Ancroft
Encyclopedia
Ancroft is a village and civil parish in Northumberland
, England
. Prior to 1844, Ancroft lay within the Islandshire
exclave of County Durham
. It is south of Berwick-upon-Tweed
, and has a population of 885.
There are several suggestions as to how Ancroft got its name. It might be an abridged version of "Aidan's-croft" - the croft of St Aidan
who was the first Bishop of Lindisfarne
(Holy Island). Alternatively, it might be that as the church is dedicated to Saint Anne, the village took its name from the church - "St Anne's croft". A third suggestion is simply that it means one croft or solitary croft - "ane croft".
There was surely more than one croft here when the church was built, probably towards the end of the 11th century; but in common with most of this region, the community declined in the latter part of the 13th century because of the continual border raids by the Scots
. This turbulent history is reflected in the number of castle
s and peel tower
s in the vicinity, besides the fortified tower that was added to the church in the thirteenth century.
Because of the repeated incursions by Scots
, this northern part of what we now call Northumberland
was placed in the charge of the prince-bishops of Durham
. They were powerful and wealthy men who had the resources to defend the border. That is why well into the last century this area was still part of County Durham
.
After the accession of James I
(James VI of Scotland
) to the throne of England
in 1603 there seems to have been a return of people to the village. But in 1667 the plague
struck Ancroft, The victims were carried out into the fields where they were covered with shelters made from branches of broom. After death both bodies and shelters were burned in a rudimentary and fruitless attempt to control the spread of the disease. To this day a field to the south of the village is called "Broomie Huts". In desperation the authorities of the day ordered that the plague-affected cottages should be burned to the ground. The mounds where the cottages stood, and the former village street, can still be seen in the field between the main road and the burn.
By the time of Queen Anne
(1702–1714) the village was flourishing once more, with a population of over one thousand. The main industry, other than farming, was shoe
and clog
making. Sailor
s of the Royal Navy
wore shoes or slippers from Ancroft. The naval specification required footwear with no metal parts - an obvious precaution to avoid sparks in a wooden ship loaded with gunpowder
and tarred rope! Boot
s were also made for the British army
- the Duke of Marlborough
's troops marched to victory shod in Ancroft boots. A village tradition claims that each of the one hundred trees on the southern skyline represents a cobbler
.
Several of the local settlements originated around coal
mines, an industry which is being redeveloped in today's open cast sites.
passes the village less than 1 miles (2 km) to the east. The causeway is a Roman
road which starts at Port Gate on Hadrian's Wall
, north of Corbridge
, and extends 55 miles (89 km) northwards across Northumberland to the mouth of the River Tweed
at Berwick-upon-Tweed
.
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Prior to 1844, Ancroft lay within the Islandshire
Islandshire
Islandshire was an area of Northumberland, England, comprising Lindisfarne or Holy Island, plus five parishes on the mainland.It is historically associated with the Bishop of Durham, and was administratively an exclave of County Palatinate of Durham...
exclave of County Durham
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...
. It is south of Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick-upon-Tweed or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border....
, and has a population of 885.
There are several suggestions as to how Ancroft got its name. It might be an abridged version of "Aidan's-croft" - the croft of St Aidan
Aidan of Lindisfarne
Known as Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne, Aidan the Apostle of Northumbria , was the founder and first bishop of the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne in England. A Christian missionary, he is credited with restoring Christianity to Northumbria. Aidan is the Anglicised form of the original Old...
who was the first Bishop of Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne is a tidal island off the north-east coast of England. It is also known as Holy Island and constitutes a civil parish in Northumberland...
(Holy Island). Alternatively, it might be that as the church is dedicated to Saint Anne, the village took its name from the church - "St Anne's croft". A third suggestion is simply that it means one croft or solitary croft - "ane croft".
