My Football Programmes/Team Sheets
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Setting for a very popular programme on BBC Tv a rugged coastal location period drama.
The geography of Cornwall describes the extreme southwestern peninsula of England west of the River Tamar. The population of Cornwall is greater in the less extensive west of the county than the east due to Bodmin Moor's location; however the larger part of the population live in rural areas. It is the only county in England bordered by only one other county, Devon, and is the 9th largest county by area, encompassing 3,563 km² (1,376 mi²). The length of the coast is large in proportion to the area of the county. Cornwall is exposed to the full force of the prevailing south-westerly winds that blow in from the Atlantic Ocean. To the north is the Celtic Sea, and to the south the English Channel.
Cornwall is the location of Great Britain's most southerly point, The Lizard, and the southern mainland's most westerly point, Land's End. A few miles further west are the Isles of Scilly.
Information from Wikipedia & BBC Tv.
Texture's & Effect's by William Walton & Topaz.
The Water Gardens in Bushy Park, Teddington, on a crisp January morning.
The gardens, created in the early 18th century, comprise a baroque-style collection of pools, cascades, basins and a canal, all of which disappeared beneath undergrowth and silt during the 20th century. The gardens were largely forgotten until a major restoration programme brought them back to their former glory.
Restoration began in the 1990s, and included de-silting and returning the ponds to their original shape and depth; installing a new water engineering system; and restoring the original cascade together with its walls, basins and alcoves. New landscaping and footpaths completed the transformation of the gardens in 2010, and the whole project is an absolute triumph – and free for everyone to enjoy.
Put two shots together, the front & back of this original French programme of La Strada, directed by Federico Fellini.
Mirai Nagasu
Gold Medal winner, Womens
ISU Junior Grand Prix, Lake Placid, Sept. 2007
A full Bielman..and spinning at incredible speed to boot.
A future Olympian to look out for in Vancouver 2010!!!
Performing her long programme, Coppélia. Notes on Coppelia below. This is the same programme she performed January 26th 2008 at the US Senior Ladies championship, and won gold with. At age 14, even though Mirai is the US woman's champion, she is too young to go to the world championships.
Coppelia is ballet about a girl who sits still, without smiling in the window of the shop of a toymaker Coppelius. A group of young kids enter the shop, and one of them noticing that Coppelia is a mechanical doll, pretends to be her, and gradually comes to life. The original choreography for Coppelia was by Arthur Saint-Leon with music by Leo Delibes.
Mirai's programme tells the story of the ballet (or part of it). It is not just skating to music, but a beautifully choreographed piece. Fulls mark to her choreographer, as well as to Mirai.
Nagasu trains in Pasadena and represents the Pasadena Figure Skating Club. Her coaches are Charlene Wong, Sashi Kuchiki, Sondra Holmes, Bob Paul, and Jim Yorke. Her choreographer is Lori Nichol.
Beaucoup disent que la Suède n’est qu’un petit pays et que ce que nous faisons n’a pas d’importance. Mais j’ai appris qu’on n’est jamais trop petit pour faire une différence. Et si quelques enfants peuvent faire les gros titres partout dans le monde simplement parce qu’ils ne vont pas à l’école, imaginez ce que nous pourrions faire ensemble si nous le voulions. Mais pour ça, nous devons parler clairement, même si ça peut-être inconfortable.
Vous parlez de croissance économique verte et durable, parce que vous avez peur d’être impopulaires. Vous parlez de poursuivre les mêmes mauvaises idées qui nous ont mis dans cette situation, alors que la seule réaction logique est de tirer le frein à main.
Vous n’êtes pas assez matures pour dire les choses comme elles sont. Même ce fardeau vous le laissez à nous, les enfants. Mais je me moque d’être impopulaire. Je tiens à la justice climatique et à une planète vivante. Notre civilisation est sacrifiée pour permettre à une petite poignée de gens de continuer à gagner d’énormes sommes d’argent. Notre biosphère est sacrifiée pour que des personnes riches, dans des pays comme le mien, puissent vivre dans le luxe.
Ce sont les souffrances du plus grand nombre qui paient pour le luxe de quelques-uns.
En 2078 je fêterai mes 75 ans. Si j’ai des enfants, peut-être qu’ils passeront cette journée avec moi. Peut-être qu’ils me demanderont de parler de vous. Peut-être qu’ils me demanderont pourquoi vous n’avez rien fait alors qu’il était encore temps d’agir.
Vous dites que vous aimez vos enfants par dessus tout et pourtant vous volez leur futur devant leurs yeux. Jusqu’à ce que vous vous concentriez sur ce qui doit être fait plutôt que sur ce qui est politiquement possible, il n’y a aucun espoir. Nous ne pouvons pas résoudre une crise sans la traiter comme telle. Nous devons laisser les énergies fossiles dans le sol et nous devons nous concentrer sur l’équité. Et si les solutions sont introuvables à l’intérieur du système, alors peut-être devons nous changer de système. Nous ne sommes pas venus ici pour supplier les dirigeants du monde de s’inquiéter. Vous nous avez ignoré par le passé et vous nous ignorerez encore. Nous sommes à court d’excuses et nous sommes à court de temps. Nous sommes venus ici pour vous dire que c’est l’heure du changement, que ça vous plaise ou non. Le vrai pouvoir appartient au peuple.
Discours de Greta Thunberg à la COP24 .
www.preservonslaplanete.com/…/associations_environne…
Lieu photo : Montreux, Suisse.
#sauvonslaplanete #ecologie #wwf #greenpeace #montreux #suisse #CransMontana #cransmontana #fabricelecoqfoto
Another participant in the D Day revival weekend in the village of Southwick, Hampshire. This young lady was dressed in clothes from the period and selling event programmes. Nice smile!
from crystal symphony docked at princes wharf,
across from queen street and auckland cbd
auckland new zealand
arrived from valparaiso chile, via easter island, pitcairn, tahiti, mo'orea, cook, tonga & fiji islands
2024 update - crystals symphony & serenity are operating worldwide cruise programmes after massive refurbishment by new owners abercrombie & kent
Using a programme called Tilting Sun and taking the middle exposure imaging time from my Prominence captures of 20 August (www.flickr.com/photos/76699751@N07/29007261792/in/datetaken/), I can work out the tilt and rotation of the sun and where my image overlays at the time. Also shown here are the 109 Earth's stacked across the diameter of the sun in fairly even measure to arrive at the scaling for Earth (zoom in you will see them!). Taking the Sun as 861,800 miles (1,390,000 kilometers) in diameter and dividing that by Earth at 7909 miles (12,756 kilometers) gives 108.9 rounded to 109 Earths fitting across the diameter of the sun.
Complete photo coverage on www.photos-automobiles.com
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Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd. (BHP), formed in 1885, faced technical and logistical challenges in mining and processing ore bodies in far west New South Wales.
Broken Hill grew quickly. A population of 17000 in 1889 had more than doubled to 35,000 in 1914, putting it on the map as the then third-largest city in New South Wales. In today's terms, it could be described as Australia's most multicultural city of the time.
Trade Unions quickly formed around the mine and extraction processing industries. The Trades Hall, built between 1891 and 1905, became the first building in Australia owned by unions, who also purchased the local newspaper 'The Barrier Times' in 1908. This strong union tradition permeated all aspects of life in Broken Hill. The city's unionists won a 35-hour week in 1920, the first to do so in Australia.
The struggle of working people for equitable pay arrangements and safe working conditions is a major theme of the story of Broken Hill. During the 19th and 20th centuries Broken Hill became synonymous with industrial action, union organisation, and the cause of socialism. The great industrial disputes of 1892, 1909, and 1919 - 1920 are well remembered in Broken Hill and beyond. Workers' heroes such as Tom Mann and Percy Brookfield are memorialised in various ways all over the town and the story of Broken Hill's mining unions is closely connected with the story of mining unionism in Australia.
The history of trade unionism in Broken Hill goes back to the early days of mining on the Line of Lode. In September 1884 a public meeting was held at the Adelaide Club Hotel at Silverton to form the Barrier Miners' Association. By '1886 the headquarters of the Association had moved to Broken Hill where it was reconstituted as the Barrier Branch of the Amalgamated Miners' Association. By 1889 the Association, whose programme of reforms included and eight-hour day and compensation for injured workers, had achieved agreement for compulsory union membership.
The economic depression of the 1890s led mining companies to consider the arbitrary imposition of contract labour rates for stoping in the mines. This brought them into direct conflict with the Amalgamated Miners' Association. The Association withdrew labour from the mines in 1892 and mining company efforts to import non-union labour were bitterly resisted. Union leaders Herman Heberle, E.J. Polkinghorne, Robert A. Hewitt, Dick Sleath, W.J. Ferguson and John Bennetts were arrested and gaoled for periods of up to two years. The industrial action was unsuccessful and by 1896 union membership had dropped from approximately 6000 to 300.
During the 1890s and early years of the 20th century the Association consolidated its position, establishing its own newspaper The Barrier Daily Truth in 1898 and the Barrier Social Democratic Club in 1903. In 1902 British Socialist and former miner Tom Mann visited Broken Hill. Under the auspices of the Burke Ward Parliamentary Labour League Mann addressed a large crowd from the rotunda of the Hillside Reserve, expounding Marxist ideology and the goals of socialism. Mann so impressed union leaders that in 1908 he was invited by the Combined Unions to return as an organiser to assist in a dispute with BHP.
In that year BHP attempted to reduce wages on the expiration of an existing industrial agreement. In response, the unions commenced a recruitment campaign and began agitation for increased wages. Following an agreement on conditions, BHP closed its mines and announced that it would re-open 'after the Christmas period with rates reduced by 12.5 percent. The company eventually re-opened with non-union labour. In response, the unions picketed the mine and battles with police ensued. The lockout lasted 20 weeks with many miners defecting from the union ranks.
Following World War I the unions, who had recovered from the 1909 strike and consolidated their position, campaigned for a reduction in hours and improved safety. Extended industrial action in 1919 - 1920 led to the introduction of a 35 hour working week. The Barrier unions continued to campaign aggressively throughout the 20th century for improvements in the working conditions of their members.
In 2023, the Broken Hill Trades Hall was endorsed for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List, following the backing of its preliminary nomination by both the New South Wales and Australian Governments.
Source: New South Wales Heritage Register & New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment.
www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/m/marshside/index.aspx
www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/m/marshside/about.aspx
There's something for everyone all year round at this delightful coastal reserve. In the spring you can see brown hares boxing in the fields, while in the early summer you'll spot nesting birds like avocets and lapwings. During the winter months the skies fill with visiting waterfowl such as pink-footed geese and wigeons, not to mention birds of prey that can set flocks wheeling over the marshes.
There are two hides, a viewing platform and three viewing screens. If you're new to birdwatching, why not come on one of our special event days?
Opening times
8.30 am to 5 pm every day.
Entrance charges
Free, but donations to help us continue our work here are welcome.
If you are new to birdwatching...
Extensive events programme and ABB events take place - all aimed at beginners. Birds all-year and plenty of them.
Information for dog owners
Some access for dogs - please contact reserve for details
Star species
Our star species are some of the most interesting birds you may see on your visit to the reserve.
Avocet
Watch elegant avocets 'scooping up' microscopic, aquatic life in their amazing, sickle-shaped beaks. They nest in mini colonies on the islands.
Black-tailed godwit
Flocks of black-tailed godwits can be seen on in spring - when they rest and feed here before heading north to Iceland to breed - they are resplendent in their 'tomato soup-red' breeding attire. On their return in autumn, you can pick out the scaly-backed juvenile birds if you look closely. Some birds also spend summer here.
Lapwing
Watch the nesting lapwings here chasing predators that may come too close to their nests or show too much of an interest in their chicks. The protective parents regularly give chase to crows and do not stop their 'mobbing' attacks until the danger has passed.
Pink-footed goose
Many pink-footed geese assemble here from late September through to March. They roost on the mudflats and fly inland at dawn to feed in nearby fields.
Wigeon
During winter, flocks of wigeons are a daily sight, with several thousand often on the reserve. Wintering birds arrive from early September and numbers build up to a peak, usually in January.
Seasonal highlights
Each season brings a different experience at our nature reserves. In spring, the air is filled with birdsong as they compete to establish territories and attract a mate. In summer, look out for young birds making their first venture into the outside world. Autumn brings large movements of migrating birds - some heading south to a warmer climate, others seeking refuge in the UK from the cold Arctic winter. In winter, look out for large flocks of birds gathering to feed, or flying at dusk to form large roosts to keep warm.
Spring
Lapwings tumble in excitable displays over the nesting areas. Early morning is the best time to see the hares 'boxing'. Watch out for the first wheatears and swallows to arrive from Africa. The flood-waters are retreating, leaving muddy edges - look out for migrating waders like common sandpipers and ruffs. There are still large numbers of wigeons, teals, black-tailed godwits and other water birds biding their time or passing through on their way north.
Summer
Redshanks and avocets scold you from a distance as they watch over their chicks. The grass is peppered with the colours of wildflowers. Wall brown and common blue butterflies are found along the paths on warm, sunny days. Grey herons stalk the ditches. Summering black-tailed godwits can be found in the wetter spots.
Autumn
A dashing falcon at this time of year could be a merlin just in from Iceland. Look for skeins of pink-footed geese flying to and from their roost out on the mudflats at dusk and dawn. Migrant hawker dragonflies patrol the ditches on sunny days. Wigeon and teal numbers begin to build up.
Winter
You will be sure to see huge flocks of wigeons, teals, lapwings and golden plovers wheeling and turning over the marshes. Look out for the bird of prey that has caused the panic. It could be a kestrel, merlin, peregrine or sparrowhawk or perhaps one of the voracious great black-backed gulls that patrol these marshes.
Facilities
Facilities
•Information centre
•Car park : Free car park (local authority). Bicycle rack at Sandgrounders Hide.
•Toilets
•Disabled toilets
•Group bookings accepted
•Guided walks available
•Good for walking
•Pushchair friendly
Viewing points
Two hides - both glazed, one heated. One viewing platform and three viewing screens.
Nature trails
Trail to Sandgrounders Hide from car park 200 m, wheelchair/pushchair-suitable. Trail from Nel's Hide to car park 550 m wheelchair/pushchair-suitable. Footpaths along old sea-wall and coast road make round trips of 1.8 miles (3 km), 2.5 miles (4 km) and 4.3 miles (7 km) possible for able-bodied.
Accessibility
This is a natural site with unimproved paths and trails - the access around this site may not be suitable for all visitors. If you have concerns, please contact the reserve or regional office before your visit to discuss your requirements.
How to get here
By train
Southport (Chapel Street Station) - follow London Street till it joins Lord Street and then go straight across Lord Street and on down Nevill Street to the Promenade; turn right to follow Marine Lake to its northern end; turn left onto Fairway and then right on to Marine Drive. Reserve begins at Hesketh Road after 0.6 mile (1 km; first turning on right). Total distance 1.8 miles (3 km).
