Northumberland (Map) - Framed Picture - 12" x 16"

Northumberland is a county in the North East and is the northernmost county of England.

Lying on the Anglo-Scottish border, Northumberland has been the site of a number of battles. The county is noted for its undeveloped landscape of high moorland, now largely protected as the Northumberland National Park.

Northumberland originally meant 'the land of the people living north of the River Humber'. The present county is the core of that former land, and has long been a frontier zone between England and Scotland. During Roman occupation of Britain, most of the present county lay north of Hadrian's Wall, and was only controlled by Rome for the brief period of its extension north the Antonine Wall. The Roman road Dere Street crosses the county from Corbridge over high moorland west of the Cheviot Hills into present Scotland to Trimontium (Melrose).

Later, the region of present-day Northumberland formed the core of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia, which united with Deira to form the kingdom of Northumbria in the 7th century.

Northumberland is often called the "cradle of Christianity" in England, because Christianity flourished on Lindisfarne. Lindisfarne saw the production of the Lindisfarne Gospels and it became the home of St Cuthbert.

Northumberland played a key role in the Industrial Revolution from the 18th century on. Many coal mines operated in Northumberland. The region's coalfields fuelled industrial expansion in other areas of Britain, and the need to transport the coal from the collieries to the Tyne led to the development of the first railways. Shipbuilding and armaments manufacture were other important industries before the deindustrialisation of the 1980s.