I thought I'd do a bit of research into the Nthn people I found memorials to in Bath Abbey. Obscure,niche & of limited interest ? Yes. But that's never stopped me. 🤣. Early indications suggest some quite interesting people & things. You'll have to wait as I'm away next week. Anticipation ......🤣

Guinevere squeaked in excitement in the queue at Bath Abbey. There, in the doorway was a memorial to an Ogle of Eglingham. Those within earshot learnt how to pronounce both. 🤣 There was even more of Northern interest inside !!

I was not expecting to find anything of Northern interest in Bath. Wrong ! Guinevere gave 2 pronunciation guides in the entrance of the Abbey.....details later. 🤣

I'm off to Bath today. The place rather than an action, the tub or a pool. I cannot pronounce like a local for obvious reasons -it's one of the words where you would know that I came from more northern latitudes.

Guinevere's Dialect. Plodge. OED. Chiefly Scottish & Northern English. 1st recorded 1787. To walk through water,often splashily. Also through clarts.

I'll be at Culture House Sunderland talking about 'These Isles: A People's History of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales' on Sat Sept 19th, 1-2pm, in Northern Bookshelf Live Readers Day, @newwritingnorth.bsky.social/Sunderland Libraries. Book here: www.sunderlandculture.org.uk/whats-on/nor...

Walked through the deserted Central Arcade in Newcastle this morning. Always a pleasure ⭐️ #tilesonTuesday

Tish Murtha & Kuba Ryniewicz: Close to Home exhibition opens tomorrow 4 July at Baltic Gateshead. This exhibition sees the first time four major series by Tish Murtha will be shown in the North East, alongside new work by artist Kuba Ryniewicz. 📷 Elswick Kids, Tish Murtha © Ella Murtha

Our next Dunston Staiths open day is this Saturday! Come on down and join us, 10am to 2pm. No need to book. Entry is £3, with all proceeds going back into caring for the Staiths. However, if you live in an NE8 or NE11 postcode you can get on for free (please bring proof of your address).

Guinevere's Dialect. Knacks. It hurts , a lot. A cleg bite knacks. Many meanings of knack in the OED but not that one - yet. It has been added to their "ongoing research" pile. 😉

Guinevere's Dialect. Clegg/ Cleg. A horsefly , gadfly. OED. Scottish & dialect ( yes...but where!) Recorded c1449. Norse !! Old Norse kleggi. 😁 Heslop says it was also applied to a tiresome/ tedious child , I suppose because of "irritant" nature. 😉

Lovely #UnconfinedWalks this morning in Co. Durham. Shady route & much less hot anyway but still a bit muggy

Percy Alert ! Been quiet recently. However here we have 27 yr old Henry Percy in the thick of it. I do Percy Watch not for any inbuilt genetic loyalty to the Duchy (😆), more to show the longstanding significance and reach (geographically too...) of the family. You are never far from a Percy !

Guinevere's Dialect. Canch.⬇️. "A precipitous rise like a step" and in a river bed specifically it's "where the strata leave step like projections". Various other meanings including in mining. Source - Heslop. There was a canch at Blaydon Haugh. 🧵

Concepts understood on Tyneside : Banks have feet, tops & no money Rivers have mouths Cannit does not involve cans Windows are permanently shut As are Binns. Those were not for waste. Bottle Bank is not a recycling facility. Bigg is not a measurement of size.

Things haven't changed much in the intervening 639 years. 😉

Hydration break. 📸NMS

Shorts and a linen shirt,but otherwise a fair reflection of Guinevere Towers.

24 June: feast of Bartholomew (Tostig) #Benedictine hermit of #Farne who d. 1193 having lived in St. Cuthbert's old hermitage (photo: AndyF)

Longstanding followers know any plans I make to return to the homeland are usually thwarted by illness/ calamity. This time it's a heatwave & a cancelled train. We were supposed to be going to Durham & Newc Uni open days & staying on the farm. No. 🙄

Sadly, it still exists on Tynenouth Longsands and Cullercoats at the moment, though in a different form. And the Polis seem incapable of stopping it. Some lugs need clipped!

