Carham or Carham on Tweed is a village in

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

, England. The village lies on the south side of the

River Tweed The River Tweed, or Tweed Water, is a river long that flows east across the Border region in Scotland and northern England. Tweed cloth derives its name from its association with the River Tweed. The Tweed is one of the great salmon rivers ...

about west of

Coldstream Coldstream () is a town and civil parishes in Scotland, civil parish in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. A former burgh, Coldstream was where the Coldstream Guards, a regiment in the British Army, originated. Description Coldstream li ...

. According to the

United Kingdom Census 2011 A Census in the United Kingdom, census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Inter ...

, it is the place in England with greatest proportion of Scottish-born people, at approximately 33%.

Etymology

''Carham'' has generally been etymologised as an

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

place-name. The first syllable would be from ''carr'' 'rock', and the second either a dative plural ending (the whole name having been ''carrum'' '(at the) rocks') or the word ''hām'' ('homestead'). However, the twelfth-century chronicler Richard of Hexham appears not to have considered the name an English one, so it may actually come from

Cumbric Cumbric is an extinct Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup spoken during the Early Middle Ages in the ''Hen Ogledd'' or "Old North", in Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the ot ...

*''kair'' 'fortification'.

History

Near to Carham are the extensive remains of Early British camps and a bronze sword, now in the British Museum, discovered in the nearby Tweed. Carham on the Tweed, where a stream divides Northumberland from Scotland, was the scene of two battles in Anglo-Saxon times. In 833 the Danes fought the English, and the English were routed. Leland tells us that

in the 33rd year of Ecbright the Danes arrived at Lindisfarne and fought with the English at Carham where Eleven Bishops and two English Countes were slayne, and a great numbre of people.

A field between the glebe and Dunstan Wood, where bones have been from time to time disinterred, is probably the site of the battle. In 1018 the

Battle of Carham The Battle of Carham was fought between the English ruler of Bamburgh and the king of Scotland in alliance with the Cumbrians. The encounter took place in the 1010s, most likely 1018 (or perhaps 1016), at Carham on Tweed in what is now Nor ...

between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Northumbrians resulted in a Scottish victory. The fact that the Tweed is the border between Scotland and England can be traced to the outcome of this battle.

James VI of Scotland James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...

crossed the border on 26 April 1588 and visited Carham.''Calendar State Papers Scotland'', vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1916), p. 557.

Carham Hall

Carham Hall, located NE of the hamlet, was a 14th Century

tower house A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, to command and defend strategic points ...

built to defend against border reivers. The first house was built by the Compton family in 1755. It was extended by Richard_Hodgson-Huntley in 1870 and again by architect James Bow Dunn in 1920.

Governance

Carham is in the

parliamentary In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

constituency of North Northumberland.

Religious sites

The church is dedicated to

St Cuthbert Cuthbert of Lindisfarne () ( – 20 March 687) was a saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Hiberno-Scottish mission, Celtic tradition. He was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monastery, monasteries of Melrose Abbey#Histo ...

Notable people

John Stark Major-General John Stark (August 28, 1728 – May 8, 1822) was an American military officer who served during the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. He became known as the "Hero of Bennington" for his exemplary service at the Ba ...

CBE KPM (1865–1940), a British police officer, Assistant Commissioner of the

City of London Police The City of London Police is the territorial police force#United Kingdom, territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, England, including the Middle Temple, Middle and Inner Temple, Inner Temples. The for ...

from 1925 to 1933.

References

External links

The Official Carham Parish Website
(accessed: 19 November 2008) Villages in Northumberland Northumberland places with etymologically Brittonic names {{Northumberland-geo-stub