Gilsland
Encyclopedia
Gilsland is a village in northern England
about 20 miles (32.2 km) west of Hexham
, and about 18 miles (29 km) east of Carlisle, which straddles the border between Cumbria
and Northumberland
. The village provides an amenity centre for visitors touring Hadrian's Wall
and other features of historical interest in this area of rugged Border country
, popularised by the Romantic
novelist Sir Walter Scott.
This unusual arrangement, incorporating two county councils and three civil parish
councils, is due to the gradual amalgamation of hamlets during the 19th century. It has a population of about 400, most of whom live on the Northumberland side of the River Irthing
and Poltross Burn
.
ed stones, standing stones and hill forts, though few such monuments, with the possible exception of the Popping Stone
, have been found near Gilsland. Recent field walking activities by a local archaeology group have produced flint artefacts dated to the Bronze Age and Mesolithic. The evident antiquity of the civil parish boundaries may also be traceable to the Iron Age.
Gilsland is situated upon Hadrian's Wall
, a noted monument constructed by the Roman army
in the early part of the second century AD and lately dignified by inclusion as a World Heritage Site
. Consequently, a superficial layer of Romano-British
remains, remarkable chiefly for their quantity, is strewn across the surrounding landscape and dominates archaeological writings on the region, no doubt due to the classicist thrall under which early (and some later) archaeologists worked, the ease with which Roman
artefacts can be found and the relative lack of original research since 1900. Prominent remains of military structures form tourist attractions, the focus being almost entirely on their stone-built phases, most having been repeatedly re-constructed in turf & timber. The Wall itself was initially of turf from a point to the west of Gilsland, but was eventually replaced in stone.
After the Romano-British interlude, paralleled perhaps by the effects of the British Raj
in India
, native populations went back to the business of creating the political entities we recognise and value today. Place-names give evidence of Scandinavian and Germanic
influence during the so-called Dark Ages, but whether this influence was accompanied by mass-migration is currently debated by historians. Two outstanding, if somewhat mythical characters from this time, King Arthur
and Saint Patrick
, probably came from the Gilsland area.
During the 12th century the area now known as Cumbria
passed from the control of the Kingdom of Strathclyde
to the Norman King Henry II
. This region was subdivided into baronies, the easternmost of which became the Barony of Gilsland, apparently named after an individual, although sporadic speculation by historians has failed to conclusively identitify him. This barony was famously ruled by William Howard during the 16/17th century and stretched from Carlisle to the present-day village of Gilsland. Gilsland Spa, a locally renowned mineral spring, was named from the Barony and the name was transferred from there to the village, although most of the population live on the Northumberland side, outside the original borders of the Barony.
The ancient kingdoms of Strathclyde
and Northumbria
were eventually subsumed into what we now know as Scotland
and England
, but for most of the later mediaeval period the Borders suffered instability and lawlessness due to their mutual antipathy and the indeterminate nature of the border. There have been many valiant attempts to romanticise the assumed incessant violence, starting with Sir Walter Scott and continuing to the 21st century farrago of Hexham Old Gaol
.
As soon as the area was definitively pacified, with the Union of the Crowns
and the suppression of the 1745 Jacobite
rebellion, economic activity rapidly increased. The original Gilsland Spa
hotel was built in the 1740s, was already a popular summer resort by the 1780s and went on to provide a nucleus for the accumulation of guest-houses we now recognise as Gilsland. The opening of a railway station in the 1830s led to a boom in tourism. In the 1860s the name of the station was changed from Rose Hill to Gilsland, and residents of Rosehill, Mumpshall, Crooks, The Gap and surrounding farms and hamlets were invited to think of themselves as a single village, the name having been derived from the surrounding Barony of Gilsland. The idea has still not really caught on.
east-west trunk road runs nearby, providing access to Hexham
and Carlisle within half-an-hour by car, or the closer small towns of Haltwhistle
and Brampton
in minutes. Bus services are plentiful from Easter to October with the AD122 service (a reference to the date Hadrian commenced the wall) running every 2 hours. In the winter months Gilsland is less well served by bus services, and the railway station has been closed for many years.
In the recent past, several small coalmines operated nearby, but occupation has mainly been in farming and building trades, also haulage, and a white-lining business is located in the village. Funding is currently being invested in the development and promotion of the area for tourism, and residents are increasingly offering flourishing 4 and 5-star rated B&B and Guest House accommodation. Some 100 local people earn part or whole of their living from tourism. Hadrian's Wall Heritage Limited - the body charged with maintaining the World Heritage Site corridor - estimate that visitor numbers (already circa 400,000 per annum) are set to rise 8% per annum over the next 3 years, which could be problematical, considering that current numbers are already causing damage to the main attraction.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
about 20 miles (32.2 km) west of Hexham
Hexham
Hexham is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, located south of the River Tyne, and was the administrative centre for the Tynedale district from 1974 to 2009. The three major towns in Tynedale were Hexham, Prudhoe and Haltwhistle, although in terms of population, Prudhoe was...
