The Northern Counties from AD 1000 (Paperback)

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.