Norham


Norham is a village and civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the south side of the River Tweed where it is the border with Scotland.

History

Its ancient name was Ubbanford. Ecgred of Lindisfarne replaced a wooden church with one of stone, translated the relics of St. Ceolwulf here. Norham is mentioned as the resting-place of St Cuthbert in the early eleventh century text On the Resting-Places of the Saints, and recent research has suggested the possibility that Norham may have been the centre of the diocese of Lindisfarne from the ninth century until some time between 1013 and 1031.
It is the site of the 12th-century Norham Castle, and was for many years the centre for the Norhamshire exclave of County Durham. It was transferred to Northumberland in 1844.
It was on the Tweed here that Edward I of England met the Scots nobility in 1292 to decide on the future king of Scotland.
Sir Walter Scott gained fame as a poet, particularly with Marmion set around the Battle of Flodden in 1513. It begins:
The 19th-century Ladykirk and Norham Bridge is a late stone road bridge that connects the village with Ladykirk in the Scottish Borders.
J. M. W. Turner always tipped his hat to Norham Castle, as it was the place which brought him fame as an artist. The picture of the castle which hangs in Tate Britain, luminously near-abstract, is one of the great treasures of the collection.
Norham railway station, built 1851, closed in 1965 and was turned into a museum by its final station master, Peter Short. In 2013 it was up for sale at an asking price of £420,000.

Governance

An electoral ward in the name of Norham and Islandshires exists. This ward stretches south east to just short of Bamburgh and has a total population taken at the 2011 Census of 4,438.