Northumberland has a great many attractive sites that are well-recorded, and are frequently visited and written about. However, in this new book Dr Stan Beckensall focuses upon places that are off the beaten track, not so well known, but all of enormous interest for their stunning locations and stories. They are scattered across the county in the hills, valleys, scarplands and on the coast. Sites featured include locations off the 'Alemouth Road' from Hexham to Rothbury; hidden valleys and waterfalls at Linhope Spout, Roughting Linn and Hareshaw Linn; seascapes; abandoned settlements and...

Northumberland was one of the greatest influences on the development of Christianity in Europe. Stan Beckensall guides the reader in words and full-colour pictures through the history of Northumberland's old churches, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Reformation. The architecture of these beautiful buildings provides a unique insight into the history of the county. The Anglo-Saxon period saw the production of the Lindisfarne Gospels on Holy Island and those of the Venerable Bede in nearby Jarrow. This 'golden age' also produced exceptionally fine church buildings and their contents, many of...

The importance of the attractive town of Hexham began when St Wifrid built his great monastery there in the 7th Century, of which only the unique crypt remains beneath the Priory church. It was bounded by a wall that separated it from the Market Place and the civil administration, which includes the Moothall and Old Gaol. These areas still form the nucleus of the town, which lay in the turbulent Border country between England and Scotland. The vital industry of tanning and glove-making has now gone, but there are smaller industries in its place. The town is a focus of music, the arts and...