A Seaport and a Stronghold … A history of Harwich

The town of Harwich in Essex takes its name from the Old English words here + wic meaning ‘Army-dwelling’ after a Danish army reportedly camped on the site sometime in the 9th century. However, the Domesday Book makes no mention of the town which means that if there was anyone residing in the area shortly after the Norman invasion in …

Sunderland: A Coastal City with a Colourful History

Sunderland Harbour (Credit J. Thomas: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en) Built up around both banks of the River Wear and with an extensive North Sea coastline we find the port city of Sunderland. The modern city is in fact the merging of three separate Anglo-Saxon era settlements: Monkwearmouth, on the northern bank of the river, and Bishopwearmouth and Sunderland to the south. In this …

Northumbria: A coastline of castles, creativity and culture

(A Map of the Kingdom of Northumbria circa 700 AD – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Kingdom_of_Northumbria_around_700_AD.svg) Northumbria was one of the most significant Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to the north of the Humber to ever exist. At its peak the Kingdom of Northumbria stretched from the Irish Sea to the North Sea with a northern border on the Firth of Forth and its southern border at …

Symbols of Anglo-Saxon Culture in Cumbria’s Coastal Towns: The Crosses of Irton, Gosforth and Waberthwaite

The coastal towns and villages of Cumbria, famed for their beauty, have long grasped the attention of historians and archaeologists for a different reason. Throughout the Early Middle Ages both Anglo-Saxons and Vikings would call Cumbria home. The archaeology of their settlements, culture and interaction provides us as historians with a treasure trove of information with which to try and …

Shores of Conquest: Anglo-Saxon Encounters on the Cumbrian Coast

The Anglo-Saxons and Cumbria: The Invasion of 945 AD The territory of Cumbria was, in the Viking era (c.800-1100), part of the Brittonic kingdom of Strathclyde. Strathclyde stretched from the basin of the River Clyde down to what is now north-western England and the Cumbrian coast which met both the Solway Firth and the Irish Sea. This exquisite 160km stretch …