By bus
Southport (War Memorial, Lord Street) to Crossens via Marshside Road. No.44 every 15 minutes. Get off at Elswick Road junction. Walk north 200 m along Marshside Road to start of reserve.
By road
From Southport, follow coast road north (1.5 miles or 2.5 km from Southport Pier) to small car park by sand works.
Our work here
Marshside protects 94 ha of coastal grassland and pools on the shores of the Ribble estuary.
The RSPB is managing the reserve to protect important populations of breeding waders and wintering wildfowl, plus other wildlife such as brown hares and wintering birds of prey. We are also developing the reserve as a popular visitor attraction.
Top targets
We are working towards five-year mean targets for key breeding birds. These include 80 pairs of lapwings, 10 pairs of avocets and 30 pairs of redshanks. We will also ensure that black-tailed godwits remain present through the breeding season and that breeding wildfowl numbers are stable.
Meanwhile, our October-March targets for non-breeding birds include at least 900 black-tailed godwits, 300 pink-footed geese, 6,000 wigeons, 1,500 teals, 100 shovelers and 750 golden plovers.
Grassland gains
We are improving our grassland for breeding waders, using summer grazing with cattle and topping, where necessary, to create suitable sward heights. We will retain a tussocky structure, and will ensure that up to 33 ha of grassland holds permanent surface water in winter. We will also increase our small area of ungrazed grassland and preserve the extent of our ‘dune-slack’ grassland, which is rich in wildlife.
Water and swamp
We will ensure that all permanent water bodies are at least 10 cm deep from the start of June. We will also increase the extent of open water in pools and ditches, by rotationally cleaning and re-profiling ditches. We will dig new ditches and create small pools to break up waterless ‘plain’ areas, and will excavate to create 1 ha of open water and an additional 1 ha of swamp.
Keeping tabs
Constant monitoring helps us to manage the site and contribute to research projects elsewhere. We focus on breeding waders, lapwing nest productivity and wintering wildfowl, as well as water voles, natterjack toads and butterflies. We also monitor sward height, cattle numbers, the levels and quality of water, and the extent and quality of grassland.
People
We are continuing to improve visitor facilities, making our hides, nature trails and footpaths accessible to all. We also run a varied events programme and will keep developing our volunteer scheme.
Contact us
•Tel: 01704 226190
Where is it?
•Lat/lng: 53.67694,-2.98096
•Grid reference: SD353205
•Nearest town: Southport, Merseyside
•County: Merseyside
•Country: England
A programme on tv earlier this evening was broadcast from Holy Island in Northumberland. Watching it reminded me I had some images from Holy Island which were taken last year and not yet processed. A search through the hard drive found the pics. and here is one of them.
Hope you like it.
Thanks for all the inspiring comments on my last few posted images, I'm pleased you like them.
Tony
Organised jointly by Arthur Howes and Brian Epstein.
Among supporting acts were Gerry and the Pacemakers, Gene Pitney, Marianne Faithfull The Kinks and Cilla Black
Scotswood Bridge is one of the main bridges crossing the River Tyne in North East England. It links the west end of Newcastle upon Tyne on the north bank of the river with the MetroCentre and Blaydon in Gateshead on the south bank. It is situated 5.2 km (3.2 mi) upstream of the better-known city centre bridges.
The Chain Bridge
Scotswood Bridge over River Tyne Act 1829
The first bridge across the river at this location was the Old Scotswood Bridge, or "The Chain Bridge" as it was known locally. It was a suspension bridge with two stone towers, from which the road deck was suspended by chains. An act to authorise the building of the bridge was passed by Parliament in 1829 (10 Geo. 4. c. x) and designed by John Green, with construction beginning that year. It was opened on 16 April 1831.
The toll to cross the bridge was abolished on 18 March 1907. In 1931 the bridge needed to be strengthened and widened. The width was increased from 17 ft (5.2 m) to 19.5 ft (5.9 m) with two 6 ft (1.8 m) footpaths. The suspension cables and decking were also strengthened, allowing the weight limit to be raised to 10 tonnes (9.842 long tons; 11.02 short tons). The bridge eventually proved too narrow for the traffic it needed to carry and its increasing repair costs proved too much. After standing for 136 years, it was closed and demolished in 1967 after its replacement had been completed.
Current bridge
Scotswood Bridge Act 1962
A replacement for the Chain Bridge had been proposed as early as 1941. Permission was finally granted in 1960, and authorised by an act of Parliament, the Scotswood Bridge Act 1962. A new bridge was designed by Mott, Hay and Anderson and built by Mitchell Construction and Dorman Long. Construction commenced on 18 September 1964. It was built 43 m upstream of the Chain Bridge, which continued operating during the new bridge's construction. The bridge was opened on 20 March 1967. It is a box girder bridge, supported by two piers in the river and carries a dual carriageway road. Combined costs for demolition of the old bridge and construction of the new one were £2.5 million.
Scotswood Bridge carried the traffic of the Gateshead A69 western by-pass from 1970 up until the construction of Blaydon Bridge and the new A1 in 1990. Between June 1971 and January 1974 traffic on the bridge was limited to single file to enable strengthening work to take place, which was needed to address design concerns. It has required further strengthening and repairs a number of times since; between 1979 and 1980, in 1983 and in 1990.
Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle is a cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is located on the River Tyne's northern bank, opposite Gateshead to the south. It is the most populous settlement in the Tyneside conurbation and North East England.
Newcastle developed around a Roman settlement called Pons Aelius, the settlement became known as Monkchester before taking on the name of a castle built in 1080 by William the Conqueror's eldest son, Robert Curthose. It was one of the world's largest ship building and repair centres during the industrial revolution. Newcastle was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it separated and formed a county of itself. In 1974, Newcastle became part of Tyne and Wear. Since 2018, the city council has been part of the North of Tyne Combined Authority.
The history of Newcastle upon Tyne dates back almost 2,000 years, during which it has been controlled by the Romans, the Angles and the Norsemen amongst others. Newcastle upon Tyne was originally known by its Roman name Pons Aelius. The name "Newcastle" has been used since the Norman conquest of England. Due to its prime location on the River Tyne, the town developed greatly during the Middle Ages and it was to play a major role in the Industrial Revolution, being granted city status in 1882. Today, the city is a major retail, commercial and cultural centre.
Roman settlement
The history of Newcastle dates from AD 122, when the Romans built the first bridge to cross the River Tyne at that point. The bridge was called Pons Aelius or 'Bridge of Aelius', Aelius being the family name of Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was responsible for the Roman wall built across northern England along the Tyne–Solway gap. Hadrian's Wall ran through present-day Newcastle, with stretches of wall and turrets visible along the West Road, and at a temple in Benwell. Traces of a milecastle were found on Westgate Road, midway between Clayton Street and Grainger Street, and it is likely that the course of the wall corresponded to present-day Westgate Road. The course of the wall can be traced eastwards to the Segedunum Roman fort at Wallsend, with the fort of Arbeia down-river at the mouth of the Tyne, on the south bank in what is now South Shields. The Tyne was then a wider, shallower river at this point and it is thought that the bridge was probably about 700 feet (210 m) long, made of wood and supported on stone piers. It is probable that it was sited near the current Swing Bridge, due to the fact that Roman artefacts were found there during the building of the latter bridge. Hadrian himself probably visited the site in 122. A shrine was set up on the completed bridge in 123 by the 6th Legion, with two altars to Neptune and Oceanus respectively. The two altars were subsequently found in the river and are on display in the Great North Museum in Newcastle.
The Romans built a stone-walled fort in 150 to protect the river crossing which was at the foot of the Tyne Gorge, and this took the name of the bridge so that the whole settlement was known as Pons Aelius. The fort was situated on a rocky outcrop overlooking the new bridge, on the site of the present Castle Keep. Pons Aelius is last mentioned in 400, in a Roman document listing all of the Roman military outposts. It is likely that nestling in the shadow of the fort would have been a small vicus, or village. Unfortunately, no buildings have been detected; only a few pieces of flagging. It is clear that there was a Roman cemetery near Clavering Place, behind the Central station, as a number of Roman coffins and sarcophagi have been unearthed there.
Despite the presence of the bridge, the settlement of Pons Aelius was not particularly important among the northern Roman settlements. The most important stations were those on the highway of Dere Street running from Eboracum (York) through Corstopitum (Corbridge) and to the lands north of the Wall. Corstopitum, being a major arsenal and supply centre, was much larger and more populous than Pons Aelius.
Anglo-Saxon development
The Angles arrived in the North-East of England in about 500 and may have landed on the Tyne. There is no evidence of an Anglo-Saxon settlement on or near the site of Pons Aelius during the Anglo-Saxon age. The bridge probably survived and there may well have been a small village at the northern end, but no evidence survives. At that time the region was dominated by two kingdoms, Bernicia, north of the Tees and ruled from Bamburgh, and Deira, south of the Tees and ruled from York. Bernicia and Deira combined to form the kingdom of Northanhymbra (Northumbria) early in the 7th century. There were three local kings who held the title of Bretwalda – 'Lord of Britain', Edwin of Deira (627–632), Oswald of Bernicia (633–641) and Oswy of Northumbria (641–658). The 7th century became known as the 'Golden Age of Northumbria', when the area was a beacon of culture and learning in Europe. The greatness of this period was based on its generally Christian culture and resulted in the Lindisfarne Gospels amongst other treasures. The Tyne valley was dotted with monasteries, with those at Monkwearmouth, Hexham and Jarrow being the most famous. Bede, who was based at Jarrow, wrote of a royal estate, known as Ad Murum, 'at the Wall', 12 miles (19 km) from the sea. It is thought that this estate may have been in what is now Newcastle. At some unknown time, the site of Newcastle came to be known as Monkchester. The reason for this title is unknown, as we are unaware of any specific monasteries at the site, and Bede made no reference to it. In 875 Halfdan Ragnarsson, the Danish Viking conqueror of York, led an army that attacked and pillaged various monasteries in the area, and it is thought that Monkchester was also pillaged at this time. Little more was heard of it until the coming of the Normans.
Norman period
After the arrival of William the Conqueror in England in 1066, the whole of England was quickly subjected to Norman rule. However, in Northumbria there was great resistance to the Normans, and in 1069 the newly appointed Norman Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Comines and 700 of his men were killed by the local population at Durham. The Northumbrians then marched on York, but William was able to suppress the uprising. That same year, a second uprising occurred when a Danish fleet landed in the Humber. The Northumbrians again attacked York and destroyed the garrison there. William was again able to suppress the uprising, but this time he took revenge. He laid waste to the whole of the Midlands and the land from York to the Tees. In 1080, William Walcher, the Norman bishop of Durham and his followers were brutally murdered at Gateshead. This time Odo, bishop of Bayeux, William's half brother, devastated the land between the Tees and the Tweed. This was known as the 'Harrying of the North'. This devastation is reflected in the Domesday Book. The destruction had such an effect that the North remained poor and backward at least until Tudor times and perhaps until the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle suffered in this respect with the rest of the North.
In 1080 William sent his eldest son, Robert Curthose, north to defend the kingdom against the Scots. After his campaign, he moved to Monkchester and began the building of a 'New Castle'. This was of the "motte-and-bailey" type of construction, a wooden tower on top of an earthen mound (motte), surrounded by a moat and wooden stockade (bailey). It was this castle that gave Newcastle its name. In 1095 the Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Mowbray, rose up against the king, William Rufus, and Rufus sent an army north to recapture the castle. From then on the castle became crown property and was an important base from which the king could control the northern barons. The Northumbrian earldom was abolished and a Sheriff of Northumberland was appointed to administer the region. In 1091 the parish church of St Nicholas was consecrated on the site of the present Anglican cathedral, close by the bailey of the new castle. The church is believed to have been a wooden building on stone footings.
Not a trace of the tower or mound of the motte and bailey castle remains now. Henry II replaced it with a rectangular stone keep, which was built between 1172 and 1177 at a cost of £1,444. A stone bailey, in the form of a triangle, replaced the previous wooden one. The great outer gateway to the castle, called 'the Black Gate', was built later, between 1247 and 1250, in the reign of Henry III. There were at that time no town walls and when attacked by the Scots, the townspeople had to crowd into the bailey for safety. It is probable that the new castle acted as a magnet for local merchants because of the safety it provided. This in turn would help to expand trade in the town. At this time wool, skins and lead were being exported, whilst alum, pepper and ginger were being imported from France and Flanders.
Middle Ages
Throughout the Middle Ages, Newcastle was England's northern fortress, the centre for assembled armies. The Border war against Scotland lasted intermittently for several centuries – possibly the longest border war ever waged. During the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, David 1st of Scotland and his son were granted Cumbria and Northumberland respectively, so that for a period from 1139 to 1157, Newcastle was effectively in Scottish hands. It is believed that during this period, King David may have built the church of St Andrew and the Benedictine nunnery in Newcastle. However, King Stephen's successor, Henry II was strong enough to take back the Earldom of Northumbria from Malcolm IV.
The Scots king William the Lion was imprisoned in Newcastle, in 1174, after being captured at the Battle of Alnwick. Edward I brought the Stone of Scone and William Wallace south through the town and Newcastle was successfully defended against the Scots three times during the 14th century.
Around 1200, stone-faced, clay-filled jetties were starting to project into the river, an indication that trade was increasing in Newcastle. As the Roman roads continued to deteriorate, sea travel was gaining in importance. By 1275 Newcastle was the sixth largest wool exporting port in England. The principal exports at this time were wool, timber, coal, millstones, dairy produce, fish, salt and hides. Much of the developing trade was with the Baltic countries and Germany. Most of the Newcastle merchants were situated near the river, below the Castle. The earliest known charter was dated 1175 in the reign of Henry II, giving the townspeople some control over their town. In 1216 King John granted Newcastle a mayor[8] and also allowed the formation of guilds (known as Mysteries). These were cartels formed within different trades, which restricted trade to guild members. There were initially twelve guilds. Coal was being exported from Newcastle by 1250, and by 1350 the burgesses received a royal licence to export coal. This licence to export coal was jealously guarded by the Newcastle burgesses, and they tried to prevent any one else on the Tyne from exporting coal except through Newcastle. The burgesses similarly tried to prevent fish from being sold anywhere else on the Tyne except Newcastle. This led to conflicts with Gateshead and South Shields.
In 1265, the town was granted permission to impose a 'Wall Tax' or Murage, to pay for the construction of a fortified wall to enclose the town and protect it from Scottish invaders. The town walls were not completed until early in the 14th century. They were two miles (3 km) long, 9 feet (2.7 m) thick and 25 feet (7.6 m) high. They had six main gates, as well as some smaller gates, and had 17 towers. The land within the walls was divided almost equally by the Lort Burn, which flowed southwards and joined the Tyne to the east of the Castle. The town began to expand north of the Castle and west of the Lort Burn with various markets being set up within the walls.
In 1400 Henry IV granted a new charter, creating a County corporate which separated the town, but not the Castle, from the county of Northumberland and recognised it as a "county of itself" with a right to have a sheriff of its own. The burgesses were now allowed to choose six aldermen who, with the mayor would be justices of the peace. The mayor and sheriff were allowed to hold borough courts in the Guildhall.
