Blanchland is a village in Northumberland, England, on the

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

boundary. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 135. Set beside the river in a wooded section of the Derwent valley, Blanchland is an attractive small village in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Blanchland was formed out of the medieval

Blanchland Abbey Blanchland Abbey at Blanchland, in the English county of Northumberland, was founded as a premonstratensian priory in 1165 by Walter de Bolbec II, and was a daughter house of Croxton Abbey in Leicestershire. It became an abbey in the late 13th ...

property by Nathaniel Crew, 3rd Baron Crew, the Bishop of Durham, 1674–1722. It is a conservation village, largely built of stone from the remains of the 12th-century Abbey. It features picturesque houses, set against a backdrop of deep woods and open moors. Located near the Derwent Reservoir, it provides facilities for sailing and fishing. The

Lord Crewe Arms Hotel The Lord Crewe Arms Hotel is a medieval hotel in Blanchland, Northumberland, England. It is dated to 1165 and was used as a hiding hole by monks of nearby Blanchland Abbey for centuries and contains hidden stairways and stone flagged floors. The ...

has a vast fireplace where 'General' Tom Forster hid during the Jacobite rising of 1715. W. H. Auden stayed at the Lord Crewe Arms with fellow student Gabriel Carritt at Easter 1930, and later remarked that no place held sweeter memories. Writer

Emily Elizabeth Shaw Beavan Emily Elizabeth Shaw Beavan (1818-6 August 1897), was an Irish born 19th-century poet and story writer who lived in Canada, England and Australia. Early life and education Born Emily Elizabeth Shaw in 1818 in Belfast, Ireland, she was the daugh ...

lived and wrote here when her husband worked at Derwent Mines. Blanchland may have been the model for the village in which was set the opening and closing scenes of Auden and Isherwood's play ''

The Dog Beneath the Skin ''The Dog Beneath the Skin, or Where is Francis? A Play in Three Acts'', by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, was the first Auden-Isherwood collaboration and an important contribution to English poetic drama in the 1930s. It was published ...

'' (1935). Another celebrated poet Philip Larkin used to dine at the hotel when staying with Monica Jones in Haydon Bridge. In July 1969, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears stayed at the Inn. Scenes in the fictional town of Stoneybridge in the first three series of the CBBC programme '' Wolfblood'' were filmed in the village. Its unspoilt qualities make it a frequent setting for period films, set in the 18th century, such as those based on the novels of Catherine Cookson. Until 1 April 1955 the parish was called Shotley High Quarter.

References

External links

Official Blanchland Website
(Accessed: 13 November 2008) Villages in Northumberland Civil parishes in Northumberland {{Northumberland-geo-stub