolk

 

I had not been back to Eye church for years. I had often passed through the town, often stopped here indeed, but the church was such a big project I had usually carried on to somewhere else. I finally tipped up here on the first Sunday in September 2018, a few minutes after High Mass had finished. The great church was full of incense, the bright summer light thrusting through it, claiming the interior for something greater and more numinous than mere congregational worship. As ever here I was made welcome.

 

There are three Suffolks. There is mighty Ipswich, a proud provincial town of 150,000 people. There are the scattered villages, hundreds and hundreds of them, their medieval parish churches forming the backbone of the county. And then, there are the small towns. Eye is perhaps the most robustly independent of Suffolk's smaller towns. It isn't big at all, but it is far from anywhere else of any size in the county, if you ignore Norfolk's Diss looming on the horizon. The railways reached it, bringing with them proud 19th century municipal buildings. Until the 1830s, the town returned two members to parliament, and it still gave its name to the parliamentary constituency until the 1970s. There is a castle (or, at least, what looks like a castle), some decent pubs, a theatre, and one of Suffolk's grandest churches.

 

The great flint-encrusted tower of St Peter and St Paul rises above a stunningly crafted interior. Here inside, we will find the nearest thing Suffolk has to a fulfilment of the ecclesiological aspirations of our great-grandparents' generation.

 

From a tiny spark, a glint in the eye of John Keble at Oxford in the 1830s, the sacramental revival in the Church of England spread like wildfire over the course of the ensuing century. The Church set about rediscovering its Catholic roots, and the preaching houses of the Hanoverians were stripped bare and filled with all the best that the Gothic revival had to offer. In many medieval churches, original artefacts were rediscovered and pressed back into service. Where this wasn't possible, the mass-production workshops of Birmingham and London could be called upon to provide what history could not.

 

Ironically, the catalyst for all this had been some of those very reform acts which had deprived Eye of its 'rotten borough' status. Catholic emancipation in the 1820s had been followed by grants to a Catholic university in Ireland. Keble, along with Pusey, Newman, Froude and the others, saw that the Church of England was in danger of being sidelined as a protestant sect. The Oxford Movement, as it became known, published a series of tracts to try and educate the middle classes about their lost past. Their intention was that the Church would recover its catholicity, and its destiny as a national church; the inevitable result was that some of the Movement, Newman among them, would leave the Church of England to become Catholics themselves.

 

The medieval past that they most admired was that of the early 14th century. This allowed them to see the later medieval period as an abuse-riddled downturn, from which the Church had to be rescued at the Reformation. However, as the Movement went on, there were many who asked if the Reformation had really been necessary at all.

 

The grandeur of Suffolk's biggest churches is an eve-of-the-Reformation wealth of the medieval industrial-heartland-of-England thing. Here at Eye it rebuilt the tower in the second half of the 15th century. As at Stradbroke, with which the tower has much in common, it was De la Pole money that rebuilt it, and the family arms are discernible still. Mortlock points out that you can see the shape of the windows change from late-Decorated to Perpendicular over the course of the 40 years or so it took to build. You can see the last windows, the pure rationalism of the late Perpendicular period, right at the top in the bell-stage. Beneath are some mystical Decorated windows, and below them the vast west window which bridges the gap between the two.

 

As the tower was being completed, so the rest of the church was undergoing an opulent rebuild. You can see evidence of the extension at the east end of the south aisle, where a blocked door sits beside the new one into the chancel. As at Lavenham, the parishioners here were left in no doubt about secular power and its might. Soon, the De la Poles, the Springs, the De Veres and so on would outgrow the middle ages, and the aspirations of wealthy families such as these would give rise to the Reformation, the nation state, and ultimately capitalism itself.

 

This was in the future. For now, the De la Poles invested in prayers as well as commerce, and although their south porch is a bit battered these days, it remains one of the loveliest in Suffolk, its brickwork echoing the gildhall on the other side of the church. You can only enter it from inside the church if you hope to see the dole table and fine 13th century doorway that survives of the earlier church, and you have to be there when it is open, for it now contains a shop.

 

Externally then, this is one of the great East Anglian churches. Here we see the late medieval Church in all its glory.

 

But in the 1530s, a collision of expediency and opportunity put an end to it all. Henry VIII took the church out of Europe; his son Edward VI enforced its protestant credentials, and Edward's sister Elizabeth I settled the whole thing by imposing a tyrannical oppression of the old ways, to bolster her grip on power. The past was subverted and lost, as first Anglicans, and then Puritans, overthrew the religion of their parents and grandparents, of the long generations. They all but obliterated the old order, the ancient faith. Much was lost, and much was forgotten. This was what the Oxford Movement tried to recover, but in the context of a national established church, with spectacular results.

 

By the end of the 19th century, the Anglo-catholic movement was in the ascendant. Most churches now saw Holy Communion as the main service rather than Morning Prayer; most churches became focused on the altar rather than the pulpit. Perhaps the formality and splendour of the high church aesthetic chimed with the pomposity and rhetoric of British imperialism; it is worth noting that the rise and fall of Anglo-catholicism as a mainstream tradition coincided almost exactly with the growth and decline of the British Empire. The movement reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and probably the greatest exponent of Anglo-catholic fixtures and fittings was Ninian Comper. Comper will be familiar to manyfor his work at Lound and Lowestoft. He has also made appearances at Kettlebaston, Ipswich St Mary Elms, Ufford and Barsham, all beacons of early 20th century Anglo-catholic correctness.

 

All gone now, alas, alas. The ritualist tide has receded almost completely, and only the trappings and debris survive here and there, a reminder of what once was. An age that hovers on the edge of a public memory, when the formal vision of the established Church was at the heart of British daily life; an age of candles and incense, of richly coloured vestments and four-part choirs. An age of anthems, and war memorials, and processions, and coronations, and a liturgy that brought you to your knees.

 

Some of this still survives. Here at Eye the tradition has not completely receded.

 

You walk beneath the great tower with its wonderful fan-vaulting so uncharacteristic of Suffolk, and then into the open space of a large, civic church. As at Hadleigh, Halesworth, and other small Suffolk towns, the 19th century restoration here was pretty significant. However, into this created space have been placed furnishings of superb quality and design. The centre piece is Comper's magnificent rood screen and loft, built on the remains of the old one in the mid-1920s. The screen below is good, although not as good as some of the county's other late-15th century screens; the loft however, is easily the best 20th century work in Suffolk.

 

The figures on the dado screen must have been painted in 1500. Pevsner says, somewhat harshly, that they are all bad. It is true that they are doll-like, with nothing like the sophistication of those across the A140 at Yaxley, for example, but they have a certain naive charm. Curiously, the gessowork that forms a relief to the figures is really quite sophisticated. They are, from north to south: I: St Paul, II: St Helen, III: St Edmund, IV: St Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins, V: Henry VI, VI: St Dorothy, VII: St Barbara, VIII: St Agnes, IX: St Edward the Confessor, (the gap into the chancel is here), X: St John the Evangelist, XI: St Catherine, XII: St William of Norwich, XIII: St Lucy, XIV: St Thomas of Canterbury, and XV: St Agatha.

 

Many of these Saints had strong local cults in the late medieval period, and are familiar from other East Anglian screens. The less common St William of Norwich adds a little colour, standing as evidence of an anti-semitism that persisted well into the late middle ages, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the Jewish population had been expelled some two centuries previously. Two of the other images resonate strongly - the cults of Henry VI and St Thomas of Canterbury were particularly frowned upon by the 16th century reformers.

 

Up in the chancel, an entirely secular memorial recalls the Reverend Thomas Wythe, for fifty years Vicar of this Parish. he died in 1835, and the monument notes that he cordially believed, zealously preached, assiduously practiced. It is unlikely that the Reverend Wythe would recognise the inside of his church today. Much of what was foregrounded in this church by the considerable 1850s restoration was further adapted and enhanced by the higher church over the ensuing century. The most spectacular work is by Ninian Comper. As well as the rood and rood loft already mentioned, he produced the great east window depicting the Risen Christ flanked by St John, St Peter, St Paul and St Polycarp in memory of John Polycarp Oakey, parish priest here who died in 1926. Comper's also is the towering font cover, and the window of St George in the north aisle in memory of George Gerald Warnes, a 'Black-and-Tan' auxiliary who was gunned down by the IRA in Grafton Street, Dublin during the so-called 'Troubles' that preceded the Irish Civil War of the 1920s.

 

The process continues. The elegant tomb recess in the north aisle, for example, is host to Lough Pendred's 1960s Madonna and child. Pendred carved the same subject in a different composition for the lady chapel in the south aisle. To be honest, this kind of light wood romantic abstraction is very much of its decade, but there is a poignancy to its presence here in one of the surviving outposts of modern Anglo-Catholicism. Eye is one of the few Suffolk churches that still 'sports the big six'; that is to say, has six tall candles on the high altar.

 

Comper decorated the chancel roof, which glows magnificently in the morning light through the east window. Tucked away in two corners are two post-Reformation tombs to Nicholas Cutler and William Honyng, the first in the north aisle (it was originally in the sanctuary, according to Mortlock) and the second in the south aisle chapel. They are curious, because they appear to be almost identical, although whether this is a tribute to early-modern vanity, competing arrogance or mass-production I couldn't say.

 

This is a church in which to wander. It is full of interest, little details and quiet corners. A bit like Eye itself. Beside the church, the large, half-timbered building to the north is the former guildhall. For a long time this was a wonderful second hand bookshop, but that is now closed. On the corner post are the restored angels of the Annunciation - one only has been left unrestored. It is almost a symbol for this reinvented place.

 

Across the road is a rather urban 1960s red-brick modernist building that now houses the Eye Youth Resource Centre - one assumes it wouldn't get planning permission today. Above is the Castle Mound, now crowned by a late 19th century folly after the former windmill was demolished. You wander northwards into narrow streets of independent shops, and the sense of a community that supports and is at ease with itself. A proud little town. Its great church suits it well.

Andrew Bonar Law (1858 - 1923) was the member of Parliament for the constituency in which which this building is situated, Dulwich in south London. Elected to this seat in 1906 he was by the end of this year, 1910, to have lost it. However, such was his importance within the Conservative Party, of which he was a prominent member, he was to be re-elected to the then safe Tory seat of Bootle, Lancashire, the following year. Law was to rise to hold the highest political office in the UK being elected Prime Minister 23 October 1922. However, alongside the fact he is the only Prime Minister ever to have been born outside the UK (in Canada) he was also to be the shortest serving Prime Minister of the 20th Century as he had to resign after 211 days in office due to his failing health and he died on 30 October 1923.

 

The church hall this plaque is attached to was designed by Ernest G Cole in a Domestic Revival Arts and Crafts style, erected by subscription as a memorial to King Edward VII. It was associated with the parish church of the same name that was destroyed by fire in 1992 and subsequently replaced by a modern structure. Please don't ask me about the rather heavy handed repointing of this building!

Horatious Gittens, sole pastor of the San Bernardino church and a delegate, speaks at the Southeastern California Conference constituency session, Sunday, October 27, 2013, at the La Sierra University Seventh-day Adventist Church. Photo by Gerry Chudleigh.

From Harry Rhulen's presentation at PRSA Houston. I need it on flickr for a future blog post. Not the most aesthetic, but it does communicate the disaster environment quite well.

Image ©Licensed to Parsons Media. 12/08/2021. Uxbridge, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson Constituency Day. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson opens HALO cafe in Uxbridge High Street. Picture by Andrew Parsons CCHQ / Parsons Media

IMF-WB Constituency Meeting

Photo by Julia Berezovska/ Press office NBU

2022-02-09: A photo of a guest captured while addressing during the Board Reception. In frame, Simon Mizrahi, Acting Director, Communication and External Relations (PCER); Mette Knudsen, Executive Director on behalf of Nordic-Indian-Irish Constituency, African Development Bank.

IMF-WB Constituency Meeting

Photo by Julia Berezovska/ Press office NBU

Stepping stones across the Whittle Burn, Ovingham

A line of cast concrete blocks provide a way of crossing the Whittle Burn with dry feet close to its confluence with the River Tyne.

 

Whittle Burn is a tributary of the River Tyne. It flows in a roughly southerly direction and joins the Tyne at Ovingham. The burn is about 16 km long with a catchment area of 29 km2. The upper sections of the burn are heavily modified, with an intricate network of watercourses/aqueducts built in the 19th century, which link reservoirs at Colt Crag, Hallington and Whittle Dene. This includes both open water courses and tunnels. The lower sections of Whittle Burn form the is a deep steep-sided valley of Whittle Dene, with an ancient woodland, managed by the Woodland Trust.

 

Ovingham is a civil parish and village in the Tyne Valley of south Northumberland, England. It lies on the River Tyne 10 miles (16 km) east of Hexham with neighbours Prudhoe, Ovington, Wylam and Stocksfield.