Religious houses
During the Middle Ages a number of religious houses were established within the walls: the first of these was the Benedictine nunnery of St Bartholomew founded in 1086 near the present-day Nun Street. Both David I of Scotland and Henry I of England were benefactors of the religious house. Nothing of the nunnery remains now.
The friary of Blackfriars, Newcastle (Dominican) was established in 1239. These were also known as the Preaching Friars or Shod Friars, because they wore sandals, as opposed to other orders. The friary was situated in the present-day Friars Street. In 1280 the order was granted royal permission to make a postern in the town walls to communicate with their gardens outside the walls. On 19 June 1334, Edward Balliol, claimant to be King of Scotland, did homage to King Edward III, on behalf of the kingdom of Scotland, in the church of the friary. Much of the original buildings of the friary still exist, mainly because, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries the friary of Blackfriars was rented out by the corporation to nine of the local trade guilds.
The friary of Whitefriars (Carmelite) was established in 1262. The order was originally housed on the Wall Knoll in Pandon, but in 1307 it took over the buildings of another order, which went out of existence, the Friars of the Sac. The land, which had originally been given by Robert the Bruce, was situated in the present-day Hanover Square, behind the Central station. Nothing of the friary remains now.
The friary of Austinfriars (Augustinian) was established in 1290. The friary was on the site where the Holy Jesus Hospital was built in 1682. The friary was traditionally the lodging place of English kings whenever they visited or passed through Newcastle. In 1503 Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England, stayed two days at the friary on her way to join her new husband James IV of Scotland.
The friary of Greyfriars (Franciscans) was established in 1274. The friary was in the present-day area between Pilgrim Street, Grey Street, Market Street and High Chare. Nothing of the original buildings remains.
The friary of the Order of the Holy Trinity, also known as the Trinitarians, was established in 1360. The order devoted a third of its income to buying back captives of the Saracens, during the Crusades. Their house was on the Wall Knoll, in Pandon, to the east of the city, but within the walls. Wall Knoll had previously been occupied by the White Friars until they moved to new premises in 1307.
All of the above religious houses were closed in about 1540, when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries.
An important street running through Newcastle at the time was Pilgrim Street, running northwards inside the walls and leading to the Pilgrim Gate on the north wall. The street still exists today as arguably Newcastle's main shopping street.
Tudor period
The Scottish border wars continued for much of the 16th century, so that during that time, Newcastle was often threatened with invasion by the Scots, but also remained important as a border stronghold against them.
During the Reformation begun by Henry VIII in 1536, the five Newcastle friaries and the single nunnery were dissolved and the land was sold to the Corporation and to rich merchants. At this time there were fewer than 60 inmates of the religious houses in Newcastle. The convent of Blackfriars was leased to nine craft guilds to be used as their headquarters. This probably explains why it is the only one of the religious houses whose building survives to the present day. The priories at Tynemouth and Durham were also dissolved, thus ending the long-running rivalry between Newcastle and the church for control of trade on the Tyne. A little later, the property of the nunnery of St Bartholomew and of Grey Friars were bought by Robert Anderson, who had the buildings demolished to build his grand Newe House (also known as Anderson Place).
With the gradual decline of the Scottish border wars the town walls were allowed to decline as well as the castle. By 1547, about 10,000 people were living in Newcastle. At the beginning of the 16th century exports of wool from Newcastle were more than twice the value of exports of coal, but during the century coal exports continued to increase.
Under Edward VI, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, sponsored an act allowing Newcastle to annexe Gateshead as its suburb. The main reason for this was to allow the Newcastle Hostmen, who controlled the export of Tyne coal, to get their hands on the Gateshead coal mines, previously controlled by the Bishop of Durham. However, when Mary I came to power, Dudley met his downfall and the decision was reversed. The Reformation allowed private access to coal mines previously owned by Tynemouth and Durham priories and as a result coal exports increase dramatically, from 15,000 tons in 1500 to 35,000 tons in 1565, and to 400,000 tons in 1625.
The plague visited Newcastle four times during the 16th century, in 1579 when 2,000 people died, in 1589 when 1700 died, in 1595 and finally in 1597.
In 1600 Elizabeth I granted Newcastle a charter for an exclusive body of electors, the right to elect the mayor and burgesses. The charter also gave the Hostmen exclusive rights to load coal at any point on the Tyne. The Hostmen developed as an exclusive group within the Merchant Adventurers who had been incorporated by a charter in 1547.
Stuart period
In 1636 there was a serious outbreak of bubonic plague in Newcastle. There had been several previous outbreaks of the disease over the years, but this was the most serious. It is thought to have arrived from the Netherlands via ships that were trading between the Tyne and that country. It first appeared in the lower part of the town near the docks but gradually spread to all parts of the town. As the disease gained hold the authorities took measures to control it by boarding up any properties that contained infected persons, meaning that whole families were locked up together with the infected family members. Other infected persons were put in huts outside the town walls and left to die. Plague pits were dug next to the town's four churches and outside the town walls to receive the bodies in mass burials. Over the course of the outbreak 5,631 deaths were recorded out of an estimated population of 12,000, a death rate of 47%.
In 1637 Charles I tried to raise money by doubling the 'voluntary' tax on coal in return for allowing the Newcastle Hostmen to regulate production and fix prices. This caused outrage amongst the London importers and the East Anglian shippers. Both groups decided to boycott Tyne coal and as a result forced Charles to reverse his decision in 1638.
In 1640 during the Second Bishops' War, the Scots successfully invaded Newcastle. The occupying army demanded £850 per day from the Corporation to billet the Scottish troops. Trade from the Tyne ground to a halt during the occupation. The Scots left in 1641 after receiving a Parliamentary pardon and a £4,000,000 loan from the town.
In 1642 the English Civil War began. King Charles realised the value of the Tyne coal trade and therefore garrisoned Newcastle. A Royalist was appointed as governor. At that time, Newcastle and King's Lynn were the only important seaports to support the crown. In 1644 Parliament blockaded the Tyne to prevent the king from receiving revenue from the Tyne coal trade. Coal exports fell from 450,000 to 3,000 tons and London suffered a hard winter without fuel. Parliament encouraged the coal trade from the Wear to try to replace that lost from Newcastle but that was not enough to make up for the lost Tyneside tonnage.
In 1644 the Scots crossed the border. Newcastle strengthened its defences in preparation. The Scottish army, with 40,000 troops, besieged Newcastle for three months until the garrison of 1,500 surrendered. During the siege, the Scots bombarded the walls with their artillery, situated in Gateshead and Castle Leazes. The Scottish commander threatened to destroy the steeple of St Nicholas's Church by gunfire if the mayor, Sir John Marley, did not surrender the town. The mayor responded by placing Scottish prisoners that they had captured in the steeple, so saving it from destruction. The town walls were finally breached by a combination of artillery and sapping. In gratitude for this defence, Charles gave Newcastle the motto 'Fortiter Defendit Triumphans' to be added to its coat of arms. The Scottish army occupied Northumberland and Durham for two years. The coal taxes had to pay for the Scottish occupation. In 1645 Charles surrendered to the Scots and was imprisoned in Newcastle for nine months. After the Civil War the coal trade on the Tyne soon picked up and exceeded its pre-war levels.
A new Guildhall was completed on the Sandhill next to the river in 1655, replacing an earlier facility damaged by fire in 1639, and became the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council. In 1681 the Hospital of the Holy Jesus was built partly on the site of the Austin Friars. The Guildhall and Holy Jesus Hospital still exist.
Charles II tried to impose a charter on Newcastle to give the king the right to appoint the mayor, sheriff, recorder and town clerk. Charles died before the charter came into effect. In 1685, James II tried to replace Corporation members with named Catholics. However, James' mandate was suspended in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution welcoming William of Orange. In 1689, after the fall of James II, the people of Newcastle tore down his bronze equestrian statue in Sandhill and tossed it into the Tyne. The bronze was later used to make bells for All Saints Church.
In 1689 the Lort Burn was covered over. At this time it was an open sewer. The channel followed by the Lort Burn became the present day Dean Street. At that time, the centre of Newcastle was still the Sandhill area, with many merchants living along the Close or on the Side. The path of the main road through Newcastle ran from the single Tyne bridge, through Sandhill to the Side, a narrow street which climbed steeply on the north-east side of the castle hill until it reached the higher ground alongside St Nicholas' Church. As Newcastle developed, the Side became lined with buildings with projecting upper stories, so that the main street through Newcastle was a narrow, congested, steep thoroughfare.
In 1701 the Keelmen's Hospital was built in the Sandgate area of the city, using funds provided by the keelmen. The building still stands today.
Eighteenth century
In the 18th century, Newcastle was the country's largest print centre after London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the Literary and Philosophical Society of 1793, with its erudite debates and large stock of books in several languages predated the London Library by half a century.
In 1715, during the Jacobite rising in favour of the Old Pretender, an army of Jacobite supporters marched on Newcastle. Many of the Northumbrian gentry joined the rebels. The citizens prepared for its arrival by arresting Jacobite supporters and accepting 700 extra recruits into the local militia. The gates of the city were closed against the rebels. This proved enough to delay an attack until reinforcements arrived forcing the rebel army to move across to the west coast. The rebels finally surrendered at Preston.
In 1745, during a second Jacobite rising in favour of the Young Pretender, a Scottish army crossed the border led by Bonnie Prince Charlie. Once again Newcastle prepared by arresting Jacobite supporters and inducting 800 volunteers into the local militia. The town walls were strengthened, most of the gates were blocked up and some 200 cannon were deployed. 20,000 regulars were billeted on the Town Moor. These preparations were enough to force the rebel army to travel south via the west coast. They were eventually defeated at Culloden in 1746.
Newcastle's actions during the 1715 rising in resisting the rebels and declaring for George I, in contrast to the rest of the region, is the most likely source of the nickname 'Geordie', applied to people from Tyneside, or more accurately Newcastle. Another theory, however, is that the name 'Geordie' came from the inventor of the Geordie lamp, George Stephenson. It was a type of safety lamp used in mining, but was not invented until 1815. Apparently the term 'German Geordie' was in common use during the 18th century.
The city's first hospital, Newcastle Infirmary opened in 1753; it was funded by public subscription. A lying-in hospital was established in Newcastle in 1760. The city's first public hospital for mentally ill patients, Wardens Close Lunatic Hospital was opened in October 1767.
In 1771 a flood swept away much of the bridge at Newcastle. The bridge had been built in 1250 and repaired after a flood in 1339. The bridge supported various houses and three towers and an old chapel. A blue stone was placed in the middle of the bridge to mark the boundary between Newcastle and the Palatinate of Durham. A temporary wooden bridge had to be built, and this remained in use until 1781, when a new stone bridge was completed. The new bridge consisted of nine arches. In 1801, because of the pressure of traffic, the bridge had to be widened.
A permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Fenham Barracks in 1806. The facilities at the Castle for holding assizes, which had been condemned for their inconvenience and unhealthiness, were replaced when the Moot Hall opened in August 1812.
Victorian period
Present-day Newcastle owes much of its architecture to the work of the builder Richard Grainger, aided by architects John Dobson, Thomas Oliver, John and Benjamin Green and others. In 1834 Grainger won a competition to produce a new plan for central Newcastle. He put this plan into effect using the above architects as well as architects employed in his own office. Grainger and Oliver had already built Leazes Terrace, Leazes Crescent and Leazes Place between 1829 and 1834. Grainger and Dobson had also built the Royal Arcade at the foot of Pilgrim Street between 1830 and 1832. The most ambitious project covered 12 acres 12 acres (49,000 m2) in central Newcastle, on the site of Newe House (also called Anderson Place). Grainger built three new thoroughfares, Grey Street, Grainger Street and Clayton Street with many connecting streets, as well as the Central Exchange and the Grainger Market. John Wardle and George Walker, working in Grainger's office, designed Clayton Street, Grainger Street and most of Grey Street. Dobson designed the Grainger Market and much of the east side of Grey Street. John and Benjamin Green designed the Theatre Royal at the top of Grey Street, where Grainger placed the column of Grey's Monument as a focus for the whole scheme. Grey Street is considered to be one of the finest streets in the country, with its elegant curve. Unfortunately most of old Eldon Square was demolished in the 1960s in the name of progress. The Royal Arcade met a similar fate.
In 1849 a new bridge was built across the river at Newcastle. This was the High Level Bridge, designed by Robert Stephenson, and slightly up river from the existing bridge. The bridge was designed to carry road and rail traffic across the Tyne Gorge on two decks with rail traffic on the upper deck and road traffic on the lower. The new bridge meant that traffic could pass through Newcastle without having to negotiate the steep, narrow Side, as had been necessary for centuries. The bridge was opened by Queen Victoria, who one year later opened the new Central Station, designed by John Dobson. Trains were now able to cross the river, directly into the centre of Newcastle and carry on up to Scotland. The Army Riding School was also completed in 1849.
In 1854 a large fire started on the Gateshead quayside and an explosion caused it to spread across the river to the Newcastle quayside. A huge conflagration amongst the narrow alleys, or 'chares', destroyed the homes of 800 families as well as many business premises. The narrow alleys that had been destroyed were replaced by streets containing blocks of modern offices.
In 1863 the Town Hall in St Nicholas Square replaced the Guildhall as the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council.
In 1876 the low level bridge was replaced by a new bridge known as the Swing Bridge, so called because the bridge was able to swing horizontally on a central axis and allow ships to pass on either side. This meant that for the first time sizeable ships could pass up-river beyond Newcastle. The bridge was built and paid for by William Armstrong, a local arms manufacturer, who needed to have warships access his Elswick arms factory to fit armaments to them. The Swing Bridge's rotating mechanism is adapted from the cannon mounts developed in Armstrong's arms works. In 1882 the Elswick works began to build ships as well as to arm them. The Barrack Road drill hall was completed in 1890.
Industrialisation
In the 19th century, shipbuilding and heavy engineering were central to the city's prosperity; and the city was a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle's development as a major city owed most to its central role in the production and export of coal. The phrase "taking coals to Newcastle" was first recorded in 1538; it proverbially denotes bringing a particular commodity to a place that has more than enough of it already.
Innovation in Newcastle and surrounding areas included the following:
George Stephenson developed a miner's safety lamp at the same time that Humphry Davy developed a rival design. The lamp made possible the opening up of ever deeper mines to provide the coal that powered the industrial revolution.
George and his son Robert Stephenson were hugely influential figures in the development of the early railways. George developed Blücher, a locomotive working at Killingworth colliery in 1814, whilst Robert was instrumental in the design of Rocket, a revolutionary design that was the forerunner of modern locomotives. Both men were involved in planning and building railway lines, all over this country and abroad.
Joseph Swan demonstrated a working electric light bulb about a year before Thomas Edison did the same in the USA. This led to a dispute as to who had actually invented the light bulb. Eventually the two rivals agreed to form a mutual company between them, the Edison and Swan Electric Light Company, known as Ediswan.
Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine, for marine use and for power generation. He used Turbinia, a small, turbine-powered ship, to demonstrate the speed that a steam turbine could generate. Turbinia literally ran rings around the British Fleet at a review at Spithead in 1897.
William Armstrong invented a hydraulic crane that was installed in dockyards up and down the country. He then began to design light, accurate field guns for the British army. These were a vast improvement on the existing guns that were then in use.
The following major industries developed in Newcastle or its surrounding area:
Glassmaking
A small glass industry existed in Newcastle from the mid-15th century. In 1615 restrictions were put on the use of wood for manufacturing glass. It was found that glass could be manufactured using the local coal, and so a glassmaking industry grew up on Tyneside. Huguenot glassmakers came over from France as refugees from persecution and set up glasshouses in the Skinnerburn area of Newcastle. Eventually, glass production moved to the Ouseburn area of Newcastle. In 1684 the Dagnia family, Sephardic Jewish emigrants from Altare, arrived in Newcastle from Stourbridge and established glasshouses along the Close, to manufacture high quality flint glass. The glass manufacturers used sand ballast from the boats arriving in the river as the main raw material. The glassware was then exported in collier brigs. The period from 1730 to 1785 was the highpoint of Newcastle glass manufacture, when the local glassmakers produced the 'Newcastle Light Baluster'. The glassmaking industry still exists in the west end of the city with local Artist and Glassmaker Jane Charles carrying on over four hundred years of hot glass blowing in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Locomotive manufacture
In 1823 George Stephenson and his son Robert established the world's first locomotive factory near Forth Street in Newcastle. Here they built locomotives for the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, as well as many others. It was here that the famous locomotive Rocket was designed and manufactured in preparation for the Rainhill Trials. Apart from building locomotives for the British market, the Newcastle works also produced locomotives for Europe and America. The Forth Street works continued to build locomotives until 1960.
Shipbuilding
In 1296 a wooden, 135 ft (41 m) long galley was constructed at the mouth of the Lort Burn in Newcastle, as part of a twenty-ship order from the king. The ship cost £205, and is the earliest record of shipbuilding in Newcastle. However the rise of the Tyne as a shipbuilding area was due to the need for collier brigs for the coal export trade. These wooden sailing ships were usually built locally, establishing local expertise in building ships. As ships changed from wood to steel, and from sail to steam, the local shipbuilding industry changed to build the new ships. Although shipbuilding was carried out up and down both sides of the river, the two main areas for building ships in Newcastle were Elswick, to the west, and Walker, to the east. By 1800 Tyneside was the third largest producer of ships in Britain. Unfortunately, after the Second World War, lack of modernisation and competition from abroad gradually caused the local industry to decline and die.
Armaments
In 1847 William Armstrong established a huge factory in Elswick, west of Newcastle. This was initially used to produce hydraulic cranes but subsequently began also to produce guns for both the army and the navy. After the Swing Bridge was built in 1876 allowing ships to pass up river, warships could have their armaments fitted alongside the Elswick works. Armstrong's company took over its industrial rival, Joseph Whitworth of Manchester in 1897.
Steam turbines
Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine and, in 1889, founded his own company C. A. Parsons and Company in Heaton, Newcastle to make steam turbines. Shortly after this, he realised that steam turbines could be used to propel ships and, in 1897, he founded a second company, Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in Wallsend. It is there that he designed and manufactured Turbinia. Parsons turbines were initially used in warships but soon came to be used in merchant and passenger vessels, including the liner Mauretania which held the blue riband for the Atlantic crossing until 1929. Parsons' company in Heaton began to make turbo-generators for power stations and supplied power stations all over the world. The Heaton works, reduced in size, remains as part of the Siemens AG industrial giant.
Pottery
In 1762 the Maling pottery was founded in Sunderland by French Huguenots, but transferred to Newcastle in 1817. A factory was built in the Ouseburn area of the city. The factory was rebuilt twice, finally occupying a 14-acre (57,000 m2) site that was claimed to be the biggest pottery in the world and which had its own railway station. The pottery pioneered use of machines in making potteries as opposed to hand production. In the 1890s the company went up-market and employed in-house designers. The period up to the Second World War was the most profitable with a constant stream of new designs being introduced. However, after the war, production gradually declined and the company closed in 1963.
Expansion of the city
Newcastle was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835: the reformed municipal borough included the parishes of Byker, Elswick, Heaton, Jesmond, Newcastle All Saints, Newcastle St Andrew, Newcastle St John, Newcastle St Nicholas, and Westgate. The urban districts of Benwell and Fenham and Walker were added in 1904. In 1935, Newcastle gained Kenton and parts of the parishes of West Brunton, East Denton, Fawdon, Longbenton. The most recent expansion in Newcastle's boundaries took place under the Local Government Act 1972 on 1 April 1974, when Newcastle became a metropolitan borough, also including the urban districts of Gosforth and Newburn, and the parishes of Brunswick, Dinnington, Hazlerigg, North Gosforth and Woolsington from the Castle Ward Rural District, and the village of Westerhope.
Meanwhile Northumberland County Council was formed under the Local Government Act 1888 and benefited from a dedicated meeting place when County Hall was completed in the Castle Garth area of Newcastle in 1910. Following the Local Government Act 1972 County Hall relocated to Morpeth in April 1981.
Twentieth century
In 1925 work began on a new high-level road bridge to span the Tyne Gorge between Newcastle and Gateshead. The capacity of the existing High-Level Bridge and Swing Bridge were being strained to the limit, and an additional bridge had been discussed for a long time. The contract was awarded to the Dorman Long Company and the bridge was finally opened by King George V in 1928. The road deck was 84 feet (26 m) above the river and was supported by a 531 feet (162 m) steel arch. The new Tyne Bridge quickly became a symbol for Newcastle and Tyneside, and remains so today.
During the Second World War, Newcastle was largely spared the horrors inflicted upon other British cities bombed during the Blitz. Although the armaments factories and shipyards along the River Tyne were targeted by the Luftwaffe, they largely escaped unscathed. Manors goods yard and railway terminal, to the east of the city centre, and the suburbs of Jesmond and Heaton suffered bombing during 1941. There were 141 deaths and 587 injuries, a relatively small figure compared to the casualties in other industrial centres of Britain.
In 1963 the city gained its own university, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, by act of parliament. A School of Medicine and Surgery had been established in Newcastle in 1834. This eventually developed into a college of medicine attached to Durham University. A college of physical science was also founded and became Armstrong College in 1904. In 1934 the two colleges merged to become King's College, Durham. This remained as part of Durham University until the new university was created in 1963. In 1992 the city gained its second university when Newcastle Polytechnic was granted university status as Northumbria University.
Newcastle City Council moved to the new Newcastle Civic Centre in 1968.
As heavy industries declined in the second half of the 20th century, large sections of the city centre were demolished along with many areas of slum housing. The leading political figure in the city during the 1960s was T. Dan Smith who oversaw a massive building programme of highrise housing estates and authorised the demolition of a quarter of the Georgian Grainger Town to make way for Eldon Square Shopping Centre. Smith's control in Newcastle collapsed when it was exposed that he had used public contracts to advantage himself and his business associates and for a time Newcastle became a byword for civic corruption as depicted in the films Get Carter and Stormy Monday and in the television series Our Friends in the North. However, much of the historic Grainger Town area survived and was, for the most part, fully restored in the late 1990s. Northumberland Street, initially the A1, was gradually closed to traffic from the 1970s and completely pedestrianised by 1998.
In 1978 a new rapid transport system, the Metro, was built, linking the Tyneside area. The system opened in August 1980. A new bridge was built to carry the Metro across the river between Gateshead and Newcastle. This was the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, commonly known as the Metro Bridge. Eventually the Metro system was extended to reach Newcastle Airport in 1991, and in 2002 the Metro system was extended to the nearby city of Sunderland.
As the 20th century progressed, trade on the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides gradually declined, until by the 1980s both sides of the river were looking rather derelict. Shipping company offices had closed along with offices of firms related to shipping. There were also derelict warehouses lining the riverbank. Local government produced a master plan to re-develop the Newcastle quayside and this was begun in the 1990s. New offices, restaurants, bars and residential accommodation were built and the area has changed in the space of a few years into a vibrant area, partially returning the focus of Newcastle to the riverside, where it was in medieval times.
The Gateshead Millennium Bridge, a foot and cycle bridge, 26 feet (7.9 m) wide and 413 feet (126 m) long, was completed in 2001. The road deck is in the form of a curve and is supported by a steel arch. To allow ships to pass, the whole structure, both arch and road-deck, rotates on huge bearings at either end so that the road deck is lifted. The bridge can be said to open and shut like a human eye. It is an important addition to the re-developed quayside area, providing a vital link between the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides.
Recent developments
Today the city is a vibrant centre for office and retail employment, but just a short distance away there are impoverished inner-city housing estates, in areas originally built to provide affordable housing for employees of the shipyards and other heavy industries that lined the River Tyne. In the 2010s Newcastle City Council began implementing plans to regenerate these depressed areas, such as those along the Ouseburn Valley.
Launch of the IAEA Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme held at the Agency headquarters in Vienna, Austria. 9 March 2020
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
Moderator:
Sophie Boutaud de la Combe, Moderator and IAEA Director, Office of Public Information and Communication, Director General’s Office for Coordination
PANELISTS:
Ms Karen Hallberg, Principle Researcher, Bariloche Atomic Centre, National Atomic Energy Commission and Professor, Physics, Balseiro, Institute, Argentina
HE Mr Xavier Sticker, Resident Representative of France to the IAEA
HE Ms Dominika Anna Krois, Resident Representative of Poland to the IAEA
The 2016 Weekend at the Asylum which is likely the largest and longest running Steampunk Festival in the World. It is held in the historic uphill district of Lincoln, Lincolnshire.
Since 2009, the festival (or convivial in Steampunk parlance) has been held each year in Lincoln and currently stretches over multiple venues in the historic cathedral quarter of Lincoln town, Lincoln Castle and Bishop Grosseteste University. It is run as a not-for-profit event organised by the Victorian Steampunk Society.
For four glorious days the historic streets of Lincoln are thronged with thousands of splendidly dressed steampunks enjoying a festival which strives to combine art, literature, music, fashion, comedy and simple good fun.
The event contains programmes of features and entertainment, such as the Empire Ball, Majors Review (The Major's Soiree) and the National Tea Duelling final, along with lots of live music and comedy and the largest steampunk market in the World, the Bazaar Eclectica.
Information Source:
Visiting Alford Museum I was delighted to find this genuine Dalek from the BBC Television Show "Dr Who", it was displayed among other materials from the 70s etc, hence a quick video to archive the scene.
I've followed the Dr Who series from my school days ( a long time ago) hence absolute joy to view this item.
The Daleks - (DAH-leks) are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. The Daleks were conceived by science-fiction writer Terry Nation and first appeared in the 1963 Doctor Who serial The Daleks, in the shells designed by Raymond Cusick.
Drawing inspirations from the real-life example of the Nazis, the Daleks are merciless and pitiless cyborg aliens, demanding total conformity, bent on conquest of the universe and the extermination of what they see as inferior races.
Their catchphrase, "Exterminate!", is a well-recognised reference in British popular culture.
Within the programme's narrative, the Daleks were engineered by the scientist Davros during the final years of a thousand-year war between his people, the Kaleds, and their enemies the Thals.
With some Kaleds already badly mutated and damaged by nuclear war, Davros genetically modified the Kaleds and integrated them with a tank-like, robotic shell, removing their every emotion apart from hate. His creations soon came to view themselves as the supreme race in the universe, intent on purging the universe of all non-Dalek life. Collectively they are the greatest enemies of Doctor Who's protagonist, the Time Lord known as The Doctor.
Later in the programme's run, the Daleks acquired time travel technology and engaged the Time Lords in a brutal Time War affecting most of the universe, with battles taking place across all of history.
They are among the show's most popular villains and their various returns to the series over the years have typically been widely reported in the television press.
Creation
The Daleks were created by writer Terry Nation and designed by BBC designer Raymond Cusick.
They were introduced in December 1963 in the second Doctor Who serial, colloquially known as The Daleks.
They became an immediate and huge hit with viewers, featuring in many subsequent serials and two 1960s motion pictures.
They have become as synonymous with Doctor Who as the Doctor himself, and their behaviour and catchphrases are now part of British popular culture. "Hiding behind the sofa whenever the Daleks appear" has been cited as an element of British cultural identity;and a 2008 survey indicated that nine out of ten British children were able to identify a Dalek correctly.
In 1999 a Dalek photographed by Lord Snowdon appeared on a postage stamp celebrating British popular culture.
In 2010, readers of science-fiction magazine SFX voted the Dalek as the all-time greatest monster, beating competition including Japanese movie monster Godzilla and J. R. R. Tolkien's Gollum, of The Lord of the Rings.
Entry into popular culture
As early as one year after first appearing on Doctor Who, the Daleks had become popular enough to be recognized even by non-viewers. In December 1964 editorial cartoonist Leslie Gilbert Illingworth published a cartoon in the Daily Mail captioned "THE DEGAULLEK", caricaturing French President Charles de Gaulle arriving at a NATO meeting as a Dalek with de Gaulle's prominent nose.
The word "Dalek" has entered major dictionaries, including the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines "Dalek" as "a type of robot appearing in 'Dr. Who' [sic], a B.B.C. Television science-fiction programme; hence used allusively."
But English-speakers sometimes use the term metaphorically to describe people, usually authority figures, who act like robots unable to break from their programming. For example, John Birt, the Director-General of the BBC from 1992 to 2000, was publicly called a "croak-voiced Dalek" by playwright Dennis Potter in the MacTaggart Lecture at the 1993 Edinburgh Television Festival.
Physical characteristics
Externally, Daleks resemble human-sized pepper pots with a single mechanical eyestalk mounted on a rotating dome, a gun mount containing an energy weapon ("gunstick" or "death ray") resembling an egg whisk, and a telescopic manipulator arm usually tipped by an appendage resembling a sink plunger. Daleks have been known to use their plungers to interface with technology, crush a man's skull by suction,[measure the intelligence of a subject, and extract information from a man's mind.[
Dalek casings are made of a bonded polycarbide material dubbed "dalekanium" by a member of the human resistance in The Dalek Invasion of Earth and by the Cult of Skaro in "Daleks in Manhattan".
The lower half of a Dalek's shell is covered with hemispherical protrusions, or "Dalek bumps", which are shown in the episode "Dalek" to be spheres embedded in the casing.[11] Both the BBC-licensed Dalek Book (1964) and The Doctor Who Technical Manual (1983) describe these items as being part of a sensory array,[ whilst in the 2005 series episode "Dalek", they are integral to a Dalek's self-destruct mechanism.
Their armour has a forcefield that evaporates most bullets and resists most types of energy weapons. The forcefield seems to be concentrated around the Dalek's midsection (where the mutant is located), as normally ineffective firepower can be concentrated on the eyestalk to blind a Dalek. Daleks have a very limited visual field, with no peripheral sight at all, and are relatively easy to hide from in fairly exposed places. Their own energy weapons are capable of destroying them.
Their weapons fire a beam that has electrical tendencies, is capable of propagating through water, and may be a form of plasma or electrolaser.
The eyepiece is a Dalek's most vulnerable spot; impairing its vision often leads to a blind, panicked firing of its weapon while exclaiming "My vision is impaired; I cannot see!" Russell T Davies subverted the catchphrase in his 2008 episode "The Stolen Earth", in which a Dalek vaporises a paintball that has blocked its vision while proclaiming "My vision is not impaired!"
Kaled mutants are octopus-like; many are coloured green, such as this one from "Resurrection of the Daleks".
The creature inside the mechanical casing is soft and repulsive in appearance and vicious in temperament. The first-ever glimpse of a Dalek mutant, in The Daleks, was a claw peeking out from under a Thal cloak after it had been removed from its casing.
The mutants' actual appearance has varied, but often adheres to the Doctor's description of the species in Remembrance of the Daleks as "little green blobs in bonded polycarbide armour".
In Resurrection of the Daleks a Dalek creature, separated from its casing, attacks and severely injures a human soldier; in Remembrance of the Daleks, there are two Dalek factions (Imperial and Renegade) and the creatures inside have a different appearance in each case, one resembling the amorphous creature from Resurrection, the other the crab-like creature from the original Dalek serial.
As the creature inside is rarely seen on screen, a common misconception exists that Daleks are wholly mechanical robots.
In the new series Daleks are retconned to be mollusc-like in appearance, with small tentacles, one or two eyes, and an exposed brain.
Daleks' voices are electronic; when out of its casing the mutant is only able to squeak. Once the mutant is removed, the casing itself can be entered and operated by humanoids; for example, in The Daleks, Ian Chesterton (William Russell) enters a Dalek shell to masquerade as a guard as part of an escape plan.
In a dark basement, a white Dalek (see previous description) appears to levitate up a small staircase of approximately seven stairs. The body of the Dalek is white, with shiny gold vertical slats and gold balls on its lower half. There is an orange-yellow glow at the Dalek's base.
For many years it was assumed that, due to their design and gliding motion, Daleks were unable to climb stairs, and that this was a simple way of escaping them. A well-known cartoon from Punch pictured a group of Daleks at the foot of a flight of stairs with the caption, "Well, this certainly buggers our plan to conquer the Universe".
In a scene from the serial Destiny of the Daleks, the Doctor and companions escape from Dalek pursuers by climbing into a ceiling duct. The Fourth Doctor calls down, "If you're supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don't you try climbing after us?"
The Daleks generally make up for their lack of mobility with overwhelming firepower; a joke among Doctor Who fans goes, "Real Daleks don't climb stairs; they level the building."
Dalek mobility has improved over the history of the series: in their first appearance, The Daleks, they were capable of movement only on the conductive metal floors of their city; in The Dalek Invasion of Earth a Dalek emerges from the waters of the River Thames, indicating that they not only had become freely mobile, but are amphibious;Planet of the Daleks showed that they could ascend a vertical shaft by means of an external anti-gravity mat placed on the floor; Revelation of the Daleks showed Davros in his life-support chair and one of his Daleks hovering and Remembrance of the Daleks depicted them as capable of hovering up a flight of stairs.
Despite this, journalists covering the series frequently refer to the Daleks' supposed inability to climb stairs; characters escaping up a flight of stairs in the 2005 episode "Dalek" made the same joke, and were shocked when the Dalek began to hover up the stairs after uttering the phrase "ELEVATE", in a similar manner to their normal phrase "EXTERMINATE".
The new series depicts the Daleks as fully capable of flight, even space flight.
Prop details
The non-humanoid shape of the Dalek did much to enhance the creatures' sense of menace[citation needed]. A lack of familiar reference points differentiated them from the traditional "bug-eyed monster" of science fiction, which Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman had wanted the show to avoid.
The unsettling Dalek form, coupled with their alien voices, made many believe that the props were wholly mechanical and operated by remote control.
The Daleks were actually controlled from inside by short operators who had to manipulate their eyestalks, domes, and arms, as well as flashing the lights on their heads in sync with the actors supplying their voices. The Dalek cases were built in two pieces; an operator would step into the lower section, and then the top would be secured. The operators looked out between the cylindrical louvres just beneath the dome, which were lined with mesh to conceal their faces.
In addition to being hot and cramped the Dalek casings also muffled external sounds, making it difficult for operators to hear the director's commands or studio dialogue. John Scott Martin, a Dalek operator from the original series, said that Dalek operation was a challenge: "You had to have about six hands: one to do the eyestalk, one to do the lights, one for the gun, another for the smoke canister underneath, yet another for the sink plunger. If you were related to an octopus then it helped."
For Doctor Who's 21st-century revival the Dalek casings retain the same overall shape and dimensional proportions of previous Daleks, although many details have been re-designed to give the Dalek a heavier and more solid look.
Changes include a larger, more pointed base; a glowing eyepiece; an all-over metallic-brass finish (specified by Davies); thicker, nailed strips on the "neck" section; a housing for the eyestalk pivot; and significantly larger dome lights.
The new prop made its on-screen debut in the 2005 episode "Dalek". These Dalek casings use a short operator inside the housing while the 'head' and eyestalk are operated via remote control. A third person, Nicholas Briggs, supplies the voice in their various appearances.
In the 2010 season a new, larger model appeared in several colours representing different parts of the Dalek command hierarchy.
Movement
Terry Nation's original plan was for the Daleks to glide across the floor. Early versions of the Daleks rolled on nylon castors, propelled by the operator's feet. Although castors were adequate for the Daleks' debut serial, which was shot entirely at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios, for The Dalek Invasion of Earth Terry Nation wanted the Daleks to be filmed on the streets of London. To enable the Daleks to travel smoothly on location, designer Spencer Chapman built the new Dalek shells around miniature tricycles with sturdier wheels, which were hidden by enlarged fenders fitted below the original base.
The uneven flagstones of Central London caused the Daleks to rattle as they moved and it was not possible to remove this noise from the final soundtrack. A small parabolic dish was added to the rear of the prop's casing to explain why these Daleks, unlike the ones in their first serial, were not dependent on static electricity drawn up from the floors of the Dalek city for their motive power.
Later versions of the prop had more efficient wheels and were once again simply propelled by the seated operators' feet, but they remained so heavy that when going up ramps they often had to be pushed by stagehands out of camera shot. The difficulty of operating all the prop's parts at once contributed to the occasionally jerky Dalek movements.
This problem has largely been eradicated with the advent of the "new series" version, as its remotely controlled dome and eyestalk allow the operator to concentrate on the smooth movement of the Dalek and its arms.
Voices
The staccato delivery, harsh tone, and rising inflection of the Dalek voice were initially developed by voice actors Peter Hawkins and David Graham, who would vary the pitch and speed of the lines according to the emotion needed. Their voices were further processed electronically by Brian Hodgson at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Although the exact sound-processing devices used have varied, the original 1963 effect used equalisation to boost the mid-range of the actor's voice, then subjected it to ring modulation with a 30 Hz sine wave. The distinctive harsh grating vocal timbre this produced has remained the pattern for all Dalek voices since (with the exception of those in the 1985 serial Revelation of the Daleks, for which director Graeme Harper deliberately used less distortion).
Besides Hawkins and Graham, notable voice actors for the Daleks have included Roy Skelton, who first voiced the Daleks in the 1967 story The Evil of the Daleks and went on to provide voices for five additional Dalek serials including Planet of the Daleks, and for the one-off anniversary special The Five Doctors. Michael Wisher, the actor who originated the role of Dalek creator Davros in Genesis of the Daleks, provided Dalek voices for that same story, as well as for Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks, and Death to the Daleks. Other Dalek voice actors include Royce Mills (three stories),Brian Miller (two stories), and Oliver Gilbert and Peter Messaline (one story).
John Leeson, who performed the voice of K9 in several Doctor Who stories, and Davros actors Terry Molloy and David Gooderson also contributed supporting voices for various Dalek serials.
Since 2005, the Dalek voice in the television series has been provided by Nicholas Briggs, speaking into a microphone connected to a voice modulator.
Briggs had previously provided Dalek and other alien voices for Big Finish Productions audio plays, and continues to do so. In a 2006 BBC Radio interview, Briggs said that when the BBC asked him to do the voice for the new television series, they instructed him to bring his own analogue ring modulator that he had used in the audio plays. The BBC's sound department had changed to a digital platform and could not adequately create the distinctive Dalek sound with their modern equipment. Briggs went as far as to bring the voice modulator to the actors' readings of the scripts.
Construction
Manufacturing the props was expensive. In scenes where many Daleks had to appear, some of them would be represented by wooden replicas (Destiny of the Daleks) or life-size photographic enlargements in the early black-and-white episodes (The Daleks, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and The Power of the Daleks).
In stories involving armies of Daleks, the BBC effects team even turned to using commercially available toy Daleks, manufactured by Louis Marx & Co and Herts Plastic Moulders Ltd. Examples of this can be observed in the serials The Power of the Daleks, The Evil of the Daleks, and Planet of the Daleks.[48] Judicious editing techniques also gave the impression that there were more Daleks than were actually available, such as using a split screen in "The Parting of the Ways".
Four fully functioning props were commissioned for the first serial "The Daleks" in 1963, and were constructed from BBC plans by Shawcraft Engineering.
These became known in fan circles as "Mk I Daleks". Shawcraft were also commissioned to construct approximately 20 Daleks for the two Dalek movies in 1965 and 1966 (see below). Some of these movie props filtered back to the BBC and were seen in the televised serials, notably The Chase, which was aired before the first movie's debut. The remaining props not bought by the BBC were either donated to charity or given away as prizes in competitions.
The BBC's own Dalek props were reused many times, with components of the original Shawcraft "Mk I Daleks" surviving right through to their final classic series appearance in 1988.
But years of storage and repainting took their toll. By the time of the Sixth Doctor's Revelation of the Daleks new props were being manufactured out of fibreglass.
These models were lighter and more affordable to construct than their predecessors. These newer models were slightly bulkier in appearance around the mid-shoulder section, and also had a redesigned skirt section which was more vertical at the back. Other minor changes were made to the design due to these new construction methods, including altering the fender and incorporating the arm boxes, collars, and slats into a single fibreglass moulding.
These props were repainted in grey for the Seventh Doctor serial Remembrance of the Daleks and designated as "Renegade Daleks"; another redesign, painted in cream and gold, became the "Imperial Dalek" faction.
New Dalek props were built for the 21st century version of Doctor Who. The first, which appeared alone in the 2005 episode "Dalek", was built by modelmaker Mike Tucker.
Additional Dalek props based on Tucker's master were subsequently built out of fibreglass by Cardiff-based Specialist Models.
Development
Wishing to create an alien creature that did not look like a "man in a suit", Terry Nation stated in his script for the first Dalek serial that they should have no legs. He was also inspired by a performance by the Georgian National Ballet, in which dancers in long skirts appeared to glide across the stage.[56] For many of the shows, the Daleks were operated by retired ballet dancers wearing black socks while sitting inside the Dalek. Raymond Cusick (who died on 21 February 2013) was given the task of designing the Daleks when Ridley Scott, then a designer for the BBC, proved unavailable after having been initially assigned to their debut serial.
An account in Jeremy Bentham's Doctor Who—The Early Years (1986) says that after Nation wrote the script, Cusick was given only an hour to come up with the design for the Daleks, and was inspired in his initial sketches by a pepper shaker on a table. Cusick himself, however, states that he based it on a man seated in a chair, and only used the pepper shaker to demonstrate how it might move.
In 1964 Nation told a Daily Mirror reporter that the Dalek name came from a dictionary or encyclopaedia volume, the spine of which read "Dal – Lek" (or, according to another version, "Dal – Eks"). He later admitted that this book and the origin of the Dalek name was completely fictitious, and that anyone bothering to check out his story would have found him out.[61] The name had in reality simply rolled off his typewriter.
Later, Nation was pleasantly surprised to discover that in Serbo-Croatian the word "dalek" means "far", or "distant".
Nation grew up during World War II, and remembered the fear caused by German bombings. He consciously based the Daleks on the Nazis, conceiving the species as faceless, authoritarian figures dedicated to conquest and complete conformity. The allusion is most obvious in the Dalek stories penned by Nation, in particular The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) and Genesis of the Daleks (1975).
Prior to writing the first Dalek serial, Nation was chief scriptwriter for comedian Tony Hancock. The two had a falling out, and Nation either resigned or was fired.
When Hancock left the BBC, he worked on several series proposals, one of which was called From Plip to Plop, a comedic history of the world which would have ended with a nuclear apocalypse, the survivors being reduced to living in dustbin-like robot casings and eating radiation to stay alive. According to biographer Cliff Goodwin, when Hancock saw the Daleks, he allegedly shouted at the screen, "That bloody Nation—he's stolen my robots!"[69]
The naming of early Doctor Who stories is complex and sometimes controversial. The first Dalek serial is called, variously, The Survivors (the pre-production title), The Mutants (its official title at the time of production and broadcast, later taken by another unrelated story), Beyond the Sun (used on some production documentation), The Dead Planet (the on-screen title of the serial's first episode), or simply The Daleks.
The instant appeal of the Daleks caught the BBC off guard,and transformed Doctor Who from a Saturday tea-time children's educational programme to a must-watch national phenomenon. Children were alternately frightened and fascinated by the alien look of the monsters, and the Doctor Who production office was inundated by letters and calls asking about the creatures. Newspaper articles focused attention on the series and the Daleks, further enhancing their popularity.
Nation jointly owned the intellectual property rights to the Daleks with the BBC, and the money-making concept proved nearly impossible to sell to anyone else; he was dependent on the BBC wanting to produce stories featuring the creatures.
Several attempts to market the Daleks outside of the series were unsuccessful.Since Nation's death in 1997, his share of the rights is now administered by his former agent, Tim Hancock.
Early plans for what eventually became the 1996 Doctor Who television movie included radically redesigned Daleks whose cases unfolded like spiders' legs. The concept for these "Spider Daleks" was abandoned, but picked up again in several Doctor Who spin-offs.
When the new series was announced, many fans hoped the Daleks would return once more to the programme.
The Nation estate however demanded levels of creative control over the Daleks' appearances and scripts that were unacceptable to the BBC.[80] Eventually the Daleks were cleared to appear in the first series.
Fictional history
Main article: History of the Daleks
Dalek in-universe history has seen many retroactive changes, which have caused continuity problems. When the Daleks first appeared, they were presented as the descendants of the Dals, mutated after a brief nuclear war between the Dal and Thal races 500 years ago. This race of Daleks is destroyed when their power supply is wrecked.
However, when they reappear in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, they have conquered Earth in the 22nd century. Later stories saw them develop time travel and a space empire. In 1975, Terry Nation revised the Daleks' origins in Genesis of the Daleks, where the Dals were now called Kaleds (of which "Daleks" is an anagram), and the Dalek design was attributed to one man, the crippled Kaled chief scientist and evil genius, Davros.[84] Instead of a short nuclear exchange, the Kaled-Thal war was portrayed as a thousand-year-long war of attrition, fought with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons which caused widespread mutations among the Kaled race.
Davros experimented on living Kaled cells to find the ultimate mutated form of the Kaled species and placed the subjects in tank-like "travel machines" whose design was based on his own life-support chair.
Genesis of the Daleks marked a new era for the depiction of the species, with most of their previous history either forgotten or barely referred to again.Future stories in the original Doctor Who series, which followed a rough story arc,would also focus more on Davros, much to the dissatisfaction of some fans who felt that the Daleks should take centre stage rather than merely becoming minions of their creator.
Davros made his last televised appearance for 20 years in Remembrance of the Daleks, which depicted a civil war between two factions of Daleks. One faction, the "Imperial Daleks", were loyal to Davros, who had become their Emperor, whilst the other, the "Renegade Daleks", followed a black Supreme Dalek. By the end of the story, both factions have been wiped out and the Doctor has tricked them into destroying Skaro, though Davros escapes.
A single Dalek appeared in "Dalek", written by Robert Shearman, which was broadcast on BBC One on 30 April 2005. This Dalek appeared to be the sole Dalek survivor of the Time War which had destroyed both the Daleks and the Time Lords.
A Dalek Emperor returned at the end of the 2005 series, having rebuilt the Dalek race with genetic material harvested from human subjects. It saw itself as a god, and the new Daleks were shown worshipping it. These Daleks and their fleet were destroyed in "The Parting of the Ways".
The 2006 season finale "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" featured a squad of four Dalek survivors from the old Empire, known as the Cult of Skaro, led by a black Dalek known as "Sec", that had survived the Time War by escaping into the Void between dimensions. They emerged, along with the Genesis Ark, a Time Lord prison vessel containing millions of Daleks, at Canary Wharf due to the actions of the Torchwood Institute and Cybermen from a parallel world.
This resulted in a Cyberman-Dalek clash in London, which was resolved when the Tenth Doctor caused both groups to be sucked back into the Void. The Cult survived by utilising an "emergency temporal shift" to escape.
These four Daleks - Sec, Jast, Thay and Caan - returned in the two-part story "Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks", in which whilst stranded in 1930s New York, they set up a base in the partially built Empire State Building and attempt to rebuild the Dalek race. To this end, Dalek Sec merges with a human being to become a Human/Dalek hybrid. The Cult then set about creating "Human Daleks" by "formatting" the brains of a few thousand captured humans, with the intention of producing hybrids which remain fully human in appearance but with Dalek minds.[
Dalek Sec, however, starts to become so human that he changes the DNA to make the hybrids more human. This angers the rest of the Cult, resulting in mutiny and the death of Sec, Thay and Jast as well as the wiping out of all the hybrids. This leaves Dalek Caan as the last Dalek in existence. When the Doctor makes Caan realise that he is the last of his kind, Caan uses emergency temporal shift and escapes once more.
The Daleks returned in the 2008 season's two-part finale, "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End", accompanied once again by their creator Davros. The story reveals that Caan's temporal shift sent him into the Time War whence he rescued Davros, in the process gaining the ability to see the future at the cost of his own sanity. Davros has created a new race using his own body's cells.
The episode depicts a Dalek invasion of Earth, which with other planets is taken to the Medusa Cascade, led by a red Supreme Dalek, who has kept Caan and Davros imprisoned in "The Vault", a section of the Dalek flagship, the Crucible. Davros and the Daleks plan to destroy reality itself with a "reality bomb" for which they need the stolen planets. The plan fails due to the interference of Donna Noble, a companion of the Doctor, and Caan himself, who has been manipulating events to destroy the Daleks after realising the severity of the atrocities they have committed.
The Daleks returned in the 2010 episode "Victory of the Daleks", the third episode of the series; Daleks who escaped the destruction of Davros' empire fell back in time and, by chance, managed to retrieve the "Progenitor".
This is a tiny apparatus which contains 'original' Dalek DNA. The activation of the Progenitor results in the creation of a "new paradigm" of Daleks. The New Paradigm Daleks deem their creators inferior and exterminate them; their creators make no resistance to this, deeming themselves inferior as well. They are organised into different roles (drone, scientist, strategists, supreme and eternal), which are identifiable with colour-coded armour instead of the identification plates under the eyestalk used by their predecessors. They escape the Doctor at the end of the episode via time travel with the intent to rebuild their Empire.
The Daleks only appeared briefly in subsequent finales "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang" (2010) and The Wedding of River Song (2011) as Steven Moffat decided to "give them a rest" and stated "There's a problem with the Daleks. They are the most famous of the Doctor's adversaries and the most frequent, which means they are the most reliably defeatable enemies in the universe."
They next appear in "Asylum of the Daleks" (2012), where the Daleks are shown to have greatly increased numbers and have a Parliament; in addition to the traditional "modern" Daleks, several designs from both the original and new series appear. All record of the Doctor is removed from their collective consciousness at the end of the episode. The Daleks then appear in the 50th Anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor", where they are seen being defeated in the Time War. In "The Time of the Doctor", the Daleks are one of the races that travel to Trenzalore and besiege it for centuries to stop the Doctor from releasing the Time Lords.
Due to converting Tasha Lem into a Dalek puppet, they regain knowledge of the Doctor. In the end, they are the only enemy left, the others having retreated or been destroyed and nearly kill the near-death Doctor before the Time Lords intervene and grant him a new regeneration cycle. The Doctor then uses his regeneration energy to obliterate the Daleks on the planet.
The Twelfth Doctor's first encounter with the Daleks is in his second full episode, "Into the Dalek" (2014), where he encounters a damaged Dalek, which he names 'Rusty', aboard a human resistance ship. Left with the Doctor's love of the universe and his hatred of the Daleks, he spares its life; it assumes a mission to destroy other Daleks. In "The Magician's Apprentice"/"The Witch's Familiar" (2015), the Doctor is summoned to Skaro where he learns Davros is alive, but dying, and has rebuilt the Dalek Empire. He escapes Davros' clutches by enlivening the decrepit Daleks of Skaro's sewers, who tear the empire apart, leaving behind the Master (Michelle Gomez), who accompanied him to Skaro. In "The Pilot" (2017), the Doctor briefly visits a battle in the Dalek-Movellan war while trying to escape a time travelling enemy.
Dalek culture
Daleks have little, if any, individual personality, ostensibly no emotions other than hatred and anger,[11] and a strict command structure in which they are conditioned to obey superiors' orders without question.
Dalek speech is characterised by repeated phrases, and by orders given to themselves and to others.
Unlike the stereotypical emotionless robots often found in science fiction, Daleks are often angry; author Kim Newman has described the Daleks as behaving "like toddlers in perpetual hissy fits", gloating when in power and flying into rage when thwarted.
They tend to be excitable and will repeat the same word or phrase over and over again in heightened emotional states, most famously "Exterminate! Exterminate!"
Daleks are extremely aggressive, and seem driven by an instinct to attack. This instinct is so strong that Daleks have been depicted fighting the urge to kill or even attacking when unarmed.
The Fifth Doctor characterises this impulse by saying, "However you respond [to Daleks] is seen as an act of provocation."
The fundamental feature of Dalek culture and psychology is an unquestioned belief in the superiority of the Dalek race,and their default directive is to destroy all non-Dalek life-forms.[
Other species are either to be exterminated immediately or enslaved and then exterminated once they are no longer useful.
The Dalek obsession with their own superiority is illustrated by the schism between the Renegade and Imperial Daleks seen in Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks: the two factions each consider the other to be a perversion despite the relatively minor differences between them.
This intolerance of any "contamination" within themselves is also shown in "Dalek", The Evil of the Daleks and in the Big Finish Productions audio play The Mutant Phase.
This superiority complex is the basis of the Daleks' ruthlessness and lack of compassion.[11][93] This is shown in extreme in "Victory of the Daleks", where the new, pure Daleks destroy their creators, impure Daleks, with the latters' consent. It is nearly impossible to negotiate or reason with a Dalek, a single-mindedness that makes them dangerous and not to be underestimated.
The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) is later puzzled in the "Asylum of the Daleks" as to why the Daleks don't just kill the sequestered ones that have "gone wrong". Although the Asylum is subsequently obliterated, the Prime Minister of the Daleks explains that "it is offensive to us to destroy such divine hatred", and the Doctor is sickened at the revelation that hatred is actually considered beautiful by the Daleks.
Dalek society is depicted as one of extreme scientific and technological advancement; the Third Doctor states that "it was their inventive genius that made them one of the greatest powers in the universe."
However, their reliance on logic and machinery is also a strategic weakness which they recognise, and thus use more emotion-driven species as agents to compensate for these shortcomings.
Although the Daleks are not known for their regard for due process, they have taken at least two enemies back to Skaro for a "trial", rather than killing them immediately. The first was their creator, Davros, in Revelation of the Daleks,[39] and the second was the renegade Time Lord known as the Master in the 1996 television movie.[98] The reasons for the Master's trial, and why the Doctor would be asked to retrieve the Master's remains, have never been explained on screen.
The Doctor Who Annual 2006 implies that the trial may have been due to a treaty signed between the Time Lords and the Daleks. The framing device for the I, Davros audio plays is a Dalek trial to determine if Davros should be the Daleks' leader once more.
Spin-off novels contain several tongue-in-cheek mentions of Dalek poetry, and an anecdote about an opera based upon it, which was lost to posterity when the entire cast was exterminated on the opening night. Two stanzas are given in the novel The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch.
In an alternative timeline portrayed in the Big Finish Productions audio adventure The Time of the Daleks, the Daleks show a fondness for the works of Shakespeare.
A similar idea was satirised by comedian Frankie Boyle in the BBC comedy quiz programme Mock the Week; he gave the fictional Dalek poem "Daffodils; EXTERMINATE DAFFODILS!" as an "unlikely line to hear in Doctor Who".
Because the Doctor has defeated the Daleks so often, he has become their collective arch-enemy and they have standing orders to capture or exterminate him on sight. In later fiction, the Daleks know the Doctor as "Ka Faraq Gatri" ("Bringer of Darkness" or "Destroyer of Worlds"), and "The Oncoming Storm".
Both the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) suggest that the Doctor is one of the few beings the Daleks fear. In "Doomsday", Rose notes that while the Daleks see the extermination of five million Cybermen as "pest control", "one Doctor" visibly un-nerves them (to the point they physically recoil).[13] To his indignant surprise, in "Asylum of the Daleks", the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) learns that the Daleks have designated him as "The Predator".
As the Doctor escapes the Asylum (with companions Amy and Rory), a Dalek-converted-human (Oswin Oswald) prisoner provides critical assistance, which culminates in completely deleting the Doctor from the Dalek hive-consciousness (the PathWeb), thus wiping the slate entirely blank. However, this was reversed in "The Time of the Doctor", when the Daleks regained knowledge of the Doctor through the memory of an old acquaintance of the Doctor, Tasha Lem.
Measurements
A rel is a Dalek and Kaled unit of measurement. It was usually a measurement of time, with a duration of slightly more than one second, as mentioned in "Doomsday", "Evolution of the Daleks" and "Journey's End", counting down to the ignition of the reality bomb. (One earth minute most likely equals about 50 rels.) However, in some comic books it was also used as a unit of velocity. Finally, in some cases it was used as a unit of hydroelectric energy (not to be confused with a vep, the unit used to measure artificial sunlight).
The rel was first used in the non-canonical feature film Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., soon after appearing in early Doctor Who comic books.
The Ribblehead Viaduct or Batty Moss Viaduct carries the Settle–Carlisle railway across Batty Moss in the Ribble Valley at Ribblehead, in North Yorkshire, England. The viaduct, built by the Midland Railway, is 28 miles (45 km) north-west of Skipton and 26 miles (42 km) south-east of Kendal. It is a Grade II* listed structure. Ribblehead Viaduct is the longest and the third tallest structure on the Settle–Carlisle line.
The viaduct was designed by John Sydney Crossley, chief engineer of the Midland Railway, who was responsible for the design and construction of all major structures along the line. The viaduct was necessitated by the challenging terrain of the route. Construction began in late 1869. It necessitated a large workforce, up to 2,300 men, most of whom lived in shanty towns set up near its base. Over 100 men lost their lives during its construction. The Settle to Carlisle line was the last main railway in Britain to be constructed primarily with manual labour.
By the end of 1874, the last stone of the structure had been laid; on 1 May 1876, the Settle–Carlisle line was opened for passenger services. During the 1980s, British Rail proposed closing the line. In 1989, after lobbying by the public against closure, it was announced that the line would be retained. Since the 1980s, the viaduct has had multiple repairs and restorations and the lines relaid as a single track. The land underneath and around the viaduct is a scheduled ancient monument; the remains of the construction camp and navvy settlements (Batty Wife Hole, Sebastopol, and Belgravia) are located there.
In the 1860s, the Midland Railway, keen to capitalise on the growth in rail traffic between England and Scotland, proposed building a line between Settle and Carlisle. The line was intended to join the Midland line between Skipton and Carnforth to the city of Carlisle. On 16 July 1866, the Midland Railway (Settle to Carlisle) Act was passed by Parliament, authorising the company "to construct Railways from Settle to Hawes, Appleby, and Carlisle; and for other Purposes".
After the Act passed, the Midland Railway came to an agreement with the London & North Western Railway, to run services on the LNWR line via Shap. The company applied for a bill of abandonment for its original plan but Parliament rejected the bill on 16 April 1869 and the Midland Railway was compelled to build the Settle to Carlisle line.
The line passed through difficult terrain that necessitated building several substantial structures. The company's chief engineer, John Sydney Crossley and its general manager, James Joseph Allport, surveyed the line. Crossley was responsible for the design and construction of the major works, including Ribblehead Viaduct.
On 6 November 1869, a contract to construct the Settle Junction (SD813606) to Dent Head Viaduct section including Ribblehead Viaduct was awarded to contractor John Ashwell. The estimated cost was £343,318 and completion was expected by May 1873. Work commenced at the southern end of the 72-mile (116 km) line.
By July 1870, work had started on the foundations for Ribblehead Viaduct. On 12 October 1870, contractor's agent William Henry Ashwell laid the first stone. Financial difficulties came to greatly trouble John Ashwell; on 26 October 1871, his contract was cancelled by mutual agreement. From this date, the viaduct was constructed by the Midland Railway who worked on a semi-contractual basis overseen by William Ashwell.
The viaduct was built by a workforce of up to 2,300 men. They lived, often with their families, in temporary camps, named Batty Wife Hole, Sebastopol, and Belgravia on adjacent land. More than a hundred workers lost their lives in construction-related accidents, fighting, or from outbreaks of smallpox. According to Church of England records, there are around 200 burials of men, women, and children in the graveyard at Chapel-le-Dale and the church has a memorial to the railway workers.
