Northumberland

Northumberland is a ceremonial county in the North East of England, lying along the border with Scotland to the north and bounded by the North Sea to the east and the English counties of Cumbria to the west and Durham and Tyne and Wear to the south.

The county has a land area of 1,936 square miles, with a population of 316,028 at the 2011 census. It is predominantly rural, although the south-east of the county contains several former coal mining towns and villages. The county town is Morpeth; other important towns include Berwick upon Tweed, Alnwick, Hexham and Haltwhistle.

Northumberland is one of the most ancient counties in England, with a distinct identity (as part of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria) dating back to the mid-7th century AD. Hadrian's Wall crosses the southern part of Northumberland; other major historic sites in the county include the island of Lindisfarne or Holy Island, and medieval fortresses at Bamburgh, Norham, Dunstanburgh, Alnwick, Warkworth and elsewhere. In Berwick, Northumberland has England's only sixteenth century walled town. The traditional county of Northumberland also included areas of Tyneside north of the River Tyne including the city of Newcastle (which, however, was made an independent county as early as 1400) and North Tyneside. These two districts became part of the administrative and ceremonial county of Tyne and Wear in 1974.

Northumberland is sometimes referred to as the "cradle of Christianity" in England, due to the early activity of monks in the region during the 6th century, especially on Lindisfarne, where a major monastery flourished