Place:Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland, England

Watchers
NameBerwick upon Tweed
Alt namesBerwick on Tweedsource: name variation
Berwicksource: local name variation
TypeParish (ancient), Civil parish, Borough (municipal)
Coordinates55.767°N 2°W
Located inNorthumberland, England
See alsoBerwick upon Tweed District, Northumberland, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area 1974-2009
Contained Places
Castle
Berwick Castle
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is a condensation of an article in Wikipedia

Berwick upon Tweed is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England. It is located 2 1⁄2 miles (4 km) south of the Scottish border, at the mouth of the River Tweed on the east coast. It is about 56 miles (90 km) east-southeast of Edinburgh, 65 miles (105 km) north of Newcastle upon Tyne and 345 miles (555 km) north of London.

The United Kingdom Census of 2011 recorded Berwick's population as 12,043. A civil parish and town council were created in 2008.

Berwick was founded as an Anglo-Saxon settlement during the time of the Kingdom of Northumbria, which was annexed by England in the 10th century. For more than 400 years the area was central to historic border wars between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, and several times possession of Berwick changed hands between the two kingdoms. The last time it changed hands was when England retook it in 1482 when Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III) recaptured the town. Over the course of a little more than 400 years, Berwick had changed hands more than a dozen times.

Berwick remains a traditional market town and also has some notable architectural features, in particular its medieval town walls, its Elizabethan ramparts and Britain's earliest barracks buildings (1717–21 by Nicholas Hawksmoor for the Board of Ordnance).

In 1707, the Act of Union between England and Scotland largely ended the contention about which of the countries Berwick belonged to. Since then, Berwick remained within the laws and legal system of England and Wales. The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 (since repealed) deemed that whenever legislation referred to England it applied to Berwick. England now is officially defined as "subject to any alteration of boundaries under Part IV of the Local Government Act 1972, the area consisting of the counties established by section 1 of that Act, Greater London and the Isles of Scilly.", which thus includes Berwick.

Berwick remained a county in its own right, and was not included in Northumberland for Parliamentary purposes until 1885. In the same year, the Redistribution of Seats Act reduced the number of Members of Parliament (MPs) returned by the town from two to one.

In the reorganisation of English local government on 1 April 1974 the Borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed was created by the merger of the previous borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed with Belford Rural District, Glendale Rural District and Norham and Islandshires Rural District.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Research Tips

  • Northumberland Archives previously known as Northumberland Collections Service and Northumberland County Record Office. Now based within Woodhorn Museum in Ashington and providing free access to numerous records for local and family historians alike.
Full postal address: Museum and Northumberland Archives, Queen Elizabeth II Country Park, Ashington, Northumberland, NE63 9YF; Phone: 01670 624455
There is a branch office in Berwick upon Tweed.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Berwick-upon-Tweed. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.