THE HISTORY OF BAMBURGH
Stronghold of warlords and kings
The pre-eminent role that the castle site has enjoyed can be explained by a number of factors, its readily defensible nature together with its extraordinary physical presence within the landscape, not the least. The importance in a wider regional context derives from the land itself. North Northumberland and Lower Tweeddale (in the medieval period from which detailed records survive) produced much greater estate revenues than comparable estates in the south of the county because of the presence of richer better drained soils. This was of great significance in the time before the advent of modern land drainage schemes and chemical fertilizer. In the prehistoric and early medieval periods economic wealth meant power. Bamburgh’s place in history was not due to chance.
Iron Age origins
Although no reference to Bamburgh appears in any written history before the 6th century AD we know from the excavation of three trial trenches conducted by Dr Brian Hope-Taylor, formerly of Cambridge University, within the West Ward of the castle that the site was occupied long before this time. The trial trenches although failing to identify structural remains produced clear evidence of occupation in the form of layers of domestic waste which contained broken fragments of the pottery types then in use. Pottery even in fragments (which archaeologists refer to as sherds) is of great interest. It can be produced in an almost infinite variety of forms which, as they evolve over time, can be ordered into type series which can sometimes be closely dated. The earliest form of pottery recovered from the excavation was a crude hand-made type believed to date from the Iron Age.
The Romans
The occupation of the site which certainly continued during the Roman period is of great interest as Bamburgh lies between Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Frontier, which means that for periods of the Roman occupation the site lay within the Roman province and at other times beyond its northern frontier. This must have had a profound influence on the rulers of Bamburgh and may even at times have led to their deliberate replacement. We may never be able to recover the full history of Bamburgh at this time, but more extensive excavation, particularly if structures are revealed, could provide many answers.
After the Romans
Although the Romans left a great volume of written history very little of it addressed itself to the far flung northern frontier. We therefore have to wait till the 6th century AD, and the work of a monk called Nennius, before Bamburgh makes its appearance in the written record. When it does so it is with the British name of Din Guyardi and at this time Bamburgh, like Edinburgh and Dumbarton, is believed to have been an important regional focus and very probably the chief stronghold of a local king.
An aristocratic burial ground
A curious little incident which occurred early last century may bring us closer to these long lost rulers than we could have expected. During a great storm in 1817 a mass of sand was blown out from the dunes to the south of the castle, here a number of human burials contained in cists were exposed. A cist is a stone box formed by lining the sides of a grave cut with stone slabs set on edge to form a type of coffin, into which the body can be placed. Some but by no means all have a capping slab placed over the top like the lid on a coffin. Cists come in a number of types and from many different dates but those at Bamburgh which are Christian and without grave goods are identical in form to a type known from south-east Scotland which date from this very period. Excavations by the Bamburgh Project in 1998 has successfully re-located this burial ground.
In this period, following the end of Roman administration, even the most important buildings were constructed from timber which would rapidly decay to leave little trace of their having ever existed. The general absence of structural remains and the rarity of historical information meant that often in the past the period was referred to as the Dark Ages. Modern archaeology has in many ways redressed this imbalance because the disturbance in the ground created by the digging of holes to contain the uprights of a timber building can be identified by careful excavation. The distribution of these ‘post-holes’ will in many cases allow the reconstruction of the ground plan of buildings that long ago decayed to dust.
The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons
The 6th century was a critical time in the history of Northumberland because it saw the transition from a Celtic British land to one dominated by the Anglo-Saxon English. Bamburgh passed into the hands of an Anglo-Saxon dynasty in the middle of this century, but it was not the first part of the region to do so. Anglo-Saxon burials dated to the earlier part of the century have been excavated in Cleveland and there is some indication of an Anglian presence in the Tyne valley at Corbridge cAD500. From this archaeological evidence we now know that the arrival of king Ida at Bamburgh noted in AD547 was not the advent of an Anglian kingdom north of the Tees, but part of a process that had been ongoing for at least a generation. Though not the first to arrive Ida and his followers were the most important because by the end of the century Ida’s successors had founded the pre-eminent royal line of Anglian Northumbria.
Bede and the Northumbrian golden age
The History of Northumbria in the 7th and early 8th centuries was extensively recorded by a Jarrow monk called Bede, whose History of the Church of England became the equivalent of an early medieval best seller. Bamburgh was accorded the dual status of urbs and civitas, in Bede's history, which would define it as a site of the foremost importance. Further indication of this high status can be gleaned from the finds evidence that has already come to light from within the castle, this includes a fragment of a carved stone throne, recovered from beneath foliage within the grounds, together with the strap ends and small gold plaque from trial trenches excavated within the West Ward of the castle by Brian Hope-Taylor (all on display in the castle museum). The recovery of such material without the benefit of systematic investigation would support the historical evidence for the high status of the site and its attendant material culture during this period.
The Vikings
From this time to the Viking attacks of the 9th century the castle site was the capital of the royal dynasty of Northumbria and an important cult centre where the hand of St Oswald was preserved in the Basilica of St Peter. The rule of Danish kings at York did not mark the end of Bamburgh’s importance for the region. By the early 10th century a dynasty of earls based at Bamburgh were ruling an Anglo-Saxon Northumberland which at that time extended from the Tees to the Forth. This extraordinary family, who were very likely responsible for the fall of Eric Bloodaxe in 954 and who fought with the kings of the Scots as equals, remained in power in the region until after the Norman Conquest.
The Norman conquest
The Anglo-Saxon earls took a major part in the northern rebellions against William the Conqueror and so subsequently lost their grip on power in the region, being replaced by Normans. The history of the earldom in Norman hands was somewhat short because in 1095 earl Robert de Mowbray joined a conspiracy against king William Rufus as a result of which he was deposed and imprisoned following his capture during a siege at Bamburgh. The earldom was suppressed and the county of Northumberland administered by the sheriff.
The earldom was revived for a short time in the 12th century and given to Henry the son of David I of Scotland, at a time when Northumberland lay within the orbit of the Kingdom of the Scots. Bamburgh remained a royal castle, the administrative centre for the sheriff in the north of Northumberland. When Henry Percy was made earl of Northumberland by Edward III (ruled 1327-77) the relationship between the earldom and Bamburgh had been severed and the new political centre lay at the Percy castle at Alnwick.
The immense strength of the castle prevented it from ever falling into obscurity and it appears again and again as a place of defence, refuge and at times of imprisonment. The castle was badly damaged by gunfire during a siege in 1464 and left in a ruinous state. After the union of the crowns, having lost its military role, the castle was sold into private hands. Dr John Sharp began the restoration process in the 18th century. At the end of the 19th century Lord Armstrong purchased the castle and rebuilt the living quarter of the castle on a lavish scale. Today as it has always done the castle rock and the structures on it have an impressive brooding presence over the surrounding landscape, perhaps the most recognizable structure in the Northumbrian landscape.