Much more than an excellent gazetteer, an engaging history using contemporary sources shows whose hands the defence of the Anglo-Scottish border was in while Henry VIII was at Agincourt.

Subsequent surveys show how Christopher Dacre forwarded a bold project that linked a string of towers forming a defence against marauding Scots, suggesting new towers to stop gaps, a 'dyke or defence' joining them like a latter-day Hadrian's Wall. Beyond this line were many peles or bastles, homes to the headsmen of the notorious reiving families cursed in 1525 by the Bishops of Durham and Glasgow because of their brutal way of life, giving rise to much romance and legend. Polite society occupied the large castles of the coastal area.

This history and gazetteer, with 500 entries, will increase your knowledge of Northumberland and its proud, turbulent past.