Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for NORHAM

NORHAM, a village, a township, and a parish in Berwick district, Northumberland. The village stands on the river Tweed at the boundary with Scotland, and on the Tweedmouth and Kelso branch of the North eastern railway, 6¾ miles S W of Tweedmouth; occupies a low situation, amid a luxuriant, many-featured, well-wooded landscape; was known, in the Saxon times, as Ubbanford; was the first place, or one of the first places, of Northumbria in which the Culdee missionaries preached; became the capital of Norhamshire, and the site there of the Bishops of Durham's exchequer and courts of justice; was long a market-town; consists nowchiefly of one long street, with a green; and has a station on the railway, a post-office under Berwick, a curious pyramidal cross, and fairs on the second Thursday of May and the third Thursday of Oct. A bridge, with stone abutments and strong timber body, was erected over the Tweed, a little above the village, in 1840; a pleasant walk lies along the river; and Norham Castle, now a massive ruin, surmounts a steep and partiallywooded portion of the river's bank in the near vicinity. The castle was erected in 1121, by Bishop Flambard; is thought to have been raised on the site of some previous stronghold; was much modified and extended by numerous renovations and re-erections, occasioned by the exigencies of war; appears to have, at one time, occupied a large extent of ground; comprises still a massive square keep, 70 feet high, though considerably shattered, and a number of fragments, vaults, and substructions, within a great circuit of outer wall; and, as seen from the river, presents a very picturesque appearance. David I. of Scotland took and partially destroyed both it and the village in 1138. Bishop Pudsey enlarged the great keep in 1154. King John besieged the castle for forty days in 1215, when it was in possession of the Scotch; but was not able to take it. Edward I. resided in it while conducting the dispute respecting the succession to the Scottish crown; the contending armies of England and Scotland, in the course of their several wars, frequentlytook and re-took it; and James IV. of Scotland demolished its outworks immediately before he marched to Flodden. Bishop Matthew devised it to the Crown in 1603. Camden describes it as "situated on the top of a high steep rock, impending over the Tweed, fortified with a trench; the outer wall guarded by many turrets, of vast compass; the wall towards the river much stronger, encompassing the keep or dungeon, of prodigious height." Sir Walter Scott says respecting it, in the opening verses of Marmion,

Day set on Norham's castled steep,
and Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
and Cheviot's mountains lone;
The battled towers, the donjon-keep,
The loop-hole grates where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow lustre shone.

The township comprises 2, 343 acres of land, and 374of water. Pop. in 1851, 1,033; in 1861, 919. Houses, 183. The parish contains also the townships of Norham-Mains, Thornton, Horncliffe, Loan-End, Longridge, Shoreswood, Felkington, Duddo, Grindon, Twizel, and Cornhill. Acres, 19, 849. Real property, £34, 944; of which £73 are in quarries, £2, 250 in mines, and £464 in fisheries. Pop. in 1851, 4, 289; in 1861, 3, 783. Houses, 744. The decrease of pop. was caused partly by reduction in the number of farm-labourers, and mainly by the removal of labourers temporarily employed on the railway works. The property is not much divided. Some interesting features are noticed in the articles on the several townships. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Durham. Value, £529* Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Durham. The church stands on a picturesque spot at the W end of the village; succeeded a previous church of the Culdee times; is itself partly of Norman date; has a Norman arcade of five bays in the nave, and a massive tower with Norman arches; is mostly Norman, partly early decorated English, in the chancel; was restored in 1846-52; had formerly three chantries; was the burial-place of King Ceolwulf; had anciently the privilege of 37 days' sanctuary; and contains an ancient canopied effigies of a knight, and an effigies by Lough of the Rev. Dr. Gilly, author of the " History of the Waldenses" and other works, who was vicar, and died in 1857. The vicarages of Cornhill and Duddo are separate benefices. There are chapels for Free Church Presbyterians and United Presbyterians, an endowed grammar school, and a national school. Dr. Carleton, the biographer of Bernard Gilpin, was a native.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village, a township, and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Norham AP/CP       Berwick RegD/PLU       Northumberland AncC
Place names: NORHAM     |     UBBANFORD
Place: Norham

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