Simonburn: The Great Parish (centred on NY871735)

© Copyright Peter Brooks and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

Visitors to the little village of Simonburn in the North Tyne valley often wonder at the size of the settlement’s substantial parish church. For sure, it is a big one, and seemingly out of all proportion to its modest setting. But there is a good reason for the discrepancy, for Simonburn was once the largest parish in England.

Prior to an Act of Parliament of 1811 – which, when enacted in 1814, split the parish into several splinters – this sparsely populated ecclesiastical unit covered a whopping 260 square miles! And considering that this huge area has only ever contained around 1,000 folk, well, that is one long trudge into church every Sunday for some very lonely people. It was known, for obvious reasons, as ‘The Great Parish’, and stretched from Hadrian’s Wall in the south to Carter Bar on the Scottish Border – some 30 miles in length and 14 miles wide.

It is believed that the parish boundaries were established in 1072 by Bishop Walcher of Durham during the re-organisation of his diocese (which then included Northumberland). The 1811-14 division saw the creation of Wark, Bellingham, Greystead, Thorneyburn and Falstone out of the ancient parish – with Humshaugh & Haughton (a single entity) following in 1832. So, seven parishes out of one!

At its heart lies the mother church, St.Mungo’s, with roots stretching back, we think, to the 6^th or 7^th century (though the earliest stonework probably dates from the 9^th century). It was then that the aforementioned St.Mungo was on his travels after having been ousted from his cell at Glasgow by the pagan King Morken. Some sources even suggest that the church’s founding may stretch back to St.Ninian, who died in the early 5^th century.

The current church, obviously much altered over the years, extends over a slope and has a distinct list as a result.

Haughton Castle Paper Mill (NY921729)

Near the bank of the River North Tyne a little to the north of Humshaugh stands Haughton Castle and its associated buildings. On the riverbank itself can be found the remains of an old paper mill, built by Captain William Smith, the owner of the nearby castle, in 1788. The flow of the river here is steady and strong, which is just what you’re looking for if you’re a mill owner.

It is also rather remote, which is not always good for communications – but it is good for sneaky goings-on. And, in 1793, just five years after its construction, Haughton Castle Mill was commissioned by the British government for a rather special assignment: it was instructed to produce the paper required for the printing of counterfeit French currency.

There’d been the little matter of the French Revolution, of course, in 1789, and the new revolutionary government was struggling to find its feet. One of its most controversial measures was to introduce as a new currency the ‘Assignat’, backed by the value of property seized from the Catholic Church. Obviously, the Church wasn’t too happy about this illegal seizure and they, together with what was left of the French nobility, opposed the new currency system. To add to the new regime’s woes many foreign countries began producing forged assignats to flood the market and thus destabilise the French economy. Belgium, Switzerland and Britain were at the forefront in this regard, and one of the many paper mills chosen for the project was that on the bank of the North Tyne at Haughton. Its remoteness no doubt contributed to its selection and, for around two years during 1793-95, a good deal of the paper with which the dodgy notes were made was turned out here. The printing process was carried out elsewhere, though; then the notes were sent to Flanders with the British Army.

By the many and various anti-assignat methods thus employed across Europe, the new-fangled French revolutionary currency was indeed brought down. Introduced in 1789, it devalued steadily and was scrapped in 1796. By the time Napoleon I became emperor in 1804 it was a distant memory. So you could argue that the undercover activity at Haughton Castle Mill in the 1790s helped bring the little dictator to power.

One of the moulds for making the paper notes still survives and is in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. The mill itself had fallen out of use by the 1880s, though much of the fabric of the building survives.

First Official Boy Scout Camp (NY883694)

© Copyright Phil Thirkell and licensed for 

reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

A few miles NW of Hexham, on the north bank of the Tyne, can be found a dot on the map labelled Carr Edge Farm. It sits a little to the north of Fourstones, but south of Hadrian’s Wall, and is famous as the venue, in 1908, of the first ever Boy Scout Camp. Common assumption places the first scout gathering at Brownsea Island, Poole Harbour, in August 1907, but this was an experimental camp attended by boys who were not properly-invested scouts. So I am pleased to say the honour of the title of the first official camp goes to the North-East of England! (In fact, the land, though near to Carr Edge Farm, actually belonged to the slightly more distant Park Shields Farm to the east).

The spot was named ‘Look Wide Camp Site’ by the organisers, headed, of course, by the famous General Baden-Powell, founder of the scout movement. The event, which ran from 22^nd August to 4^th September 1908, came a year after the south coast ‘dry run’, and was the culmination of a frantic period of preparation and organisation as the scouting movement got off the ground. Baden-Powell himself led the team of supervisors, who took charge of 30 boys from all corners of the UK, each of whom had been nominated by friends and relatives in a voting system (although they were joined by another six in due course). The two-week jolly included all the usual scout-like activities, in addition to visits to local sites of interest.

The event is usually described as having taken place at Humshaugh, a village which is several miles to the NE – on account of it being, I think, the name of the parish at the time – but there is no doubt about the location of the true venue.

The site is now marked by a large stone cairn (erected 1929) adorned with several commemorative plaques. The pictured slab was set in place in 1950 and nicely sums up the story. A centenary event, ‘Jamboree 2008’, was held at the Carr Edge site in, er, 2008.

See here for much more info!

P.S. The weather during the 1908 inaugural camp was, by the way, rather wet.