Settlement In Upper North Tynedale : A Discussion

The development of settlement in the upper reaches of the valley has been analysed in depth in a fundamental study by Harbottle and Newman (1973, 138-42) with full references to the medieval source material. They present a picture of steadily expanding settlement from the 12th century onwards which reached a climax towards the end of the 13th century before retrenching in the 14th century under the combined impact of prolonged warfare, worsening climate and plague.

In the 15th century the population began to recover once more and numerous hamlets and farmsteads can be identified in the detailed documentary listings and maps of the 16th and early 17th centuries.

Although this synthesis has been widely accepted and is generally regarded as a model for the development of upland settlement patterns in the medieval period, one important cautionary note should be added. The 12th and especially the 13th century coincide with an almost exponential increase in the quantity, range and detail of documentary material, including charters, manorial surveys and judicial records.

This poses a particular methodological problem for the study of settlement history in Northumberland, where we lack the detailed 11th or 12th century baseline settlement data provided respectively by the Domesday Book (which extends no further north than Yorkshire) or the Bolden Book (which only covers County Durham, Norhamshire and Bedlingtonshire).

Very many Northumbrian settlements - lowland as well as upland - appear for the first time in the 13th century sources and relatively few are named prior to the 12th - essentially those which by chance happen to figure in significant events and hence were recorded by historical and ecclesiastical chroniclers. Thus it is difficult to determine whether it is actually the expansion of medieval settlement which these 13th century documents are helping us to chart or simply the expansion of the documentary record itself.

The presence of an ecclesiastical centre of some kind at Falstone in the 8th - 9th centuries, indicated by the carved stonework found there, is highly significant in this respect since it is highly unlikely that such a site would have stood alone, in a valley otherwise devoid of permanent habitation. Rather it would have been located at the centre of more widespread rural settlement, as argued above.

Moreover references to a chapel at Falstone in 1318 and later in 1541 raises the intriguing possibility that there was ecclesiastical site at Falstone which remained in continuous use, in one form or another, throughout the intervening centuries. Certainly it strongly implies a continuity of religious tradition between the 9th - 14th centuries, perhaps marked by a known burial ground, if not surviving structures, and it is difficult to imagine such a tradition being maintained if the upper valley was entirely devoid of settlement in this period.