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Scoring The Hales
Scoring the Hales (also known as The Alnwick Shrovetide Football Match) is the name of a large scale shrovetide football match played yearly in Alnwick, Northumberland. Once a street contest, it has now moved to a field named The Pastures across the River Aln from Alnwick Castle. The fixture between the parishes of St Michael and St Paul, first recorded in 1762, is one of the few surviving games of medieval football still being played. The game has only a few rules and involves large teams of roughly 150 persons on either side. The goals are decorated with greenery and stand about 400 yards apart. As well as the large teams, the tradition attracts hundreds of spectators. The original game started with the ball being sent over the barbican of the castle to the crowd assembled below. It was then kicked through the streets of the town. Kicking the ball through the town was discontinued in the 1820s and the game was moved to the pastures. Nowadays the game is proceeded by a piper-l ...
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Alnwick Castle - Geograph
Alnwick ( ) is a market town in Northumberland, England, of which it is the traditional county town. The population at the 2011 Census was 8,116. The town is on the south bank of the River Aln, south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Scottish border, inland from the North Sea at Alnmouth and north of Newcastle upon Tyne. The town dates to about AD 600 and thrived as an agricultural centre. Alnwick Castle was the home of the most powerful medieval northern baronial family, the Earls of Northumberland. It was a staging post on the Great North Road between Edinburgh and London. The town centre has changed relatively little, but the town has seen some growth, with several housing estates covering what had been pasture and new factory and trading estate developments along the roads to the south. History The name ''Alnwick'' comes from the Old English ''wic'' ('dairy farm, settlement') and the name of the river Aln. The history of Alnwick is the history of the castle and its l ...
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Shrove Tuesday
Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), observed in many Christian countries through participating in confession and absolution, the ritual burning of the previous year's Holy Week palms, finalizing one's Lenten sacrifice, as well as eating pancakes and other sweets. Shrove Tuesday is observed by many Christians, including Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and Roman Catholics, who "make a special point of self-examination, of considering what wrongs they need to repent, and what amendments of life or areas of spiritual growth they especially need to ask God's help in dealing with." This moveable feast is determined by Easter. The expression "Shrove Tuesday" comes from the word ''shrive'', meaning "absolve". As this is the last day of the Christian liturgical season historically known as Shrovetide, before the penitential season of Lent, related popular practices, such as indulging in food that one might give up as their Lenten sacrifice for the u ...
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Football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly called ''football'' include association football (known as ''soccer'' in North America and Australia); gridiron football (specifically American football or Canadian football); Australian rules football; rugby union and rugby league; and Gaelic football. These various forms of football share to varying extent common origins and are known as "football codes". There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games played in many different parts of the world. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools during the 19th century. The expansion and cultural influence of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread to areas of British ...
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Alnwick
Alnwick ( ) is a market town in Northumberland, England, of which it is the traditional county town. The population at the 2011 Census was 8,116. The town is on the south bank of the River Aln, south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Scottish border, inland from the North Sea at Alnmouth and north of Newcastle upon Tyne. The town dates to about AD 600 and thrived as an agricultural centre. Alnwick Castle was the home of the most powerful medieval northern baronial family, the Earls of Northumberland. It was a staging post on the Great North Road between Edinburgh and London. The town centre has changed relatively little, but the town has seen some growth, with several housing estates covering what had been pasture and new factory and trading estate developments along the roads to the south. History The name ''Alnwick'' comes from the Old English ''wic'' ('dairy farm, settlement') and the name of the river Aln. The history of Alnwick is the history of the castle and its ...
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Northumberland
Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on three sides; by the Scottish Borders region to the north, County Durham and Tyne and Wear to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The fourth side is the North Sea, with a stretch of coastline to the east. A predominantly rural county with a landscape of moorland and farmland, a large area is part of Northumberland National Park. The area has been the site of a number of historic battles with Scotland. Name The name of Northumberland is recorded as ''norð hẏmbra land'' in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, meaning "the land north of the Humber". The name of the kingdom of ''Northumbria'' derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the people south of the Humber Estuary. History ...
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River Aln
The River Aln () runs through the county of Northumberland in England. It rises in Alnham in the Cheviot Hills and discharges into the North Sea at Alnmouth on the east coast of England. The river gives its name to the town of Alnwick and the villages of Alnmouth and Alnham. For part of its route, directly upstream of Alnwick, the river flows through Hulne Park. Etymology The meaning of the name ''Aln'' is uncertain, but it is generally seen as a river-name of the '' Alaunos'' or ''Alaunā''. Names of this type could derive from the Celtic root *''al''- ('feed, raise, nurture') or *''alǝ''- (to wander'), or else from the Brittonic element ''*al-'', "shining, bright" (Welsh ''alaw'', 'waterlilly'). Another suggestion is that the name is derived from the Brittonic root ''*Alaun-'' (‘holy one’ or ‘mighty one’). History The Aln is first mentioned in the Geography of Ptolemy, a 2nd Century AD Roman cartographer. He refers to it as the River Alaunos or Alaunus (Geograp ...
