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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.
Morpeth is a historic market town in Northumberland, North East England, lying on the River Wansbeck. Nearby towns include Ashington and Bedlington. In the 2011 census, the population of Morpeth was given as 14,017, up from 13,833 in the 2001 census. The earliest evidence of settlement is believed to be from the Neolithic period, and some Roman artifacts have also been found. The first written mention of the town is from 1080, when the de Merlay family was granted the barony of Morpeth. The meaning of the town's name is uncertain, but it may refer to its position on the road to Scotland and a murder which occurred on that road. The de Merlay family built two castles in the town in the late 11th century and the 13th century. The town was granted its coat of arms in 1552. By the mid-1700s it had become one of the main markets in England, having been granted a market charter in 1200, but the opening of the railways in the 1800s led the market to decline. The town's history is celebrated in the annual Northumbrian Gathering.
Kathryn Tickell, OBE, DL is an English musician, noted for playing the Northumbrian smallpipes and fiddle.
Morpeth is a railway station on the East Coast Main Line, which runs between London King's Cross and Edinburgh Waverley. The station, situated 16 miles 50 chains north of Newcastle, serves the market town of Morpeth, Northumberland, England. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains.
Here Northumbria is defined as Northumberland, the northernmost county of England, and County Durham. According to 'World Music: The Rough Guide', "nowhere is the English living tradition more in evidence than the border lands of Northumbria, the one part of England to rival the counties of the west of Ireland for a rich unbroken tradition. The region is particularly noted for its tradition of border ballads, the Northumbrian smallpipes and also a strong fiddle tradition in the region that was already well established in the 1690s. Northumbrian music is characterised by considerable influence from other regions, particularly southern Scotland and other parts of the north of England, as well as Irish immigrants.
A common riding is an equestrian tradition mainly in the Scottish Borders in Scotland. Male and female riders ride out of the town and along its borders to commemorate the practice from 13th and 15th centuries where there were frequent raids on the Anglo-Scottish border known as the Border Reivers and also to commemorate the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Flodden. Today, the common ridings, rideouts, or riding of the marches continue to be annual events celebrated in the summer in the Borders of Scotland. Each town may have many rideouts over their festival week, usually having one on festival day. Some towns re-enact historic 'common ridings' – although many others have well-established 'festival rides' that are cemented within their town's history. The common riding towns are: Berwick-upon-Tweed, Hawick, Selkirk, Langholm, Lockerbie, Jedburgh, Coldstream, Penicuik, West Linton, Lanark, Lauder, Edinburgh, Melrose, Musselburgh, Galashiels, Duns, Sanquhar, and Peebles.
The Northumbrian Pipers' Society was founded to promote both types of Northumbrian bagpipes – the Northumbrian smallpipes and the half-long pipes, now generally known as the Border pipes. There had been several attempts to encourage the pipes and their music during the 19th century, but no society was formed with this specific aim until the Northumbrian Small Pipes Society in 1893. That society organised a series of competitions, in which Richard Mowat and Henry Clough were both prizewinners. However it was short-lived, dissolving around 1899. Today the society is divided into two branches, the main branch based in Morpeth, and the Cleveland branch based in Sedgefield.
John Peacock was one of the finest Northumbrian smallpipers of his age, and probably a fiddler also, and the last of the Newcastle Waits. He studied the smallpipes with Old William Lamshaw, of Morpeth, and later with Joseph Turnbull, of Alnwick.
King Edward VI School, Morpeth is a voluntary controlled academy high school in Morpeth, Northumberland, England. It was established by a royal charter as Morpeth Grammar School and later as King Edward VI Grammar School. The school became a comprehensive school in the 1970s and an academy in December 2011. It is locally known as "KEVI" or simply "King Edward's". In 2011, the school became part of The Three Rivers Learning Trust.
Northumbrian dialect or Northumbrian English is any one of several English language varieties spoken in the traditional English region of Northumbria, which includes most of the North East England government region. The traditional Northumbrian dialect is a moribund older form of the dialect spoken in the area which is closely related to Scots and Cumbrian and shares with them a common origin in Northumbrian Old English.
The Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum is located in Morpeth Chantry, Morpeth, Northumberland, England.
Thomas Todd was a noted player of the Northumbrian smallpipes, considered by William Cocks to be 'of highest rank'. One account, from 1890, states that he learned the pipes from Thomas Hair, a blind piper and fiddler of Bedlington, who also taught Todd's contemporary, Old Tom Clough. A photograph of him is in the Cocks Collection, and was visible online. It is known that Todd taught the pipers Tom Clough and Richard Mowat to play, as well as Mary Anderson, known as 'Piper Mary'. W. A. Cocks later noted that she was herself 'well known in her day as a piper of the first order'.
(John) Roland Bibby (1917–1997) was a Northumbrian-born scholar, poet, writer, historian, and antiquarian.
Robert Whinham (1814–1893) was a fiddler, composer and dancing master from Morpeth, Northumberland. Many tunes composed by him are still played, notably the Remember Me hornpipe, Whinham's Reel, and The Cambo March. A 1995 book on his life and music, called Remember Me by Graham Dixon, summarises most of what is known about him.
