The Northern Counties from AD 1000 (Regional History of England)

This volume explores the history of England's northern borders - the former counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, Durham, Westmorland and the Furness areas of Lancashire - across 1000 years. For most of them the region was a world of its own, often disrupted by border warfare between England and Scotland yet largely disregarded by the official authorities to south and north. Peace in the 17th century brought prosperity and population growth; a region virtually without wheeled traffic was opened up by turnpike and railway; and the North East grew into one of the dynamic hubs of industrial Britain, with ironworking, shipbuilding and mining prominent among its thriving concerns. The book explores aspects of this changing scene, from the thin towns and poor upland farms of early modern Cumbria to life in the teeming communities of late Victorian Tyneside. In their final chapters the authors review the modern decline of these traditional industries and the erosion of many of the region's historical characteristics.