, and about 18 miles (29 km) east of Carlisle, which straddles the border between Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
and Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
. The village provides an amenity centre for visitors touring Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...
and other features of historical interest in this area of rugged Border country
Border Country
Border Country is a novel by Raymond Williams. The book was re-published in December 2005 as one of the first group of titles in the Library of Wales series, having been out of print for several years. Written in English, the novel was first published in 1960.It is set in rural South Wales, close...
, popularised by the Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
novelist Sir Walter Scott.
This unusual arrangement, incorporating two county councils and three civil parish
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...
councils, is due to the gradual amalgamation of hamlets during the 19th century. It has a population of about 400, most of whom live on the Northumberland side of the River Irthing
River Irthing
The River Irthing is a river in Cumbria, England and a major tributary of the River Eden.Rising in the hills around Paddaburn Moor in Border Forest Park, for the first 15 miles of its journey south it defines the border between Northumberland and Cumbria. After passing Butterburn Flow raised bog,...
and Poltross Burn
Poltross Burn
The Poltross Burn is a tributary of the River Irthing. The burn rises on Denton Fell and flows north-east, joining the Irthing at Gilsland. The well preserved Roman Milecastle 48, known locally as The King's Stables, stands on the west bank. A 19th. century water mill within the village ground corn...
.
History
As in most areas of Britain, Bronze-Age and Iron-Age settlement in Northumberland is represented by cup and ring markCup and ring mark
Cup and ring marks or cup marks are a form of prehistoric art found mainly in Atlantic Europe and Mediterranean Europe although similar forms are also found throughout the world including Mexico, Brazil, Greece, and India, where...
ed stones, standing stones and hill forts, though few such monuments, with the possible exception of the Popping Stone
Popping Stone
The Popping Stone is a group of three rounded boulders in the Irthing Gorge near the town of Gilsland. It was not always this shape, however, and photographs from before 1870 show a single, much larger stone that must have been drastically altered soon after this date...
, have been found near Gilsland. Recent field walking activities by a local archaeology group have produced flint artefacts dated to the Bronze Age and Mesolithic. The evident antiquity of the civil parish boundaries may also be traceable to the Iron Age.
Gilsland is situated upon Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...
, a noted monument constructed by the Roman army
Roman army
The Roman army is the generic term for the terrestrial armed forces deployed by the kingdom of Rome , the Roman Republic , the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine empire...
in the early part of the second century AD and lately dignified by inclusion as a World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
. Consequently, a superficial layer of Romano-British
Romano-British
Romano-British culture describes the culture that arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest of AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a people of Celtic language and...
remains, remarkable chiefly for their quantity, is strewn across the surrounding landscape and dominates archaeological writings on the region, no doubt due to the classicist thrall under which early (and some later) archaeologists worked, the ease with which Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
artefacts can be found and the relative lack of original research since 1900. Prominent remains of military structures form tourist attractions, the focus being almost entirely on their stone-built phases, most having been repeatedly re-constructed in turf & timber. The Wall itself was initially of turf from a point to the west of Gilsland, but was eventually replaced in stone.
After the Romano-British interlude, paralleled perhaps by the effects of the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, native populations went back to the business of creating the political entities we recognise and value today. Place-names give evidence of Scandinavian and Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
influence during the so-called Dark Ages, but whether this influence was accompanied by mass-migration is currently debated by historians. Two outstanding, if somewhat mythical characters from this time, King Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
and Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick was a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognized patron saint of Ireland or the Apostle of Ireland, although Brigid of Kildare and Colmcille are also formally patron saints....
, probably came from the Gilsland area.
During the 12th century the area now known as Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
passed from the control of the Kingdom of Strathclyde
Kingdom of Strathclyde
Strathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...
to the Norman King Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
. This region was subdivided into baronies, the easternmost of which became the Barony of Gilsland, apparently named after an individual, although sporadic speculation by historians has failed to conclusively identitify him. This barony was famously ruled by William Howard during the 16/17th century and stretched from Carlisle to the present-day village of Gilsland. Gilsland Spa, a locally renowned mineral spring, was named from the Barony and the name was transferred from there to the village, although most of the population live on the Northumberland side, outside the original borders of the Barony.
The ancient kingdoms of Strathclyde
Strathclyde
right|thumb|the former Strathclyde regionStrathclyde was one of nine former local government regions of Scotland created by the Local Government Act 1973 and abolished in 1996 by the Local Government etc Act 1994...
and Northumbria
Northumbria
Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...
were eventually subsumed into what we now know as Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, but for most of the later mediaeval period the Borders suffered instability and lawlessness due to their mutual antipathy and the indeterminate nature of the border. There have been many valiant attempts to romanticise the assumed incessant violence, starting with Sir Walter Scott and continuing to the 21st century farrago of Hexham Old Gaol
Hexham Old Gaol
The Hexham Old Gaol is in the town of Hexham, Northumberland, England. It is reputed to be the oldest purpose-built prison in England.The gaol was built under the order of William Melton, the Archbishop of York, in 1330–33...
