Q WAS Hexham ever a county and where was the county of Wirralshire? - Bill Hutchinson, Chester-le-Street.

A HEXHAM'S recorded history begins with St Wilfrid, who founded a monastery here around 674AD. Wilfrid was given the land by Ethelreda of Ely, a retired queen, who had recently divorced her husband, Ecgfrith, the King of Northumbria.

Hexham had the status of a cathedral and was the centre of an Anglo-Saxon bishopric stretching from the Tees to the River Aln. The cathedral and See of Hexham were later superseded by Lindisfarne, Chester-le-Street and eventually by Durham.

At the time of the Norman Conquest, Hexham and its abbey were part of the See of Durham, but in the reign of Henry I it regained a degree of independence.

The town and its surrounding district known as Hexhamshire, were confiscated from the Prince Bishops of Durham and given to the Archbishops of York. It belonged to the Archbishops of York until the 19th Century.

Throughout this period the whole of the North-East, from the Tees to the Tweed, was part of the diocese of Durham, except for Hexhamshire.

Hexhamshire is something of an anomaly within Northumberland, as Northumberland is usually thought to be the county north of the Tyne. Hexham and the shire are actually south of the Tyne, in the wedge of land between the River Tyne and the River Derwent, which borders County Durham.

Wirralshire was a medieval district situated in the far north east of the county in a narrow corner of land between the Tyne and the Wear.

Wirralshire was located between Gateshead and Monkwearmouth and its name derived from Wear-Hale, meaning corner, or heal, of land beside the Wear. Interestingly, the shape of this neck of land between the Tyne and the Wear is remarkably similar in shape to the neck of land between the Mersey and the Dee in North West England. This is, of course, known as the Wirral.

There were other administrative regions or districts in the north called Shire. In Yorkshire, there were several of these including Allertonshire, centred upon Northallerton.

In Northumberland several of the districts that fell under the political power of the medieval Prince Bishops of Durham were called Shires and included Bedlingtonshire, Islandshire, (Holy Island) and Norhamshire near the River Tweed.

Published: 01/04/2002

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