In December 1872, the design for Ribblehead Viaduct was changed from 18 arches to 24, each spanning 45 feet (13.7 m). By August 1874, the arches had been keyed and the last stone was laid by the end of the year. A single track was laid over the viaduct and on 6 September 1874 the first train carrying passengers was hauled across by the locomotive Diamond. On 3 August 1875, the viaduct was opened for freight traffic and on 1 May 1876, the whole line opened for passenger services, following approval by Colonel F. H. Rich from the Board of Trade.
Ribblehead Viaduct is 440 yards (400 m) long, and 104 feet (32 m) above the valley floor at its highest point, it was designed to carry a pair of tracks aligned over the sleeper walls. The viaduct has 24 arches of 45 feet (14 m) span, the foundations of which are 25 feet (7.6 m) deep. The piers are tapered, roughly 13 feet (4 m) across at the base and 5 feet 11 inches (1.8 m) thick near the arches and have loosely-packed rubble-filled cores. Every sixth pier is 50 per cent thicker, a mitigating measure against collapse should any of the piers fail. The north end is 13 feet (4 m) higher in elevation than the south, a gradient of 1:100.
The viaduct is faced with limestone masonry set in hydraulic lime mortar and the near-semicircular arches are red brick, constructed in five separate rings, with stone voussoirs. Sleeper walls rise from the arches to support the stone slabs of the viaduct's deck and hollow spandrels support plain solid parapet walls. In total, 1.5 million bricks were used; some of the limestone blocks weigh eight tons.
Ribblehead Viaduct is 980 feet (300 m) above sea level on moorland exposed to the prevailing westerly wind. Its height, from foundation to rails is 55 yards (50.3 m). It is 442.7 yards (404.8 m) long on a lateral curve with a radius of 0.85 miles (1.37 km).
The viaduct is the longest structure on the Settle–Carlisle Railway which has two taller viaducts, Smardale Viaduct at 131 feet (40 m) near Crosby Garrett, and Arten Gill at 117 feet (36 m). Ribblehead railway station is less than half a mile to the south and to the north is Blea Moor Tunnel, the longest on the line, near the foot of Whernside.
During 1964, several Humber cars were blown off their wagons while being carried over the viaduct on a freight train.
By 1980, the viaduct was in disrepair and many of its piers had been weakened by water ingress. Between 1981 and 1984, repairs were undertaken as a cost of roughly £100,000. Repairs included strengthening the piers by the addition of steel rails and concrete cladding. For safety reasons, the line was reduced to single track across the viaduct to avoid the simultaneous loading from two trains crossing and a 20mph speed limit was imposed. During 1988, minor repairs were carried out and trial bores were made into several piers. In 1989, a waterproof membrane was installed.
In the 1980s, British Rail proposed closing the line, citing the high cost of repairs to its major structures. Vigorous campaigning by the Friends of the Settle-Carlisle Line, formed during 1981, garnered and mobilised public support against the plan. In 1989, the line was saved from closure. According to Michael Portillo, who took the decision in his capacity as Minister of State for Transport, the economic arguments for closing it had been weakened by a spike in passenger numbers, and further studies by engineers had determined that restoration work would not be nearly as costly as estimated.
In November 1988, Ribblehead Viaduct was Grade II* listed. The surrounding land where the remains of its construction camps are located has been recognised as a scheduled monument.
Between 1990 and 1992, Ribblehead Viaduct underwent major restoration. Between September 1999 and March 2001, a programme of improvements was implemented involving renewal of track, replacement of ballast and the installation of new drainage. Restoration has allowed for increased levels of freight traffic assuring the line's viability.
The Settle–Carlisle Line is one of three north–south main lines, along with the West Coast Main Line through Penrith and the East Coast Main Line via Newcastle. During 2016, the line carried seven passenger trains from Leeds to Carlisle per day in each direction, and long-distance excursions, many hauled by preserved steam locomotives.
Regular heavy freight trains use the route avoiding congestion on the West Coast Main Line. Timber trains, and stone from Ingleton quarry, pass over the viaduct when they depart from the yard opposite Ribblehead railway station. The stone from Ingleton is ferried to the terminal at Ribblehead by road. Limestone aggregate trains from Arcow quarry sidings (near Horton-in-Ribblesdale) run to various stone terminals in the Leeds and Manchester areas on different days – these trains reverse in the goods loop at Blea Moor signal box because the connection from the quarry sidings faces north.
Major restoration work started in November 2020 as a £2.1 million project to re-point mortar joints and replace broken stones got underway. Network Rail released a timelapse video of the works in June 2021.
Building the viaduct was the inspiration behind the ITV period drama series Jericho. The viaduct appears in the 1970 film No Blade of Grass and also in the 2012 film Sightseers. A number of other films and television programmes have also included the viaduct.
North Yorkshire is a ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber and North East regions of England. It borders County Durham to the north, the North Sea to the east, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the south-east, South Yorkshire to the south, West Yorkshire to the south-west, and Cumbria and Lancashire to the west. Northallerton is the county town.
The county is the largest in England by land area, at 9,020 km2 (3,480 sq mi), and has a population of 1,158,816. The largest settlements are Middlesbrough (174,700) in the north-east and the city of York (152,841) in the south. Middlesbrough is part of the Teesside built-up area, which extends into County Durham and has a total population of 376,663. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Harrogate (73,576) and Scarborough (61,749). For local government purposes the county comprises four unitary authority areas — York, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and North Yorkshire — and part of a fifth, Stockton-on-Tees.
The centre of the county contains a wide plain, called the Vale of Mowbray in the north and Vale of York in the south. The North York Moors lie to the east, and south of them the Vale of Pickering is separated from the main plain by the Howardian Hills. The west of the county contains the Yorkshire Dales, an extensive upland area which contains the source of the River Ouse/Ure and many of its tributaries, which together drain most of the county. The Dales also contain the county's highest point, Whernside, at 2,415 feet (736 m).
North Yorkshire non-metropolitan and ceremonial county was formed on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972. It covered most of the North Riding of Yorkshire, as well as northern parts of the West Riding of Yorkshire, northern and eastern East Riding of Yorkshire and the former county borough of York. Northallerton, as the former county town for the North Riding, became North Yorkshire's county town. In 1993 the county was placed wholly within the Yorkshire and the Humber region.
Some areas which were part of the former North Riding were in the county of Cleveland for twenty-two years (from 1974 to 1996) and were placed in the North East region from 1993. On 1 April 1996, these areas (Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton borough south of the River Tees) became part of the ceremonial county as separate unitary authorities. These areas remain within the North East England region.
Also on 1 April 1996, the City of York non-metropolitan district and parts of the non-metropolitan county (Haxby and nearby rural areas) became the City of York unitary authority.
On 1 April 2023, the non-metropolitan county became a unitary authority. This abolished eight councils and extended the powers of the county council to act as a district council.
The York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority held its first meeting on 22 January 2024, assumed its powers on 1 February 2024 and the first mayor is to be elected in May 2024.
The geology of North Yorkshire is closely reflected in its landscape. Within the county are the North York Moors and most of the Yorkshire Dales, two of eleven areas in England and Wales to be designated national parks. Between the North York Moors in the east and the Pennine Hills. The highest point is Whernside, on the Cumbrian border, at 2,415 feet (736 m). A distinctive hill to the far north east of the county is Roseberry Topping.
North Yorkshire contains several major rivers. The River Tees is the most northerly, forming part of the border between North Yorkshire and County Durham in its lower reaches and flowing east through Teesdale before reaching the North Sea near Redcar. The Yorkshire Dales are the source of many of the county's major rivers, including the Aire, Lune, Ribble, Swale, Ure, and Wharfe.[10] The Aire, Swale, and Wharfe are tributaries of the Ure/Ouse, which at 208 km (129 mi) long is the sixth-longest river in the United Kingdom. The river is called the Ure until it meets Ouse Gill beck just below the village of Great Ouseburn, where it becomes the Ouse and flows south before exiting the county near Goole and entering the Humber estuary. The North York Moors are the catchment for a number of rivers: the Leven which flows north into the Tees between Yarm and Ingleby Barwick; the Esk flows east directly into the North Sea at Whitby as well as the Rye (which later becomes the Derwent at Malton) flows south into the River Ouse at Goole.
North Yorkshire contains a small section of green belt in the south of the county, which surrounds the neighbouring metropolitan area of Leeds along the North and West Yorkshire borders. It extends to the east to cover small communities such as Huby, Kirkby Overblow, and Follifoot before covering the gap between the towns of Harrogate and Knaresborough, helping to keep those towns separate.
The belt adjoins the southernmost part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and the Nidderdale AONB. It extends into the western area of Selby district, reaching as far as Tadcaster and Balne. The belt was first drawn up from the 1950s.
The city of York has an independent surrounding belt area affording protections to several outlying settlements such as Haxby and Dunnington, and it too extends into the surrounding districts.
North Yorkshire has a temperate oceanic climate, like most of the UK. There are large climate variations within the county. The upper Pennines border on a Subarctic climate. The Vale of Mowbray has an almost Semi-arid climate. Overall, with the county being situated in the east, it receives below-average rainfall for the UK. Inside North Yorkshire, the upper Dales of the Pennines are one of the wettest parts of England, where in contrast the driest parts of the Vale of Mowbray are some of the driest areas in the UK.
Summer temperatures are above average, at 22 °C. Highs can regularly reach up to 28 °C, with over 30 °C reached in heat waves. Winter temperatures are below average, with average lows of 1 °C. Snow and Fog can be expected depending on location. The North York Moors and Pennines have snow lying for an average of between 45 and 75 days per year. Sunshine is most plentiful on the coast, receiving an average of 1,650 hours a year. It reduces further west in the county, with the Pennines receiving 1,250 hours a year.
The county borders multiple counties and districts:
County Durham's County Durham, Darlington, Stockton (north Tees) and Hartlepool;
East Riding of Yorkshire's East Riding of Yorkshire;
South Yorkshire's City of Doncaster;
West Yorkshire's City of Wakefield, City of Leeds and City of Bradford;
Lancashire's City of Lancaster, Ribble Valley and Pendle
Cumbria's Westmorland and Furness.
The City of York Council and North Yorkshire Council formed the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority in February 2024. The elections for the first directly-elected mayor will take place in May 2024. Both North Yorkshire Council and the combined authority are governed from County Hall, Northallerton.
The Tees Valley Combined Authority was formed in 2016 by five unitary authorities; Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland Borough both of North Yorkshire, Stockton-on-Tees Borough (Uniquely for England, split between North Yorkshire and County Durham), Hartlepool Borough and Darlington Borough of County Durham.
In large areas of North Yorkshire, agriculture is the primary source of employment. Approximately 85% of the county is considered to be "rural or super sparse".
Other sectors in 2019 included some manufacturing, the provision of accommodation and meals (primarily for tourists) which accounted for 19 per cent of all jobs. Food manufacturing employed 11 per cent of workers. A few people are involved in forestry and fishing in 2019. The average weekly earnings in 2018 were £531. Some 15% of workers declared themselves as self-employed. One report in late 2020 stated that "North Yorkshire has a relatively healthy and diverse economy which largely mirrors the national picture in terms of productivity and jobs.
Mineral extraction and power generation are also sectors of the economy, as is high technology.
Tourism is a significant contributor to the economy. A study of visitors between 2013 and 2015 indicated that the Borough of Scarborough, including Filey, Whitby and parts of the North York Moors National Park, received 1.4m trips per year on average. A 2016 report by the National Park, states the park area gets 7.93 million visitors annually, generating £647 million and supporting 10,900 full-time equivalent jobs.
The Yorkshire Dales have also attracted many visitors. In 2016, there were 3.8 million visits to the National Park including 0.48 million who stayed at least one night. The parks service estimates that this contributed £252 million to the economy and provided 3,583 full-time equivalent jobs. The wider Yorkshire Dales area received 9.7 million visitors who contributed £644 million to the economy. The North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales are among England's best known destinations.
York is a popular tourist destination. A 2014 report, based on 2012 data, stated that York alone receives 6.9 million visitors annually; they contribute £564 million to the economy and support over 19,000 jobs. In the 2017 Condé Nast Traveller survey of readers, York rated 12th among The 15 Best Cities in the UK for visitors. In a 2020 Condé Nast Traveller report, York rated as the sixth best among ten "urban destinations [in the UK] that scored the highest marks when it comes to ... nightlife, restaurants and friendliness".
During February 2020 to January 2021, the average property in North Yorkshire county sold for £240,000, up by £8100 over the previous 12 months. By comparison, the average for England and Wales was £314,000. In certain communities of North Yorkshire, however, house prices were higher than average for the county, as of early 2021: Harrogate (average value: £376,195), Knaresborough (£375,625), Tadcaster (£314,278), Leyburn (£309,165) and Ripon (£299,998), for example.
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added for North Yorkshire at current basic prices with figures in millions of British pounds sterling.
Unemployment in the county was traditionally low in recent years, but the lockdowns and travel restrictions necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative effect on the economy during much of 2020 and into 2021. The UK government said in early February 2021 that it was planning "unprecedented levels of support to help businesses [in the UK] survive the crisis". A report published on 1 March 2021 stated that the unemployment rate in North Yorkshire had "risen to the highest level in nearly 5 years – with under 25s often bearing the worst of job losses".
York experienced high unemployment during lockdown periods. One analysis (by the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership) predicted in August 2020 that "as many as 13,835 jobs in York will be lost in the scenario considered most likely, taking the city's unemployment rate to 14.5%". Some critics claimed that part of the problem was caused by "over-reliance on the booming tourism industry at the expense of a long-term economic plan". A report in mid June 2020 stated that unemployment had risen 114 per cent over the previous year because of restrictions imposed as a result of the pandemic.
Tourism in the county was expected to increase after the restrictions imposed due the pandemic are relaxed. One reason for the expected increase is the airing of All Creatures Great and Small, a TV series about the vet James Herriot, based on a successful series of books; it was largely filmed within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The show aired in the UK in September 2020 and in the US in early 2021. One source stated that visits to Yorkshire websites had increased significantly by late September 2020.
The East Coast Main Line (ECML) bisects the county stopping at Northallerton,Thirsk and York. Passenger service companies in the area are London North Eastern Railway, Northern Rail, TransPennine Express and Grand Central.
LNER and Grand Central operate services to the capital on the ECML, Leeds Branch Line and the Northallerton–Eaglescliffe Line. LNER stop at York, Northallerton and on to County Durham or spur over to the Tees Valley Line for Thornaby and Middlesbrough. The operator also branch before the county for Leeds and run to Harrogate and Skipton. Grand Central stop at York, Thirsk Northallerton and Eaglescliffe then over to the Durham Coast Line in County Durham.
Northern operates the remaining lines in the county, including commuter services on the Harrogate Line, Airedale Line and York & Selby Lines, of which the former two are covered by the Metro ticketing area. Remaining branch lines operated by Northern include the Yorkshire Coast Line from Scarborough to Hull, York–Scarborough line via Malton, the Hull to York Line via Selby, the Tees Valley Line from Darlington to Saltburn via Middlesbrough and the Esk Valley Line from Middlesbrough to Whitby. Last but certainly not least, the Settle-Carlisle Line runs through the west of the county, with services again operated by Northern.
The county suffered badly under the Beeching cuts of the 1960s. Places such as Richmond, Ripon, Tadcaster, Helmsley, Pickering and the Wensleydale communities lost their passenger services. Notable lines closed were the Scarborough and Whitby Railway, Malton and Driffield Railway and the secondary main line between Northallerton and Harrogate via Ripon.
Heritage railways within North Yorkshire include: the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, between Pickering and Grosmont, which opened in 1973; the Derwent Valley Light Railway near York; and the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway. The Wensleydale Railway, which started operating in 2003, runs services between Leeming Bar and Redmire along a former freight-only line. The medium-term aim is to operate into Northallerton station on the ECML, once an agreement can be reached with Network Rail. In the longer term, the aim is to reinstate the full line west via Hawes to Garsdale on the Settle-Carlisle line.
York railway station is the largest station in the county, with 11 platforms and is a major tourist attraction in its own right. The station is immediately adjacent to the National Railway Museum.
The main road through the county is the north–south A1(M), which has gradually been upgraded in sections to motorway status since the early 1990s. The only other motorways within the county are the short A66(M) near Darlington and a small stretch of the M62 motorway close to Eggborough. The other nationally maintained trunk routes are the A168/A19, A64, A66 and A174.
Long-distance coach services are operated by National Express and Megabus. Local bus service operators include Arriva Yorkshire, Stagecoach, Harrogate Bus Company, The Keighley Bus Company, Scarborough & District (East Yorkshire), Yorkshire Coastliner, First York and the local Dales & District.
There are no major airports in the county itself, but nearby airports include Teesside International (Darlington), Newcastle and Leeds Bradford.
The main campus of Teesside University is in Middlesbrough, while York contains the main campuses of the University of York and York St John University. There are also two secondary campuses in the county: CU Scarborough, a campus of Coventry University, and Queen's Campus, Durham University in Thornaby-on-Tees.
Colleges
Middlesbrough College's sixth-form
Askham Bryan College of agriculture, Askham Bryan and Middlesbrough
Craven College, Skipton
Middlesbrough College
The Northern School of Art, Middlesbrough
Prior Pursglove College
Redcar & Cleveland College
Scarborough Sixth Form College
Scarborough TEC
Selby College
Stockton Riverside College, Thornaby
York College
Places of interest
Ampleforth College
Beningbrough Hall –
Black Sheep Brewery
Bolton Castle –
Brimham Rocks –
Castle Howard and the Howardian Hills –
Catterick Garrison
Cleveland Hills
Drax Power Station
Duncombe Park – stately home
Eden Camp Museum –
Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway –
Eston Nab
Flamingo Land Theme Park and Zoo –
Helmsley Castle –
Ingleborough Cave – show cave
John Smith's Brewery
Jorvik Viking Centre –
Lightwater Valley –
Lund's Tower
Malham Cove
Middleham Castle –
Mother Shipton's Cave –
National Railway Museum –
North Yorkshire Moors Railway –
Ormesby Hall – Palladian Mansion
Richmond Castle –
Ripley Castle – Stately home and historic village
Riverside Stadium
Samuel Smith's Brewery
Shandy Hall – stately home
Skipton Castle –
Stanwick Iron Age Fortifications –
Studley Royal Park –
Stump Cross Caverns – show cave
Tees Transporter Bridge
Theakston Brewery
Thornborough Henges
Wainman's Pinnacle
Wharram Percy
York Castle Museum –
Yorkshire Air Museum –
The Yorkshire Arboretum
The Trade Facilitation Programme (TFP) currently includes over 100 Issuing Banks in the EBRD region and more than 800 Confirming Banks worldwide. The event gave EBRD partner banks the opportunity to review and discuss industry challenges, pricing, limits and trade opportunities with key industry specialists, regulators and representatives from the World Trade Organization, the International Chamber of Commerce HQ and local National ICC Committees.
It also featured the highly popular award ceremony for ‘The Most Active EBRD TFP Banks’ and ‘The Best Transaction of 2016’.
13 February, First day of Spring in Bengali Year...
Location: Fine Arts Institute, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
I took Morag's mum to the bus station this morning and on the way back home stopped off to take some pics. Just some random shots.
The Trade Facilitation Programme (TFP) currently includes over 100 Issuing Banks in the EBRD region and more than 800 Confirming Banks worldwide. The event gave EBRD partner banks the opportunity to review and discuss industry challenges, pricing, limits and trade opportunities with key industry specialists, regulators and representatives from the World Trade Organization, the International Chamber of Commerce HQ and local National ICC Committees.
It also featured the highly popular award ceremony for ‘The Most Active EBRD TFP Banks’ and ‘The Best Transaction of 2016’.
The "programme for today" for First Class passengers travelling towards the USA on Saturday 30 May 1953.
Having booked the judges & speakers and thought of what we will do for the other twice weekly meetings I'm filling it all in. If I were left-handed I would get it done more quickly :)
The Blue Bridge is an iron bridge across the River South Tyne at Haltwhistle in Northumberland, England.
The Grade II listed bridge was designed by George Gordon Page: it has three arches and wooden decking and was completed in 1875. The bridge was closed to road traffic in 1972 and, having been refurbished in 2003, remains in use for pedestrians. It forms part of National Cycle Route 68, the Pennine Cycleway.
Haltwhistle is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, 22.9 miles (36.9 kilometres) east of Carlisle and 36.8 miles (59.2 kilometres) west of Newcastle upon Tyne. It had a population of 3,811 at the 2011 Census.
Haltwhistle is the closest community to Hadrian's Wall and to Northumberland National Park, both approximately 2 miles (3 kilometres) distant.
The name Haltwhistle has nothing to do with a railway stop. Early forms of the name are Hautwesel (1240), Hautwysel (1254), Hawtewysill (1279), Hautwysell (1381), Haltwesell (Speede 1610). The second part -twistle relates to two streams or rivers. It derives from two Old English words twicce or twise, 'twice', 'division into two' and wella, 'stream, brook'. The second word is reduced in the compound word to ull, making twicculla, twisella. All but one of the examples in place names represent a high tongue of land between two streams where they join.
The first part is probably derived from Old English hēafod, here 'hill-top', in general, 'head', 'headland', 'summit', 'upper end' or 'source of a stream'. If so, it describes the hill-top on which Holy Cross Church and the oldest part of Haltwhistle was built, enclosed on the north-east and west by Haltwhistle Burn and on the south by the South Tyne. Rowland suggests Hal from 'hill' A suggestion is French haut-, meaning 'high', since the settlement already existed long before the Norman Conquest.
A Town web site suggests that Haltwhistle signifies either "the high hill by two rivers" or "the watch on high".
Haltwhistle was probably in existence in Roman times, as it is one of the closest approaches of the River South Tyne in its upland reaches to Hadrian's Wall. The old Roman road known as the Stanegate, which is thought to predate Hadrian’s Wall by some forty years or so, passes just two miles (three kilometres) to the north of the town.
The town web site summarizes an important part of the history (late Middle Ages) of the community as: "for many centuries, the constant marauding of English and Scots caused turmoil in Haltwhistle and throughout the Borders". In 1598, "the infamous Armstrongs of Liddesdale fired and plundered Haltwhistle". Another important raid on Haltwhistle was made in 1601 by the Scots "who carried away prisoners and all their goods"; they were later reclaimed by a raid on Liddesdale. Scots, particularly the Armstrongs, later returned and burned many houses; that led to "years of feuds between the Armstrongs and the Ridley's of Haltwhistle".
Celia Fiennes did not entirely enjoy her visit in the 1690s:
"This Hartwhistle is a Little town, there was one Inn but they had noe hay nor would get none, and when my servants had got some Else where they were angry and would not Entertaine me, so I was forced to take up in a poor Cottage wch was open to ye Thatch and no partitions but hurdles plaistered. Indeed ye Loft as they Called it wch was over the other roomes was shelter'd but wth a hurdle; here I was fforced to take up my abode and ye Landlady brought me out her best sheetes wch serv'd to secure my own sheetes from her dirty blanckets, and Indeed I had her fine sheete to spread over ye top of the Clothes; but noe sleepe Could I get, they burning turff and their Chimneys are sort of fflews or open tunnills, yt ye smoake does annoy the roomes. This is but 12 miles [19 km] from another part of Scotland, the houses are but a Little better built, its true the inside of them are kept a Little better."
Dorothy, Lady Capell, endowed a school in Haltwhistle in her will of 1721.
The development of the town benefited from its location on the main Newcastle to Carlisle road and on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway line.
The expansion of Haltwhistle in the 18th and 19th centuries was due to coal mining in the area and to a lesser extent the use of Haltwhistle as a loading point for metal ores coming from the mines on Alston Moor to the south. In 1836 while some workmen were quarrying stone for the Directors of the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, on the top of Barcombe, a high hill in the township of Thorngrafton and Parish of Haltwhistle, one of them found a copper vessel containing 63 coins, 3 of them gold and 60 copper. The gold coins were, one of Claudius Caesar, reverse Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus; one of Nero and one of Vespasian. The find is known as the Thorngrafton Hoard and the empty arm-purse can still be seen in the museum at Chesters Fort.
More recently, paint manufacture became a major commercial force in the town, but has now stopped major production. Current local employers include factories making plastic bottles and de-icing products.
In the 21st century, the tourist industry dominates the economy with Hadrian's Wall and walking and rambling counting among the principal interests of tourists. The Town web site summarizes the appeal of the area which is "within easy reach of Newcastle and Carlisle".
Skirted by the Northumberland National Park and the North Pennines range, Haltwhistle is ideal for activity and family holidays, walking, cycling, fishing and climbing. Close to where the North & South Tynes meet, with many pretty villages dotted along both river valleys...
Haltwhistle was a market town for the exchange of local goods. In the 18th century two Quakers set up a baize manufactury and there was a weaving establishment. On the Haltwhistle Burn were fulling mills, dyeing and spinning mills. A walk along this stream to the Roman Wall, shows that it must have been a hive of industry with quarries, coal mining and lime burning kilns. The Directory of 1822 (Pigot) gives a whole range of craftsmen, shopkeepers and traders; 60 in number, including makers of clogs. The weekly market was held on Thursdays and there were fairs on 14 May and 22 November for cattle and sheep.
Hadrian's Wall to the north of the town is used as a major selling point for the town. The section of the wall closest to Haltwhistle is among the most spectacular and complete, with the wall striding eastwards from the lake at Crag Lough along the spine of the Whin Sill.
The remains of Haltwhistle Castle and the series of Bastles, and Haltwhistle Tower. Haltwhistle also claims to be at the geographic centre of Britain[15] – equidistant from the sea as measured along the principal points of the compass. A hotel in the centre of Haltwhistle is named the Centre of Britain Hotel in recognition of this claim. The claim is rather tenuous as it requires that the northern extremity is taken to be Orkney rather than Shetland. Depending on how the centre of the island is calculated, however, the centre can be said to be Dunsop Bridge in Lancashire. See centre points of the United Kingdom.
A Border reivers' Peel Tower, circa 15th century, is now part of the Centre of Britain hotel and the town contains five Bastle houses (fortified farm houses). Roughly three miles distant from the town centre are Blenkinsop Hall and Blenkinsopp Castle, both Grade II listed buildings. The Grade I listed Thirlwall Castle is located four miles from Haltwhistle.
Other historic properties nearby include Featherstone Castle, Unthank Hall, Bellister Castle and Coanwood Friends Meeting House.
Haltwhistle Viaduct lies to the south of the railway station and was the first major feature on the Alston Line to Alston, Cumbria.
Stone-built houses are a feature of Haltwhistle. It is one of two settlements in Great Britain which claim to be the exact geographic centre of the island, along with Dunsop Bridge in Lancashire, 71 miles (114 km) to the south.
The Church of the Holy Cross is situated below the Market Place, with views over the river and the valley. This is a Grade II listed building said to be "one of only a few early 13th century churches still functioning as a working church in England". One of the tombs is that of crusader Thomas de Blenkinsopp who died in 1388. There are a number of other medieval grave covers to the Blenkinsopps and the Thirlwells.
It is a good example of a North Country church, impressive considering the time when it was built in the thirteenth century. The chancel measures 46 by 20 feet (14.0 by 6.1 m), with lancet windows – combined three lights in the east end and four single lights on each side, the walls being supported by buttresses. Inside is a piscina (for washing) and three sedilia (seats for the clergy). The nave measures 63 by 46 feet (19 by 14 m) and has side aisles above which are clerestory windows. It has four bays with round columns and pointed arches, looking very spacious inside. The font, dated 1676, has some curious crude carvings on it, and there is another large circular bowl on a shaft, which is probably an earlier font. At the west end it has long lancet windows and a bell-cote, again typical of the North country.
Nearby, the village of Coanwood houses a small but historic chapel, designated as Grade II* by English Heritage. The summary states: "...dated 1760 on lintel. Squared stone with rusticated quoins and dressings".[19] Coanwood Friends Meeting House was a Quaker place of worship and is maintained to this day as a historical site open to visitors.
Haltwhistle is currently in the parliamentary constituency of Hexham; Guy Opperman of the Conservative Party is the Member of Parliament. In 2023 Joe Morris was selected to stand as the Labour Party candidate at the next General Election.
For Local Government purposes it belongs to Northumberland County Council a unitary authority, with Haltwhistle lying in the Tynedale Division. Prior to the 2009 structural changes to local government in England it was part of Tynedale Council. Prior to the 1974 great reorganisation, it belonged to the county of Northumberland. The Old Town Hall in Haltwhistle is now used as a hair salon.
An electoral ward with the same name still exists. This ward stretches from Hexham south up the River Tyne South and has a total population taken at the 2011 Census of 4,832.
Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC North East and Cumbria and ITV Tyne Tees. Television signals are received from Pontop Pike and the local relay transmitters.
Local radio stations are BBC Radio Newcastle, Capital North East, Heart North East and Metro Radio.
The town's local newspaper is the Hexham Courant.
The town is served by Haltwhistle 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 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 Railway are operated by Northern and ScotRail. The line is also heavily used for freight. The railway station is on the south side of the town, close by the River South Tyne.
Until 1976, the railway station was also the junction of the branch line to Alston, in Cumbria, which was 13 miles (21 km) in length. Part of the southern section of the Haltwhistle to Alston line has been reopened as a 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge railway, known as the South Tynedale Railway, between Alston and Slaggyford. The trust that owns and operates the railway intends to reopen the entire branch line from Alston to Haltwhistle.
The A69 trunk road, which links Carlisle and Newcastle upon Tyne, formerly passed south of the town centre and through its western outskirts, until a full bypass was opened in 1997.
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