Greenhaugh And Tarset : The Early Medieval Period

Little is known of settlement patterns in the Northumbrian uplands in the centuries following the collapse of Roman imperial authority. It is likely that the enclosed farmsteads which were such a feature of rural settlement in the preceding period, continued to be occupied well into the early medieval era, but diagnostic dating evidence is lacking.

The discovery at Falstone of several pieces of early medieval carved stonework, which evidently belonged originally to two separate monuments, provides one precious piece of evidence for settlement in upper North Tynedale during this period. Four carved sandstone fragments (one now lost) were found in 1885, in the graveyard of St Peter's Church, in the wall of the adjoining farmhouse and in the wall enclosing the garden attached to the farmhouse (Hall 1889; NCH XV (1940), 165). These can be reconstructed into a single cross shaft, which can be dated to to AD 850-900 on the basis of its stylistic parallels (Corpus, Falstone 1; Cramp & Miket 1982, 16 no. 38, pls. 7-8).

The second monument, an inscribed, house-shaped memorial stone, was found by the Rev. James Wood, the Presbyterian Minister of Falstone, in c. 1813, less than quarter of a mile north west of the village. It forms a copy in stone of the type of metal or bone reliquaries or shrines known from the British Isles and on the continent from the 7th and 8th centuries. Surviving examples of such caskets feature handles with clasps of the type depicted on the Falstone carving. On the basis of these stylistic parallels, the stone monument is dated to AD 750-850.

It is likely that both monuments originally derived from the same early Christian site, which was probably located in the same place as St Peter’s churchyard (see the Falstone village report for detailed discussion). This was probably also the site of the chapel mentioned in 14th and 16th century sources. The presence of this assemblage of carved stonework indicates a long-term ecclesiastical presence at Falstone in one form or another from at least the 8th/9th centuries AD.

The location of the churchyard on a knoll demarcated by a bend in the Falstone Burn forms a neatly demarcated location, which might have proved attractive for an early Christian monastic community, for instance. It may represent a minor monastic site, established before the Viking onslaught had extinguished the once bright light of Northumbrian monasticism, or perhaps a chapel owned by the local lord.

However, what this assemblage of carved stonework undeniably demonstrates is that the upper reaches of North Tynedale were far from deserted in the 8th and 9th centuries (cf. Barrow 1974, 170). Elaborate carved and inscribed monuments are an indication of a high status site, usually with ecclesiastical functions.

It is extremely unlikely that such a site stood in isolation, in a valley otherwise devoid of permanent settlement. Rather it would have been located at the top of a hierarchy of lesser, satellite settlements, inhabited by communities of dependent peasants which, through their labours, provided the resources to sustain such conspicuous expenditure by the elite - lay or ecclesiastical - of the Northumbrian kingdom.