Introduction
From c.600 to c.970 the kingdom of Northumbria stretched from the Humber to the Forth. Scottish power was gradually extended to the Tweed, the frontier was finally settled in 1018, when Northumbria was defeated at nearby Carham.
Cornhill was a detached part of County Durham until 1844. The medieval bishops of Durham held Islandshire and Norhamshire, which had originally been granted to the church of Lindisfarne. These productive lands were too valuable to give up when the bishops moved, first to Chester-le-Street, then to Durham in 995. They retained quasi-regal powers of administration and taxation until the mid-16th century. Cornhill was the north-western extremity of North Durham, controlled from Norham.
Cornhill was a chapelry of Norham until 1730 (civil parish 1866), and covers some 4,944 acres, bounded by the Tweed (N), the Till (E), Dedhoe Burn (W) and Ford parish (S). There are three townships: Cornhill 1,691 acres; Tillmouth 1,274 acres and Heaton 1,979 acres. The local landscape of gently undulating hills reflects the underlying geology of sands, clays and gravels, laid down in the last Ice Age over ancient rocks. The parish ranges between 20m (66ft) and 90m (295ft) above sea level.
The name Cornhill derives from two Old English words, halh, ‘a nook, corner of land’; referring to the great bend on the Tweed, and corn, a variant of cran, ‘crane or heron’, the latter still common locally. Tillmouth is self-explanatory, while Heaton is ‘the high farm or village’.
Early History
Fertile soils, ample water supply and the ready supply of salmon and other fish made the area attractive to prehistoric nomadic hunter-gatherers. They have left no obvious traces, and neither did the first farmers around 3-4,000BC. The Bronze and Iron Ages (c.2,500BC-43AD) have left scattered traces of settlement, including burials. There was some kind of fortification, probably Iron Age, north of Cornhill village, and possibly another at Harperidge.
There is no evidence of Roman occupation. The previous Iron-Age farming communities continued, serving wider markets and acquiring goods through trade. The Forth-Cheviot area remained under the control of British rulers, who were replaced by the Anglian Bernician dynasty from the sixth century. Gradually, the language changed from early Welsh to Old English. From 630, Christianity spread through the area, driven by the ruling elite. Cornhill was served at first by itinerant priests, based at Norham minster church.
There is little local evidence for the period 400-1100AD. Settlement probably consisted of scattered farms and hamlets. People in Cornhill may have been touched by events such as Viking raids and the removal of St Cuthbert’s remains from Lindisfarne to Norham c.870, but the imperatives of getting a living from the land and rivers will have changed little.
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