season in the higher uplands is fixed for the latter half of April, and is even then often too early. In summer and autumn west winds are general. The rainfall gradually increases as the country rises from the coast, thus the mean annual fall at Shields is 26·32 in., at Alnwick 31·04 in., while on the western borders 40 to 60 in. are recorded. East winds in summer bring rain to the interior. The smell from the coal-field, the lighter grime of which is detected as far as Cumberland, is taken by the shepherd for a sign of wet.
Agriculture, &c.—About five-ninths of the total area is under cultivation, and of this nearly five-sevenths is in permanent pasture. There are also about 470,000 acres under hill pasture. South of the river Coquet there is a broad tract of cultivation towards the coast that sends lessening strips up the valleys into the interior. From the Coquet northwards another breadth of enclosed ground stretches almost continuously along the base of the Cheviot hills. In the basin of the Till it becomes very fertile, and towards the Tweed the two breadths unite. In the porphyritic Cheviots the lower hills show a great extent of sound surface and good grass. The average hill-farms support about one sheep to 2 acres. A coarser pasturage covers the Carboniferous hills, and the proportion of stock to surface is somewhat less. In the highest fells the congeries of bogs, hags and sandstone scars, with many acres dangerous to sheep, are worthless to the farmer. The lower uplands are a patchwork of coarse grasses (mown by the “muirmen” into “bent-hay”) and heather, or, in the popular terms, heather and “white ground,” for it is blanched for eight months in the year. Heather is the natural cover of the sandstones and of the sandy glacier-débris near them. On the uplands they grow bents; lower down they are apt to be cold and strong, but are much relieved by patches and inworkings of gravel, especially north of the Wansbeck. The prevalent stream-alluvium is sandy loam, with a tincture of peat. The arable regions are very variable. Changes of soil are probably as numerous as fields. The bulk of the acreage under corn crops, which has greatly diminished, is under oats and barley, and turnips occupy some five-sixths of the area under green crops. Northumberland is one of the largest sheep-rearing counties in Great Britain. Of these, the half-breds—crosses between the Leicester (or Shropshire) and Cheviot breeds—occupy the lower enclosed grounds, the pure Cheviots are on the uplands and the hardier black-faced breeds lie out on the exposed heathery heights. The cattle are chiefly shorthorns and Galloways. They are very largely raised, chiefly for fattening purposes.
The practice of paying wages in kind has passed greatly into disuse. Some of the shepherds still receive “stock-wages,” being allowed to keep forty or fifty sheep and several cows on their employers farms in lieu of pay. This arrangement, which makes them really copartners, has probably done much to render them the singularly fine class of men they are.
Other Industries.—The manufactures of the county chiefly come from the Tyne, which is a region of ironworks, blast-furnaces, shipbuilding yards, ropeworks, coke-ovens, alkali-works and manufactories of glass, pottery and fire-bricks, from above Newcastle to the sea. Machines, appliances, conveyances and tools are the principal articles of manufacture in metal. There is great activity in all trades concerned in pit-sinking and mine-working. In the other parts of the county there are a few small cloth-mills, a manufactory of tan gloves at Hexham, some potteries and numbers of small brick and tile works. There are several sea-fishing stations, of which North Shields is by far the most important. The salmon fisheries are also valuable.
Communications.—Communications are provided almost wholly by the North-Eastern railway, of which the main line enters the county at Newcastle and runs N. by Morpeth, and near the coast, to Berwick, where a junction on the East Coast route from London to Scotland is effected with the North British railway. Numerous branch railways serve the populous south-eastern district, and there are connexions westward to Hexham and Carlisle, up the Tweed valley into Scotland and (by the North British line) up the North Tyne valley from Hexham. The principal ports besides the Tyne ports are Blyth, Amble (Warkworth Harbour), Alnmouth and Berwick. The Tyne is one of the most important centres of the coal-shipping trade in the world.
