Today Northumberland is the most sparsely populated county in England. In the past it witnessed much conflict between England and Scotland. As evidence of its violent history, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, including those of Alnwick, Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh, Newcastle and Warkworth.

The region once formed the core of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia (from c.547), which united with Deira (south of the River Tees) 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 – a tidal island north of Bamburgh, also called Holy Island.

Bamburgh is the historic capital of Northumberland, the ‘royal’ castle from before the unification of the Kingdoms of England under the monarchs of the House of Wessex in the 10th century. The Earldom of Northumberland was briefly held by the Scottish royal family by marriage between 1139–1157 and 1215–1217. Scotland relinquished all claims to the region as part of the Treaty of York (1237).

The county of Northumberland included Newcastle upon Tyne until 1400, when the city became a county of itself. Northumberland expanded greatly in the Tudor period, annexing Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1482, Tynedale in 1495, Tynemouth in 1536, Redesdale around 1542 and Hexhamshire in 1572. Islandshire, Bedlingtonshire and Norhamshire were incorporated into Northumberland in 1844.

Northumberland has a history of revolt and rebellion against the government, as seen in the Rising of the North (1569-1570) against Elizabeth I of England. These revolts were usually led by the Earls of Northumberland, the Percy family.

The county was a focus of Jacobite support after the Restoration of 1660. It was long a wild county, where outlaws and Border Reivers hid from the law. However, the frequent cross-border skirmishes and accompanying local lawlessness largely subsided

after the Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England under

King James I/VI in 1603.

Northumberland played a key role in the Industrial Revolution from the 18th century onwards. Many coal mines operated in the county from Tudor times onward. 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.

Exclusive census analysis from data website TheGenealogist.co.uk shows that coal mining dominated the top occupations in both 1841 and 1911 – although in 1841 there were also a significant number of lead miners. Between the two year’s the county’s population rose from 250,000 to over 700,000. The site’s data also reveals that the surnames Robson, Bell, Scott, Armstrong, Watson, Dixon, Young, Henderson, Richardson and Davison were common; plus Thompson, Charlton and Forster in 1841, and Anderson and Graham in 1911.