Background

The character of settlement and buildings in the National Park derives historically from human activities responding to conditions of exposure or shelter, the landscape setting and the economic use of the land and the materials derived from it.

The main geological areas of the National Park are linked with characteristic changes of landscape and settlement patterns. The higher mountain landscapes of the Cheviot Hills have deep narrow valleys where isolated farmsteads nestle, often with a more substantial cluster of farms and houses at the end of the valley as at Kilham and Alwinton. In the wider moorland and dale countryside of the Rede and Tyne, settlement is less constrained and farmsteads and working villages are often prominent in the landscape. At the southern end of the Park the Whin Sill forms the dominant feature: larger settlements occupy the Tyne Valley bottom but scattered farmsteads stand high on the Roman Wall and in the land to the north before the blanket of Wark Forest.

Traditionally the Park's economy was broadly based on farming, but from the 18th century onwards much of the central and southern part was active with mineral extraction. In both farming and quarrying employment reached a peak in the latter half of the 19th Century and mechanisation led to a loss of employment and population migration to the industrial urban centres. In the 20th Century forestry and military use, and more recently tourism, have become major factors in the local economy. The nature of all these industries has had an influence on the settlement pattern, for example in dispersed farms and closely knit forestry villages, and site related tourist facilities.