Corbridge, Northumberland
Historical Description
Corbridge, a small town, a township, and a parish in Northumberland. The town stands on Watling Street and the river Tyne, adjacent to the Newcastle and Carlisle railway, in the vicinity of the Roman Corstopitum, 2½ miles S of the Roman wall, and 3¼ E of Hexham. It had a monastery in 771; was occupied by David I. in 1138; was burnt by the Scots in 1296, 1311, and 1346; it was anciently a borough, and long sent members to parliament; had at one period four churches, was an important market-town, displays now an aspect of grey antiquity, and has a head post office (R.S.O.), a railway station, a market cross, an old peel tower, originally intended to answer two purposes —a place of residence for the vicar, and also a place of defence, but afterwards used for a time as a " lock-up" or temporary place of detention for evil-doers; a seven-arched bridge built in 1674 (the only bridge on the Tyne which was not swept away by the great flood in 1771), a parish church, three dissenting chapels, a town-hall built in 1887, a reading-room, brick works, and charities. The church is old, of fortified structure, and was restored in 1868. The township includes the town, and comprises 3547 acres; population, 1647. Cor-chester, about half a mile west of the town, is the Roman Corstopitum, and there Roman coins and altars, two Greek inscriptions, a silver-votive tablet of 148 ounces, and remains of an ancient bridge have been found. The parish contains also the townships of Dilston, Thombrough, Aydon, Aydon-Castle, Halton, Halton-Shields, and Little Whittington. The manor belonged to the Claverings, and is now the property of the Percys. Dilston was the seat of the Earls of Der- "wentwater. The living is a vicarage, united with Halton, in the diocese of Newcastle; gross joint value, £404 witli residence. Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Carlisle. Population of the civil parish, 2138.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Northumberland | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Corbridge St. Andrew | |
| Poor Law union | Hexham | |
| Ward | Tindale |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Corbridge from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Corbridge (St. Andrew))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Northumberland is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Corbridge are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers related to Northumberland online: