{"id":746,"date":"2026-02-10T08:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T08:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bernicianstudies.eu\/?p=746"},"modified":"2026-02-10T08:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T08:07:11","slug":"ancient-territories-and-boundaries-in-northumberland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bernicianstudies.eu\/?p=746","title":{"rendered":"Ancient territories and boundaries in Northumberland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bernician Studies Group Meeting, <\/span>\u00a05 February 2026 at the Tyneside<\/span> Irish Centre, Gallowgate, Newcastle (by Rannoch Daly)<\/span><\/p>\n

Topic: Ancient Woodland: Hanging Leaves Wood<\/p>\n

In 1066 Cospatric was earl of Bernicia. He was deposed by William the Conqueror in 1072 and replaced by Waltheof of York. Cospatric fled to Scotland where he was appointed earl of Dunbar by King Malcolm III. He died the following year and was succeeded by his son Cospatric II. Around 1085 the Conqueror granted William du Merlay the barony of Morpeth. Probably around 1113 AD du Merlay\u2019s son Ranulf married Juliana, daughter of Cospatric II, and she brought with her, as a dowry, considerable lands between Morpeth and Brinkburn (See Juliana and Ranulf of Morpeth Castle<\/em> by Bridget Gubbins 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Note by Max Adams: The townships of Juliana’s estate have survived largely intact (shades of brown in the map below). Together with the course of the River Lyne, itself a boundary of estates (shaded yellow in the map below) first recorded in the 8th century, they form a continuous boundary feature rising in the Pennines and running some 30km to the sea at Lynemouth – highlighted in purple on the map below.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hanging Leaves Wood sits east of the lands of Juliana; its northern edge coincides with the major estates boundary. Max Adams and Colm O\u2019Brien outlined the history of the area and its relationship to surrounding lands, concentrating on ancient charters, routeways, drove roads, estate boundaries, etc. There is a prominent ditch and embankment facing north from Hanging Leaves Wood (in the map below it is shown on a composite OS 1st Edition and LiDAR plot: where red dots and yellow lines coincide). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Is it possible to establish whether this ditch\/embankment was constructed in the time of Juliana, or earlier, or later? Can we learn more about its original scale and purpose?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dorothy Cowans outlined plans to use Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) to investigate the structure and antiquity of this woodland landscape feature.\u00a0 [note from Max Adams: OSL allows a date to be obtained from soil profiles buried beneath the banks of ancient earthworks.]\u00a0 Read Dorothy\u2019s 2025 report on the plants of Northumberland\u2019s ancient woodland in her article \u201cThe Use of Indicator Species in Identifying Ancient Woodland in South-East Northumberland\u201d (see the BSG publications tab).<\/p>\n

Next meeting 19 February 2026<\/p>\n

Topics:<\/p>\n

1 –\u00a0 Place-names ending in \u2018-ton<\/em>\u2019: Do they form \u2018purposeful clusters\u2019?<\/p>\n

2 \u2013 Ancient handwriting: What is Biblical \u2018majuscule\u2019? What is Caroline minuscule? Can you tell them apart? A look at the work of the medieval scribes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bernician Studies Group Meeting, \u00a05 February 2026 at the Tyneside Irish Centre, Gallowgate, Newcastle (by Rannoch Daly) Topic: Ancient Woodland: Hanging Leaves Wood In 1066 Cospatric was earl of Bernicia. He was deposed by William the Conqueror in 1072 and replaced by Waltheof of York. Cospatric fled to Scotland where he was appointed earl of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bernicesblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bernicianstudies.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bernicianstudies.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bernicianstudies.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bernicianstudies.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bernicianstudies.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bernicianstudies.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":749,"href":"https:\/\/www.bernicianstudies.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions\/749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bernicianstudies.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bernicianstudies.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bernicianstudies.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}