 

The River Tyne provided an obstacle between Ovingham and Prudhoe until 20 December 1883, when a toll bridge (Ovingham Bridge) was finally opened, taking the place of the ferry. The steel tubes are marked Dorman Long Middlesbrough, the firm which designed and built the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Tyne Bridge.

 

Ovingham is in the parliamentary constituency of Hexham.

 

There was a dyehouse at Ovingham, and in 1828 William Bullock was the foreman. Both Thomas Bewick from nearby Cherryburn and George Stephenson from nearby Wylam had relatives who were dyers. One of Bewick's woodcuts is entitled the Dyers of Ovingham, showing two men who are carrying a large tub on a pole. Mabel Stephenson, George's mother, was a daughter of an Ovingham dyer named Richard Carr. There were weavers in Ovingham, as well as a local tidewaiter, or customs inspector.

 

The vicarage was, in medieval times, a cell for three Augustinian canons of Hexham, and was rebuilt in the seventeenth century. It was formerly the residence of the late Frank Atkinson, who did so much to establish the Beamish Museum in County Durham, and also the Bewick Trust at Cherryburn. Bewick received his education in the vicarage and the church.

 

The Ovingham 'pack-horse' bridge over the Whittle Burn consists of two segmental arches with a width of five feet between the parapets, so that it could not be used for wheeled traffic. It is likely that the Ovingham mill dam on the Tyne raised the level of the water. The bridge is grade 2 listed and required repairs to the mortar after the severe flood of 2015. The adjacent ford was replaced by a concrete road bridge in the 1960s, although this is low lying and was overtopped by the Burn in 2015.

 

Whittle dean is a deep woody dell which stretches southwards & joins the Tyne east of Ovington. The waters of this dean (peculiarly soft & clear) are the most celebrated in the north of England for whitening linen cloth. Mr. William Newton's bleach green, situated on this stream at the confluence of the Tyne is known and famed throughout all these northern parts. (Mackenzie 1825). The Whittle Burn can be traced back to the present day Whittledean Water Works on either side of the line of Hadrian's Wall near Welton Hall.

 

The first three trees of the Ovingham Community Orchard were planted in the old grazing field next to the allotments by children from Ovingham First School on Friday 23 November 2018. The following morning about 40 villagers turned out to plant the remaining 21 trees. Each tree will produce a different variety of apple.

 

The village is served by Prudhoe railway station on the Tyne Valley Line. The line was opened in 1838, and links the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in Tyne and Wear with Carlisle in Cumbria. The line follows the course of the River Tyne through Northumberland.

 

Passenger services on the Tyne Valley Line are operated by Northern. The line is also heavily used for freight. The railway station is across the River Tyne on the south bank of the river.

 

The village lies about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the A69 road giving good links with Newcastle upon Tyne, Hexham, and Carlisle. The A695 road is accessible across Ovingham Bridge giving access to places on the south side of the River Tyne including Gateshead.

 

Ovingham has two schools, Ovingham Middle School and Ovingham CE First School. Ovingham Middle School educates 358 children, aged 9–13.

 

The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary has a tall slender Anglo-Saxon tower. There are fragments of an Anglo-Saxon cross in the church, which was much enlarged in the 13th century – wider, loftier and with long lancet windows. The nave with aisles is only two bays long, as the north and south transepts, each with a west aisle, take up the space of two more bays. There is a long chancel with very little ornament. The churchyard has a number of gravestones in memory of prominent villagers. In the porch is a stone slab commemorating Thomas Bewick who is buried in the churchyard, next to the tower.

 

Ovingham had a charter for a market and two annual fairs on 26 October and 26 April. There was also a monthly tryst for cattle and sheep, which was discontinued in 1823. The ceremony for the Fair was similar to that for the Stagshaw Bank Fair at Corbridge nearby. A procession moved to the principal alehouse for the 'riding of the fair', led by the Duke of Northumberland's pipers, dressed in light blue and adorned with the Duke's sign of a crescent moon. The procession included the Duke's agent, bailiff, constable with many farmers and tenants. The fair was proclaimed and then they beat the bounds, returning to the tavern to drink the Duke's health from punch provided by him. After this men, women and children alike went to enjoy the amusements – stalls, Punch and Judy and performers such as fire-breathers. The custom was discontinued in time, but it has been revived in recent years as the 'Goose Fair', since in the days of the old Fair geese would play an important part in the sale. Quill pens were made in Ovingham from goose feathers.