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Alnwick Castle
Alnwick Castle () is a castle and country house in Alnwick in the English county of Northumberland. It is the seat of the 12th Duke of Northumberland, built following the Norman conquest and renovated and remodelled a number of times. It is a Grade I listed building now the home of Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland and his family. In 2016, the castle received over 600,000 visitors per year when combined with adjacent attraction the Alnwick Garden. History Alnwick Castle guards a road crossing the River Aln. Ivo de Vesci, Baron of Alnwick, erected the first parts of the castle in about 1096. Beatrix de Vesci, the daughter of Yves de Vescy, married the Constable of Chestershire and Knaresborough, Eustace fitz John. By his marriage to Beatrix de Vesci he gained the baronies of Malton and Alnwick. The castle was first mentioned in 1136 when it was captured by King David I of Scotland. At this point it was described as "very strong". It was besieged in 1172 and again i ...
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Medieval Football
Mob football is a modern term used for a wide variety of the localised informal football games which were invented and played in England during the Middle Ages. Alternative names include folk football, medieval football and Shrovetide football. These games may be regarded as the ancestors of modern codes of football, and by comparison with later forms of football, the medieval matches were chaotic and had few rules. The Middle Ages saw a rise in popularity of games played annually at Shrovetide (before Lent) throughout England, particularly in London. The games played in England at this time may have arrived with the Roman occupation but there is little evidence to indicate this. Certainly the Romans played ball games, in particular Harpastum. There is also one reference to ball games being played in southern Britain prior to the Norman Conquest. In the ninth century Nennius's ''Historia Brittonum'' tells that a group of boys were playing at ball (''pilae ludus'').Magoun, Fran ...
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Barbican
A barbican (from fro, barbacane) is a fortified outpost or fortified gateway, such as at an outer fortifications, defense perimeter of a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes. Europe In the Middle Ages, barbicans were typically situated outside the main line of defenses, and were connected to the Defensive wall, city walls with a walled road called ''the neck''. In the 15th century, with the improvement in siege tactics and artillery, barbicans lost their significance. Barbicans were built well into the 16th century. Fortified or mock-fortified gatehouses remained a feature of ambitious French and English residences well into the 17th century. Portuguese medieval fortification nomenclature uses barbican to describe any wall outside of and lower than the main defensive wall that forms a second barrier. The barrier may be complete, extensive or only protect particularly weak areas. The more restrictive term ''gate barb ...
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Bagpipes
Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, Northern Africa, Western Asia, around the Persian Gulf and northern parts of South Asia. The term ''bagpipe'' is equally correct in the singular or the plural, though pipers usually refer to the bagpipes as "the pipes", "a set of pipes" or "a stand of pipes". Construction A set of bagpipes minimally consists of an air supply, a bag, a chanter, and usually at least one drone. Many bagpipes have more than one drone (and, sometimes, more than one chanter) in various combinations, held in place in stocks—sockets that fasten the various pipes to the bag. Air supply The most common method of supplying air to the bag is through blowing into a blowpipe or blowstick. In some pipes the player must cover the tip of the blowpipe with their t ...
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Duke Of Northumberland
Duke of Northumberland is a noble title that has been created three times in English and British history, twice in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of Great Britain. The current holder of this title is Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland. 1551 creation The title was first created in the Peerage of England in 1551 for John Dudley, 1st Earl of Warwick. He had already been created Viscount Lisle in 1543 and Earl of Warwick in 1547, also in the Peerage of England. In 1553, Dudley advanced the claim of his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, to the English throne, but when she was deposed by Queen Mary I, Dudley was convicted of high treason and executed. An illegitimate son of one of his younger sons, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, Sir Robert Dudley, claimed the dukedom when in exile in Italy. On 9 March 1620 the Emperor Ferdinand II officially recognised the title, an act which infuriated James I of England. 1683 creation George FitzRoy, 1st Earl of ...
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Hailes (ball Game)
Hailes or clacken is a Scottish ball game which dates to the 18th century and achieved its widest popularity in the nineteenth. It has now virtually died out, replaced by football, except at The Edinburgh Academy, where an exhibition match is played annually. The game is similar to shinty but played with wooden bats known as clackens. The Clacken The clacken, or ''clackan'', is described in the Scottish National Dictionary as "a wooden hand-bat or racquet used by boys at The Edinburgh Academy and Royal High School (Edinburgh), Royal High School". It is derived from the Scots word ''cleckinbrod'', derived in turn from ''brod'', a board and the onomatopoeic word ''cleck'' or ''clack'', the noise made by the clapper in a mill. In August 1821, ''Blackwood's Magazine'' carried an article about traditional games: "The games among the children of Edinburgh have their periodic returns. At one time nothing is to be seen in the hands of boys but cleckenbrods." The picture on the right, which ...
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