HISTORY OF NORTH EAST ENGLAND

[THE FUGITIVE]

Geography and early history[edit]




Whitley Bay
The region is generally hilly and sparsely populated in the North and West, and urban and arable in the East and South. The highest point in the region is The Cheviot, in the Cheviot Hills, at 815 metres (2,674 ft).


12th-century wall-painting of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral
The region contains the urban centres of Tyneside, Wearside and Teesside, and is noted for the rich natural beauty of its coastline, Northumberland National Park, and the section of the Pennines that includes Teesdale and Weardale. The regions historic importance is displayed by Northumberland's ancient castles, the two World Heritage Sites of Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle,[2] and Hadrian's Wall [3] one of the frontiers of the Roman Empire. In fact, Roman archaeology can be found widely across the region and a special exhibition based around the Roman Fort of Segedunum at Wallsend[4] and the other forts along Hadrian's Wall are complemented by the numerous artifacts that are displayed in the Great North Museum Hancock[5] in Newcastle. St. Peter's Church in Monkwearmouth, Sunderland and St. Pauls in Jarrow also hold significant historical value and have a joint bid to become a World Heritage Site.

The area has a strong religious past, as can be seen in works such as the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.[6] The work of the 7th-century Cuthbert (634â€"687 AD), Bede (673â€"735 AD) and Hilda of Whitby (614â€"680 AD) were hugely influential in the early church, and are still venerated by some today.[7][8] These saints are usually associated respectively with the monasteries on the island of Lindisfarne and at Wearmouth â€" Jarrow, and the Abbey at Whitby, but they are also associated with many other religious sites in the region. Bede is regarded as the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar. He worked at the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, translating some forty books on all areas of knowledge, including nature, history, astronomy, poetry and theological matters such as the lives of the saints. His best known work is "The Ecclesiastical History of the English People".[9] One of the most famous pieces of art and literature created in the region is the Lindisfarne Gospels, and are thought to be the work of a monk named Eadfrith, who became Bishop of Lindisfarne in 698. This body of work is thought to have been created in honour of Cuthbert, around 710â€"720.[10]

On 6 June 793 the Vikings arrived on the shores of north-east England with a raiding party from Norway who attacked the monastic settlement on Lindisfarne[11] . The monks fled or were slaughtered, and Bishop Higbald sought refuge on the mainland. A chronicler recorded: "On the 8th June, the harrying of the heathen miserably destroyed God's church by rapine and slaughter." There were three hundred years of Viking raids, battles and settlement until William the Conqueror defeated King Harold at Hastings in 1066.[12] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes the change from raiding to settlement when it records that in 876 the Vikings "Shared out the land of the Northumbrians and they proceeded to plough and support themselves"[13] The Viking kingdom of Northumbria extended from the Scottish borders (then Pictish borders) at the Firth of Forth to the north, and to the south of York, its capital, down to the Humber. The last independent Northumbrian king from 947â€"8 was Eric Bloodaxe, who died at the Battle of Stainmore, Westmorland, in 954. After Eric Bloodaxe's death, all England was ruled by Eadred, the grandson of Alfred the Great; and so began the machinery of national government.[14] Today the Viking legacy can still be found in the language and place names of north-east England and in the DNA of its people.[15] The name Newcastle comes from the castle built shortly after the conquest in 1080 by Robert Curthose, William the Conqueror's eldest son.

Climate[edit]
North East England has an oceanic climate with narrower temperature ranges than the south of England. Summers and winters are mild rather than extremely hot or cold, due to the strong maritime influence of the North Atlantic Current of the Gulf Stream. The Met Office operates several weather stations in the region[16] and are able they show the regional variations in temperature and its relation to the distance from the North Sea. The warmest summers in the region are found in Stockton-on-Tees and the Middlesbrough area, with a 1981-2010 July average high of 20.4 °C (68.7 °F).[17] Precipitation is often low by English standards, in spite of the low levels of sunshine, with Stockton-on-Tees averaging only 574.2 millimetres (22.61 in) annually, and with the seaside town of Tynemouth (despite its slightly sunnier climate) recording 597.2 millimetres (23.51 in) annually.[18] The summers on the northern coastlines are significantly cooler than in the southern and central inland areas: Tynemouth is only just above 18 °C (64 °F) in July. Further inland, frosts during winter are more common, due to the higher elevations and distance from the sea.

Industrial heritage[edit]
After more than 2,000 years of industrial activity as a result of abundant minerals such as salt and coal[19][20] the chemical industry of the Northeast England is today spread across the whole of the region[21] with pharmaceuticals being primarily produced in the north of the region, speciality and fine chemicals spread across the middle of the region and commodity chemicals and petrochemicals on Teesside. These companies are members of the Northeast of England Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC). The early chemical industry in this region, however, was primarily Tyneside based and associated with the manufacture of soap and glass. The most important chemical activity in the 18th and 19th centuries was the manufacture of alkali to make soap, which was when mixed with lime and sand and used to make glass.[22] The effects of the industrial revolution could be seen through an economy dominated by iron and steel, coal mining and shipbuilding.