 

Notable people

Thomas Bewick was educated in the vicarage and the church, and is buried in the churchyard of St Mary

Mason Jackson (1819–1903) was born in the village, as was his brother, John Jackson, both notable wood-engravers.

Frank Atkinson (1924–2014), founding director of the Beamish Museum, lived in the village from 1982 until his death in 2014.

The punk-rock band China Drum formed in Ovingham in 1989

Rob Barker of Newcastle upon Tyne-based post-rock act Peace Burial at Sea grew up in the village.

 

Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.

 

The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county 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, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck 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.

 

Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'. Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.

 

As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.

 

When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.

 

The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.

 

Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.

 

The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.

 

The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.

 

Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.

 

Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.

 

After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.

 

In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.

 

When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.

 

Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.

 

In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.

 

Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.

 

The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.

 

The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.

 

The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.

 

The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

 

A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.

 

The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.

 

Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.

 

In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.

 

During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.

 

The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.

 

From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill. This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.

 

Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.

 

In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.

 

Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.

 

After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.

 

Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry spread rapidly along the Tyne. Tanning, both of leather and of nets, was largely practised in the 13th century, and the salmon fisheries in the Tyne were famous in the reign of Henry I.

 

John Smeaton designed the Coldstream Bridge and a bridge at Hexham.

Stephenson's Rocket

Invention of the steam turbine by Charles Algernon Parsons

Albert Kenyani Inima

Boyani, Hamisi District, Vihiga County

29 November 2011

 

[ You can listen to the speech Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka made at Boyani on my Youtube channel at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-o_sqWfI7A&list=UUDCjO7EDzbK... ]

 

I was in Vihiga County this weekend to attend the function to ordain my father, Joseph Inima,88, as a reverend bishop of the African Divine Church. Altogether 113 reverend bishops from Kenya were ordained. This position is the second highest in the church hierarchy.

 

Joseph Inima has been a pastor and then a vicar bishop of Gajiremba Church, Munzatsi since 1995.

 

The ceremony was held at Boyani in Hamisi District, Vihiga County,where the headquarters of the church is located.

 

ADC is the third largest church in Vihiga County after the Friends Church and the Pentecostal Church. The Church was began at Boyani in 1948. The church has now spread throughout Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and DRC . Recently branches of the church have been opened in South Sudan and Netherlands.

 

The Vice President , Kalonzo Musyoka, was the guest of honour.

 

The sermon was delivered by Rev. Bernard Khatechi of the Garden of Hope Baptists Church, Nairobi who was introduced by the Head of the Church, Rt. Rev. Archbishop John Chabuga.

The Vice President commended the church for the expansion it has registered since inception as a Kenyan indigenous Church back in 1948.

 

Mr. Musyoka urged people of all faith to pray for the country and security agencies as they pursue the Al-shabaab militia both at home and in Somalia.

 

Mr. Musyoka reiterated that Kenya is not at war with ill-intentions but aims at securing security of Kenyans and peace in Somalia.

 

He said Kenya is in record being an active participant in conflict resolution in the great lakes region and the horn of Africa.

 

Mr. Musyoka called on religious organization to counsel the youth and discourage them from joining criminal gangs such as the Al-shabaab terrorist outfit.

 

Mr. Musyoka donated 200 000/= to the ongoing construction of the headquarter building. Musyoka promised to mobilize more donations to ensure the building construction is completed.

 

This is the third time Mr. Musyoka is visiting Boyani this year. He was here again on 29 August 2011 when he also donated 200 000/= towards the ongoing construction project.

 

Mwala Member of Parliament and also a pastor, Isaac Muoki accompanied Mr. Kalonzo.Others who attended were the Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Vice President, Dr. Ludeki Chweya and the Hamisi District Commissioner, Mr. George Okelo. There were also a number of candidates aspiring for various civic and national leadership positions. With over 1.5 million followers in Kenya, the African Divine Church is one of the biggest constituencies in the country.

 

I video-taped the the Vice President's speech and have posted the video on my channel at Youtube:

 

youtu.be/N-o_sqWfI7A

 

Albert Kenyani Inima

Email: albertkenyani@gmail.com

Telok Blangah Constituency held their Welcome 2014 at the West Coast Park with recreation and games activities for the participants.