Edlingham Castle is a small castle ruin, having scheduled monument and Grade I listed building status, in the care of English Heritage. It is located in a valley to the west of Alnwick, Northumberland, England. It has been described as "...one of the most interesting in the county", by Nikolaus Pevsner, the architectural historian. Edlingham itself is little more than a hamlet with a church alongside the castle.
Border reivers were raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. They included both Scottish and English people, and they raided the entire border country without regard to their victims' nationality. Their heyday was in the last hundred years of their existence, during the time of the House of Stuart in the Kingdom of Scotland and the House of Tudor in the Kingdom of England.
Bastel, bastle, or bastille houses are a type of construction found along the Anglo-Scottish border, in the areas formerly plagued by border reivers. They are fortified farmhouses, characterised by security measures against raids. Their name is said to derive from the French word "bastille".
Haltwhistle is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, 22.9 miles east of Carlisle and 36.8 miles west of Newcastle upon Tyne. It had a population of 3,811 at the 2011 Census.
Alnham is a hamlet and civil parish in Northumberland, England. It is about 14 miles (23 km) west of Alnwick, about 6 miles (9.7 km) from Scotland and is located on the south of a small tributary of the River Aln. The village stands on uneven ground, sloping from south to north, at the foot of the southern outliers of the Cheviot Hills. The River Aln flows eastward through the village from its source in the Cheviot Hills down to the coast. The layout of the village appears to have been dictated by the river. The estimated population taken at the 2011 Census was around 245.
Chesterwood is a hamlet in Northumberland, in England. It is situated a short distance to the north-west of Haydon Bridge on the South Tyne, west of Hexham. It includes a number of "Bastle Houses" from the 17th Century, originally built to protect against raids by the Border Reivers. Unusually some of these Bastles are terraced. Just a couple of miles south of the Historic Hadrians Wall it lies in the Parish of Haydon and once had a Tower as the boundary of the property of the Barony of Langley. Langley Castle is located 3 miles south on the opposite side of the South Tyne Valley. There is an historical account of a murder in Chesterwood as burglars attempted to open the front door of the Bastle now known as "The Golf House". Frank Stokoe had his daughter slide the door bolt shut while he exited the house and crept around to the front door where he shot the would-be intruder dead.
Birdoswald is a former farm in the civil parish of Waterhead in the English county of Cumberland. It stands on the site of the Roman fort of Banna.
Great Salkeld is a small village and civil parish in the Eden District of Cumbria, England, a few miles to the north east of Penrith and bordering the River Eden. At the 2001 census the parish had a population of 445, decreasing to 412 at the 2011 Census.
Inglewood Forest is a large tract of mainly arable and dairy farm land with a few small woodland areas between Carlisle and Penrith in the English non-metropolitan county of Cumbria or ancient county of Cumberland.
The history of Cumbria as a county of England begins with the Local Government Act 1972. Its territory and constituent parts however have a long history under various other administrative and historic units of governance. Cumbria is an upland, coastal and rural area, with a history of invasions, migration and settlement, as well as battles and skirmishes between the English and the Scots.
Scottish Vernacular architecture is a form of vernacular architecture that uses local materials.
Elsdon is a village and civil parish in the English county of Northumberland about 10 miles (16 km) to the southwest of Rothbury. The name is derived from the Old English meaning Elli's valley.
Embleton Tower is a peel tower and Grade I listed building in the village of Embleton in Northumberland, England. Tradition states that in 1395, the tower was built to protect the minister and church goers of Embleton's Church of the Holy Trinity after the village suffered from a raid by the Scots. The first vicarage was provided for the vicar of Embleton by Merton College, Oxford, who held the patronage of the parish, in 1332. According to Montagu Francis Finch Osborn (1843–1910), vicar of Embleton in 1884, vicarages were erected at three different periods; by 1416, the Vicar's Turris de Emyldon was known to exist. The present building includes a house built in about 1828 as a vicarage adjoining the tower.
Whittingham is a village and civil parish in Northumberland, England. It is situated on the banks of the River Aln, roughly 4.5 miles (7 km) east of its source at Alnham and 7.3 miles (12 km) west of Alnwick. The thirteenth/fourteenth century pele tower, Whittingham Tower, was converted into almshouses in 1845 and is now in private ownership.
Tower houses appeared on the Islands of Ireland and Great Britain starting from the High Middle Ages. They were constructed in the wilder parts of Great Britain and Ireland, particularly in Scotland, and throughout Ireland, until at least up to the 17th century. The remains of such structures are dotted around the Irish and Scottish countryside, with a particular concentration in the Scottish Borders where they include peel towers and bastle houses. Some are still intact and even inhabited today, while others stand as ruined shells.
Black Middens Bastle House lies about 7 miles (11 km) northwest of Bellingham, Northumberland. It is a two-storey fortified stone farmhouse from the 16th century. In times of trouble from border reivers, which were common on the English-Scottish border, farmers could hide behind its thick walls. Livestock would be kept downstairs and the farmers' families upstairs.
Hepple is a small village and parish in rural Northumberland, 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Rothbury, which provides most of its local services. It is on the edge of the Northumberland National Park, and lies on the bank of the river Coquet, at a location which was on the Coquet Stop Line, of which a pillbox remains. It is on the road between Rothbury and Otterburn. The village contains a church, village hall and post office.
The Church of St Michael in Alnham, in the English county of Northumberland, is a medieval structure dating from circa 1200. Built on a Roman camp site, it is mentioned in records dating to 1291; it is a Grade I listed building.
Brackenhill Tower is a peel tower, in the parish of Arthuret, in Cumbria, just north of the River Lyne. The site is about 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Kirklinton and 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Longtown, or 10 miles (16 km) north of Carlisle and 8 miles (13 km) east of Gretna Green, and is a good defensive position, with ravines to the north and south. Extensions were added in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the original tower has had little alteration. It is the only remaining example of a Scottish tower house south of the border with England, and became a Grade II* listed building in 1957.
Bewcastle is a civil parish in the Carlisle district of Cumbria, England. It contains 20 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is listed at Grade II*, the middle of the three grades, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade. The parish is almost entirely rural or forested. It extends to the Scottish border, and four of the listed buildings originated as bastle houses. Most of the other listed buildings are houses, farmhouses and farm buildings, the others including a church, a former public house, and a monument.
