County Durham in the context of "North Yorkshire"

Gateshead (/ˈɡeɪts(h)ɛd/) is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. At the 2021 census, the population was 196,151.

Historically part of County Durham, under the Local Government Act 1888 the town was made a county borough, meaning it was administered independently of the county council.

Tyne and Wear (/ˌtaɪn  ...  ˈwɪər/) is a ceremonial county in North East England. It borders Northumberland to the north and County Durham to the south, and the largest settlement is the city of Newcastle upon Tyne.

The county is largely urbanised, with an area of 540 square kilometres (210 sq mi) and a population of 1,178,389 in 2024. Newcastle is located on the north bank of the River Tyne in the centre of the county, and Gateshead opposite on the south bank. South Shields lies in the east at the river's mouth, and the city of Sunderland in the south-east at the mouth of the River Wear. Nearly all of the county's settlements belong to the Tyneside or Wearside conurbations, the latter of which extends into County Durham. For local government purposes Tyne and Wear comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne, Sunderland, North Tyneside and South Tyneside. The borough councils collaborate through the North East Combined Authority, which also includes Durham County Council and Northumberland County Council. The county was created in 1974 from south-east Northumberland and north-east County Durham.

Cumbria (/ˈkʌmbriə/ KUM-bree-ə) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Carlisle.

Cumbria is predominantly rural, with an area of 6,769 km (2,614 sq mi) and a population of 510,680; this makes it the third-largest ceremonial county in England by area but the eighth-smallest by population. Carlisle is located in the north; the towns of Workington and Whitehaven lie on the west coast, Barrow-in-Furness on the south coast, and Penrith and Kendal in the east of the county. For local government purposes the county comprises two unitary authority areas, Westmorland and Furness and Cumberland. Cumbria was created in 1974 from the historic counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, the Furness area of Lancashire, and a small part of Yorkshire.

Northern England, or the North of England, often referred to as simply The North, is the northern part of England and mainly corresponds to the historic counties of Cheshire, Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, Westmorland and Yorkshire. Officially, it is a grouping of three statistical regions: the North East, the North West, and Yorkshire and the Humber, which had a combined population of 15.5 million at the 2021 census, an area of 37,331 km (14,414 square miles) and 17 cities.

Northern England is culturally and economically distinct from both the Midlands and Southern England. The area's northern boundary is the border with Scotland, its western the Irish Sea and a short border with Wales, and its eastern the North Sea. Its southern border is often debated, and there has been controversy in defining what geographies or cultures precisely constitute the 'North of England' — if, indeed, it exists as a coherent entity at all.

Escomb Church is the Church of England parish church of Escomb, County Durham, a village about 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) west of Bishop Auckland.

It is one of the oldest Anglo-Saxon churches in England and one of only four complete Anglo-Saxon churches remaining in England, the others being St Laurence's Church, Bradford-on-Avon, Greensted Church, and All Saints' Church, Brixworth. The church is a Grade I listed building.

Jarrow (/ˈdʒæroʊ/ or /ˈdʒærə/) is a town in South Tyneside in the county of Tyne and Wear, England. Historically in County Durham, it is on the south bank of the River Tyne, about three miles (five kilometres) from the east coast. It is home to the southern portal of the Tyne Tunnel and five miles (eight kilometres) east of Newcastle upon Tyne. At the 2021 census the Jarrow built up area as defined by the Office for National Statistics had a population of 29,470.

In the eighth century, St Paul's Monastery in Jarrow (now Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey) was the home of the Venerable Bede, who is regarded as the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar and the father of English history. The town is part of the historic County Palatine of Durham. From the middle of the 19th century until 1935, Jarrow was a centre for shipbuilding, and was the starting point of the Jarrow March against unemployment in 1936.

Coal mining in the United Kingdom dates back to Roman times and occurred in many different parts of the country. Britain's coalfields are associated with Northumberland and Durham, North and South Wales, Yorkshire, the Scottish Central Belt, Lancashire, Cumbria, the East and West Midlands and Kent. After 1972, coal mining quickly collapsed and had practically disappeared by the 21st century. Production fell from 228 million tonnes in 1957 to just 107 thousand tonnes in 2024, while coal consumption fell from 216 million to 2 million tonnes in the same time period. Employment in coal mines fell from a peak of 1,191,000 in 1920 to 695,000 in 1956, 247,000 in 1976, 44,000 in 1993, 2,000 in 2015, and to 360 in 2022.

Almost all onshore coal resources in the UK occur in rocks of the Carboniferous period, some of which extend under the North Sea. Bituminous coal is present in most of Britain's coalfields and is 86% to 88% carbon. In Northern Ireland, there are extensive deposits of lignite which is less energy-dense based on oxidation (combustion) at ordinary combustion temperatures. In 2015, EURACOAL estimated that the UK has 3.56 billion tonnes of hard coal resources.

Ulster Scots, also known as the Ulster-Scots people or Scots-Irish, are an ethnic group descended largely from Lowland Scottish and Northern English settlers who moved to the northern province of Ulster in Ireland mainly during the 17th century. There is an Ulster Scots dialect of the Scots language.

Historically, there have been considerable population exchanges between Ireland and Scotland over the millennia. This group are found mostly in the province of Ulster; their ancestors were Protestant settlers who migrated mainly from the Scottish Lowlands and Northern England during the Plantation of Ulster, which was a planned process of colonisation following the Tudor conquest of Ireland. The largest numbers came from Ayrshire, Cumbria, Dumfries and Galloway, Durham, Lanarkshire, Northumberland, Renfrewshire, Scottish Borders, Yorkshire and, to a lesser extent, from the Scottish Highlands.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (née Moulton-Barrett; 6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was an English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime and frequently anthologised after her death. Her work received renewed attention following the feminist scholarship of the 1970s and 1980s, and greater recognition of women writers in English. Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Elizabeth Barrett wrote poetry from the age of eleven. Her mother's collection of her poems forms one of the largest extant collections of juvenilia by any English writer. At 15, she became ill, suffering intense head and spinal pain for the rest of her life. Later in life, she also developed lung problems, possibly tuberculosis. She took laudanum for the pain from an early age, which is likely to have contributed to her frail health.

In the 1840s, Elizabeth was introduced to literary society through her distant cousin and patron John Kenyon. Her first adult collection of poems was published in 1838, and she wrote prolifically from 1841 to 1844, producing poetry, translation, and prose. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery, and her work helped influence reform in child labour legislation. Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate on the death of Wordsworth. Elizabeth's volume Poems (1844) brought her great success, attracting the admiration of the writer Robert Browning. Their correspondence, courtship, and marriage were carried out in secret, for fear of her father's disapproval. Following the wedding, she was indeed disinherited by her father. In 1846, the couple moved to Italy, where she lived for the rest of her life. Elizabeth died in Florence in 1861. A collection of her later poems was published by her husband shortly after her death.