Population and Administration.—The area of the ancient county is 1,291,530 acres with a population in 1891 of 506,442, and in 1901 of 603,498. In physique the Northumbrian is stalwart and robust, and seldom corpulent. The people have mostly grey eyes, brown hair and good complexions. The inhabitants of the fishing villages appear to be Scandinavian; and parts of the county probably contain some admixture of the old Brit-Celt, and a trace of the Gipsy blood of the Faas of Yetholm. The natives have fine characteristics: they are clean, thrifty and plodding, honest and sincere, shrewd and very independent. Their virtues lie rather in solidity than in aspiration.
Northumbrian speech is characterized by a “rough vibration of the soft palate” or pharynx in pronouncing the letter r, well known as the burr, a peculiarity extending to the town and liberties of Berwick, and absent only in a narrow strip along the north-west. Over the southern part of the county there is the same duplication of vowel-sounds, such as “peöl” for “pool,” that is found in the English counties adjacent. Many Old-English forms of speech strike the ear, such as “to butch a beef,” i.e. to kill a bullock, and curious inversions, such as “they not can help.” There is the Old-English distinction in the use of “thou” to familiars and “ye” to superiors.
The area of the administrative county is 1,291,515 acres. The county is divided into nine wards, answering to hundreds. Population is densest in the south-east, where the mining district and the Tyneside industrial area are situated. The municipal boroughs in this district are: Newcastle-upon-Tyne (city, county of a city and county borough; pop. 215,328), Tynemouth (county borough, 51,366), Morpeth (6158), Wallsend (20,918). In this district the following are urban districts: Amble (4428), Ashington (13,956), Bedlington (18,766), Blyth (5472), Cowpen (17,879), Cramlington (6437), Earsdon (9020), Gosforth (10,605), Newbiggin-by-the-Sea (2032), Newburn (12,500), Seghill (2213), Weetslade (5453), Whitley and Monkseaton (7705), Willington Quay (7941). The remainder of the county contains the municipal borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed (13,437) and the urban districts of Alnwick (6716), Hexham (7071) and Rothbury (1303). The county is in the north-eastern circuit, and assizes are held at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The total number of civil parishes is 523. The ancient county, which is in the diocese of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with the exception of a small portion in that of Durham, contains 173 ecclesiastical parishes or districts, wholly or in part. The parliamentary divisions of the county are Berwick-upon-Tweed, Hexham, Wansbeck and Tyneside, each returning one member; while the parliamentary borough of Newcastle-upon-Tyne returns two members, and those of Morpeth and Tynemouth one member each.
History.—The first English settlement in the kingdom of Bernicia, which included what is now Northumberland, 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 Saxon kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria. In 634 Cadwalla was defeated at Hefenfeld (the site of which lies in the modern parish of St John Lee) by Oswald, under whom Christianity was definitely established in Northumbria, and the bishop’s see fixed at Hexham, where Bishop Wilfrid erected the famous Saxon church. Oswald also erected a church of stone at Tynemouth, which was destroyed in 865 in an incursion of the Danes under Hinguar and Hubba. The extent of Danish influence in Northumberland has been much exaggerated, however, for though in 876 Halfden, having conquered the whole of Northumbria, portioned out the lands among his followers, the permanent settlements were confined to the southern portion of the kingdom. In the northern half, which is now Northumberland, the English princes continued to reign at Bamburgh as vassals of the Danes, and not a single place-name with the Danish suffix “by” or “thorpe” is found north of the Tyne. In 938 Æthelstan annexed Northumberland to his dominions, and the Danish authority was annulled until its re-establishment by Canute in 1013. The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying. The Normans rebuilt the Saxon monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth; Eustace Fitz John founded Alnwick Abbey, and other Norman abbeys were Brinkburn, Hulne, Blanchland and Newminster. Castles were set up at Alnwick, Warkworth, Prudhoe, Dunstanborough, Morpeth, Ford, Chillingham, Langley, Newcastle, Bamburgh, Wark and Norham, a stronghold of the palatine bishops of Durham.
The term Northumberland is first used in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Saxon Chronicle relating to the northern rebellion. The 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 the reign of Edward I. the county of Northumberland was found to comprise the whole district