Archie Dagg was a shepherd and traditional fiddler, piper and composer from central Northumberland. He was born at Linbriggs, in Upper Coquetdale, and except for his time in the Army at the end of the First World War, lived all his life in that region. In the late 1930s, he was a member of the English Sheepdog Trials Team; when competing with them in Scotland, he would play Scottish tunes on the Northumbrian smallpipes, and found he would get a steady supply of free drams.
The Northumbrian Small Pipes Society was founded in 1893, by members of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne to promote interest in, and playing of Northumbrian smallpipes, and their music. As it only continued in existence for seven years, it is now regarded primarily as a short-lived precursor to the Northumbrian Pipers' Society. However, despite its short life, it played a significant role, publishing the first tutor for the instrument, J. W. Fenwick's Instruction Book for the Northumbrian Small-Pipes (1896), holding regular meetings, and organising annual competitions. In 1894 and 1896-7, the society published Transactions, as well as publishing an account of their Annual Meeting of 1897. As well as Members, who paid an annual 5s. subscription, there was a category of Honorary Playing Members. Since the society's records include the names and addresses of all members, of either kind, they have listed the names and addresses for 37 known pipers. Two articles in the Newcastle Courant, in April 1900, gave an account of their Annual General Meeting, at the Literary and Philosophical Society, and referred to the society as flourishing, with 200 members, of whom almost half were pipers. Officers were elected for the following year; however there is no subsequent record of any formal activity of the society, such as meetings or competitions. In 1906, when the Cloughs played for King Edward VII at Alnwick Castle, an account of this in the Berwickshire News stated that the Northumbrian Small Pipes Society had done some good work in reviving interest, but that 'seven winters had passed without it giving any signs of life'. This suggests that the society had been largely inactive for some time before its final AGM.
"Old" William Lamshaw, (c.1712-1798), was one of the earliest players of the Northumbrian Smallpipes of whom much is known. Besides being a celebrated piper in his own right, appointed to the post of piper to the Duchess of Northumberland after the death of Joseph Turnbull in 1775, he was the teacher of several other known pipers, and the grandfather of Young William Lamshaw, who succeeded him as piper to the Duchess.
John Milburn, known as Muckle Jock, was a player of the Border pipes, from near Bellingham in Northumberland. His pipes, which survive, are in the Cocks collection at the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum; his family referred to this set as the 'half-long' pipes. Some more detailed photographs of this set of pipes, taken by Anita Evans, are at. Tradition states that this instrument was given to Muckle Jock in around 1772 by Col. Reid of Chipchase Castle; Milburn would only have been about 18 at the time, if this tradition is correct. The museum catalogue entry for his pipes states that they subsequently belonged to his grandson Lewis Proudlock. The statement is incorrect in detail, for while Proudlock's mother was a Milburn, she was not Muckle Jock's daughter; it seems almost certain that they were related, however. Although Muckle Jock's pipes survive, unfortunately there is no direct evidence of the music he played on them.
Carlisle Park is a park located on the southern bank of the River Wansbeck in Morpeth, Northumberland. The park has the William Turner Garden, an aviary, a paddling pool, an ancient woodland, tennis courts, several bowling greens and a skate park. The park has one of the only four floral clocks in England, which was restored in 2018. In 2018, a statue of Emily Wilding Davison was erected in Carlisle Park, to commemorate 100 years since women were given the right to vote. The park has been awarded the Green Flag Award, the Love Parks Award in 2017, and 'Best Park' in Northumbria's in bloom competition in 2018.
Northumbria, in modern contexts, usually refers to the region of England between the Tees and Tweed, including the historic counties of Northumberland and Durham, but it may also be taken to be synonymous with North East England. The area corresponds to the rump lands of the historical Kingdom of Northumbria, which later developed into the late medieval county of Northumberland or Comitatus Northumbriae, whose original southern boundary was the River Tees. A provincial flag of Northumbria has been registered.
References
- ↑ "Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering - Northumbriana". www.northumbriana.org.uk.
- ↑ Daniel, Brian (25 June 2013). "Morpeth Gathering pays tribute to royal wedding". The Journal. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
- 1 2 "A special gathering at Morpeth". northumberlandgazette.co.uk. Northumberland Gazette. 25 April 2014. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
- ↑ Aitch, Iain (11 April 2011). "Event preview: Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering, Morpeth". theguardian.com. The Guardian . Retrieved 6 December 2018.
- ↑ Brown, Gemma (26 April 2017). "Abbey's dialect songs gather a double win". Hexham Courant .
- ↑ Black, David (13 April 2012). "Morpeth's Olympics links recalled at Northumbrian Gathering". The Journal.
- ↑ "Abundance of characters in Gathering pageant". Morpeth Herald. 20 April 2015.
- ↑ "Morpeth is all set for a golden Gathering". Morpeth Herald. 15 April 2017. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
- ↑ "Barn dance to bring to an end golden year celebrations". morpethherald.co.uk. Morpeth Herald. 16 November 2017. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