There was surely more than one croft here when the church was built, probably towards the end of the 11th century; but in common with most of this region, the community declined in the latter part of the 13th century because of the continual border raids by the Scots
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
. This turbulent history is reflected in the number of castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
s and peel tower
Peel tower
Peel towers are small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the English and Scottish borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, intended as watch towers where signal fires could be lit by the garrison to warn of approaching danger...
s in the vicinity, besides the fortified tower that was added to the church in the thirteenth century.
Because of the repeated incursions by Scots
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
, this northern part of what we now call Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
was placed in the charge of the prince-bishops of Durham
Durham
Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...
. They were powerful and wealthy men who had the resources to defend the border. That is why well into the last century this area was still part of County Durham
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...
.
After the accession of James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
(James VI of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
) to the throne of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1603 there seems to have been a return of people to the village. But in 1667 the plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
struck Ancroft, The victims were carried out into the fields where they were covered with shelters made from branches of broom. After death both bodies and shelters were burned in a rudimentary and fruitless attempt to control the spread of the disease. To this day a field to the south of the village is called "Broomie Huts". In desperation the authorities of the day ordered that the plague-affected cottages should be burned to the ground. The mounds where the cottages stood, and the former village street, can still be seen in the field between the main road and the burn.
By the time of Queen Anne
Anne of Great Britain
Anne ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union, two of her realms, England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain.Anne's Catholic father, James II and VII, was deposed during the...
(1702–1714) the village was flourishing once more, with a population of over one thousand. The main industry, other than farming, was shoe
Shoe
A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot while doing various activities. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture to culture, with appearance originally being tied to function...
and clog
Clog (shoe)
A clog is a type of footwear made in part or completely from wood.The Oxford English Dictionary defines a clog as a "thick piece of wood", and later as a "wooden soled overshoe" and a "shoe with a thick wooden sole"....
making. Sailor
Sailor
A sailor, mariner, or seaman is a person who navigates water-borne vessels or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses...
s of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
wore shoes or slippers from Ancroft. The naval specification required footwear with no metal parts - an obvious precaution to avoid sparks in a wooden ship loaded with gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
and tarred rope! Boot
Boot
A boot is a type of footwear but they are not shoes. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle and extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearly distinguishable from the rest of the sole, even if the two are made of one piece....
s were also made for the British army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
- the Duke of Marlborough
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Prince of Mindelheim, KG, PC , was an English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reigns of five monarchs through the late 17th and early 18th centuries...
's troops marched to victory shod in Ancroft boots. A village tradition claims that each of the one hundred trees on the southern skyline represents a cobbler
Shoemaking
Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand. Traditional handicraft shoemaking has now been largely superseded in volume of shoes produced by industrial mass production of footwear, but not necessarily in quality, attention to detail, or...
.
Several of the local settlements originated around coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
mines, an industry which is being redeveloped in today's open cast sites.
Landmarks
The Devil's CausewayDevil's Causeway
The Devil's Causeway is a Roman road in Northumberland, in North East England. It branches off Dere Street north of Corbridge and can be traced through Northumberland for about north to Berwick-upon-Tweed.-Description:...
passes the village less than 1 miles (2 km) to the east. The causeway is a Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
road which starts at Port Gate on Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...
, north of Corbridge
Corbridge
Corbridge is a village in Northumberland, England, situated west of Newcastle and east of Hexham. Villages in the vicinity include Halton, Acomb, Aydon and Sandhoe.-Roman fort and town:...
, and extends 55 miles (89 km) northwards across Northumberland to the mouth of the River Tweed
River Tweed
The River Tweed, or Tweed Water, is long and flows primarily through the Borders region of Great Britain. It rises on Tweedsmuir at Tweed's Well near where the Clyde, draining northwest, and the Annan draining south also rise. "Annan, Tweed and Clyde rise oot the ae hillside" as the Border saying...
at Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick-upon-Tweed or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border....
.
External links
- GENUKI (Accessed: 19 November 2008)
- Northumberland Communities (Accessed: 19 November 2008)