Concealed Communities: Marginal Communities in Upland Northumberland

College ValleyIn 2005, Northumberland National Park, in partnership with The School of Historical Studies at Newcastle University, was awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded collaborative PhD studentship to research 'Concealed Communities: Mobility and Marginality in Northumberland National Park.'

Jonnie Shipley, an archaeology graduate from Newcastle University, is leading the research which is focussing on the College Valley and Redesdale between the early medieval period and the nineteenth century, using the exceptionally rich archaeological remains and historical documents that relate to them.

The idea that people with ambiguous or marginal identities occupied marginal areas has emerged as a growing research theme in medieval and post-medieval archaeology over recent years. The zones occupied by these marginal people had a special place in the medieval conception of the world, and were defined in opposition to the central church, the town or village and its fields. The forests, moors, marshes, heaths and mountains were feared and respected in society as special places - often the haunts of evil-doers and the realm of malevolent supernatural beings. Even so, the resources they provided were important to medieval and post-medieval people and they were commonly exploited.

The archaeological and historical evidence suggests that the kinds of people who occupied these regions – for example the adolescent girls working as shepherds, the drovers, the miners, the squatters on heathland, and the reivers and other criminals – were made marginal in social life and sometimes also in death during the middle ages and later.

The long historic period witnessed major changes in the social, political, ideological and economic structures of the region. These range from the late medieval and early modern Border wars to the rise of capitalism and the industrial revolution and the political union of England and Scotland. The long-term perspective of this study will allow the investigation of how these marginal and remote communities responded to these external changes across time and will examine how their marginality and mobility shaped their identities and the places they lived.

The landscape of Northumberland provides an unparalleled resource for such a study. During the historic periods, it has been controlled by strong central places: Anglo-Saxon monasteries and royal centres, medieval nucleated villages and castles, and the industrial towns of the post-medieval period. Such places have provided the essential foci for settlement and society for over a thousand years. However, Northumberland also has an outstandingly rich archaeological legacy of other kinds of settlements and sites. These are not located within the central nucleations, but are dispersed across the countryside in the marginal zones: shielings and shepherds' shelters, farmsteads and small hamlets, drove roads, mines, quarries, illicit whiskey stills, fairs and periodic markets, crosses, holy wells and chapels. They provide an exceptional resource for understanding the lives of people on the margins, and have only rarely been drawn into historical discourse in the past.

It is hoped that the project will result in a new understanding of marginal and mobile people in the north of England during the middle ages and later. It will address several issues specifically highlighted as priorities for research in the draft NNP Archaeological Research Framework. The knowledge produced will allow new interpretative materials to be produced by NNP which will make a significant contribution to a range of activities including education, outreach and inclusion. It will also feed into the revision of planning policies relating to relevant aspects of the historic environment.

To date there has been one season of excavation at the deserted farm site of Harrowbog in the College Valley and one season of field survey at the deserted medieval settlement of Heddon, also in the College Valley. The Harrowbog report gives a flavour of the results so far obtained from the project.

Harrowbog Excavation Report (PDF format, 387kb)

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