.
As soon as the area was definitively pacified, with the Union of the Crowns
Union of the Crowns
The Union of the Crowns was the accession of James VI, King of Scots, to the throne of England, and the consequential unification of Scotland and England under one monarch. The Union of Crowns followed the death of James' unmarried and childless first cousin twice removed, Queen Elizabeth I of...
and the suppression of the 1745 Jacobite
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...
rebellion, economic activity rapidly increased. The original Gilsland Spa
Gilsland Spa
Gilsland Spa is the present-day name of an hotel at Gilsland, Cumbria, England. It is named from the sulphurous spring which issues from a cliff below the hotel....
hotel was built in the 1740s, was already a popular summer resort by the 1780s and went on to provide a nucleus for the accumulation of guest-houses we now recognise as Gilsland. The opening of a railway station in the 1830s led to a boom in tourism. In the 1860s the name of the station was changed from Rose Hill to Gilsland, and residents of Rosehill, Mumpshall, Crooks, The Gap and surrounding farms and hamlets were invited to think of themselves as a single village, the name having been derived from the surrounding Barony of Gilsland. The idea has still not really caught on.
Present
Today the village is somewhat isolated, as it always has been, with large tracts of forestry and high ground - laced with popular public footpaths, cycle trails and bridleways - to the north and south. The A69A69 road
The A69 is a major road in northern England, running east-west across the Pennines, through the counties of Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and Cumbria. Originally the road started in Blaydon, but since the creation of the A1 Western Bypass around Newcastle upon Tyne, it now starts at Denton Burn a...
east-west trunk road runs nearby, providing access to Hexham
Hexham
Hexham is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, located south of the River Tyne, and was the administrative centre for the Tynedale district from 1974 to 2009. The three major towns in Tynedale were Hexham, Prudhoe and Haltwhistle, although in terms of population, Prudhoe was...
and Carlisle within half-an-hour by car, or the closer small towns of Haltwhistle
Haltwhistle
Haltwhistle is a small town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, situated east of Brampton, near Hadrian's Wall, and the villages of Plenmeller, Rowfoot and Melkridge...
and Brampton
Brampton, Carlisle, Cumbria
Brampton is a small market town and civil parish within the City of Carlisle district of Cumbria, England about 9 miles east of Carlisle and 2 miles south of Hadrian's Wall. It is situated off the A69 road which bypasses it...
in minutes. Bus services are plentiful from Easter to October with the AD122 service (a reference to the date Hadrian commenced the wall) running every 2 hours. In the winter months Gilsland is less well served by bus services, and the railway station has been closed for many years.
In the recent past, several small coalmines operated nearby, but occupation has mainly been in farming and building trades, also haulage, and a white-lining business is located in the village. Funding is currently being invested in the development and promotion of the area for tourism, and residents are increasingly offering flourishing 4 and 5-star rated B&B and Guest House accommodation. Some 100 local people earn part or whole of their living from tourism. Hadrian's Wall Heritage Limited - the body charged with maintaining the World Heritage Site corridor - estimate that visitor numbers (already circa 400,000 per annum) are set to rise 8% per annum over the next 3 years, which could be problematical, considering that current numbers are already causing damage to the main attraction.
Landmarks
- Gilsland SpaGilsland SpaGilsland Spa is the present-day name of an hotel at Gilsland, Cumbria, England. It is named from the sulphurous spring which issues from a cliff below the hotel....
, known in the past for its sulphurous spaDestination spaA destination spa is a short term residential/lodging facility with the primary purpose of providing individual services for spa-goers to develop healthy habits. Historically many such spas were developed at the location of natural hot springs or sources of mineral waters...
waters, is close by. - Milecastle 48Milecastle 48Milecastle 48 , one of the milecastles on Hadrian's Wall, is situated in the village of Gilsland in Cumbria immediately adjacent to the Tyne Valley Line...
Fort of Hadrian's Wall, known locally as The King's Stables, is situated on the outskirts of Gilsland. - Triermain Castle, fragmentary remains dating from the 14th century, lies 3 miles west of Gilsland.
- Thirlwall CastleThirlwall CastleThirlwall Castle is a 12th-century castle in Northumberland, England, on the bank of the River Tipalt close to the village of Greenhead and approximately west of Hexham. It was built in the 12th century, and later strengthened using stones from nearby Hadrian's Wall, but began to fall into...
A picturesque ruin of a mediaeval castle, is two miles to the east.
External links
- Visit Cumbria - Excellent aerial and other photos with some background information.
- Gilsland Bits & Pieces - Accommodation guide with comment and reviews on historical sites, attractions, walks etc.