More midsummer. "It was custom to make a large bonfire...surrounded by dancers and merrymakers : as the flames died down, couples who wished to be lucky jumped over the embers". That custom still existed on Whalton in 1893.

Nowadays St Bede's Well is , politely, neglected.

Midsummer Eve. Any signs of merriment in Jarrow ? Traditionally "every midsummer eve there was a great resort of...people, with bonfires,music and dancing to St Bede's Well", 1801.

Guinevere's obscure dialect. Quey. Mentioned ⬇️. A young (female) cow before it has had a calf. OED. 1st recorded 1301. Scottish, Nth English, Nthn Midlands & Nthn Irish English. It's ....early Scandinavian. 😉. Death of a quey would be a great loss for the owner, hence it being mentioned.

Yes. In bygone days, if you said you were going to the hoppin's, you might have been asked 'which one?' There was one (though not in my life time!) just down the road from where I was born, not near Newcastle's Town Moor but in Newburn. My old man would call any itinerant fair 'the hoppin's'.

Hoppings. A variant of hop meaning to dance and then "a rural festival of which dance forms a principal part." 1st recorded as such c1330. "These feasts, or as they are called in Northumberland, hoppings are held on the festival day of the patron saint."

NEW: Lanchester Wines has been using heat from water in a disused coal mine to keep its Gateshead warehouse from getting too cold in winter. The heat pump system has been running for eight years and they've just agreed a deal to keep it going for another 18. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Mouth of the Tyne - Jim Edwards Back in the studio today, after a day off yesterday. Whilst I remember, the studio will be closed next Saturday. If you’re in the Ouseburn today, do pop in. This limited edition print of Mouth of the Tyne is available: www.jimedwardspaintings.com/store/p24/Mo...

At my Co Durham Secondary School, the prefects used to call the first formers "spelks" because they considered them "small and more irritating than they should be"... which we felt honour bound to justify!

I have a SPELK. Or did 10 minutes ago. No need to TICE it out as it was so big I was able to pull it ....Have wrapped a PLASTER ( pronounced in the northern manner) around my finger as it is dripping.....

#Norham Grade I Listed St Cuthbert's Church Norham Northumberland, photographed 29th April 2018. Parish church. Later C12, probably by Richard of Wolviston for Bishop Puiset. East bay of chancel added early C14. Tower 1837, south porch and aisle 1846, by Bonomi. www.flickr.com/photos/steve...

#NewcastleUponTyne Canny Newcastle upon Tyne Local History Book - Housing and Home Life - memories of life at home 1930-1960, coordinated by Mike Greatbach, published by Newcastle Community Heritage Project in association with other partners and contributors. Covers life in the East End of Newcastle

Who wants to read the potted history of the journeys of sailing ships owned by a 19th century Toon shipowner ? Guano features. I have been considering writing something - one of my ancestors/ his ships. A niche subject I admit. 😉

Margaret was married to Malcolm III. He & their son, Edward,were killed at the Battle of Alnwick & initially buried at Tynemouth Priory.

More stones. Guinevere's Dialect. Stanners. The sides of a riverbed covered by stones & gravel. Scottish & NE. As in High & Low at Morpeth, Stannersburn at Falstone, The Stanners in Corbridge & Felton.

Stane is stone. ( Street - think Chester le.) Lots of places with stane - including an 1100's spelling of Stamfordham. Yes, that means the homestead at the stony ford (over the river Pont.) Stanhope ("stanup") is the "stone valley".

Guinevere's Guide to pronouncing Tow Law like a local. Tow rhymes with how. An interesting name. Law is a hill , Scottish & Northern. Tow is from toot/tote - an isolated conspicuous hill suitable as a look out. Tow Law is 1000ft up so it's certainly a look out place ! Toot means 🧵

Moscow in East Ayrshire as well, pronounced 'Moss Cow'. The stream running through the village is called the Volga Burn

One I made a while back

June 18th. Waterloo 1815. Some things named for wars/battles/military persons etc. Camperduin 11/10/1797. Camperdown, N Tyneside Quatre Bras 16/6/1815, 2 days before W'loo - Quatre Bras, Hexham Waterloo - the Blucher & Wellington pits at Throckley. Battle of Vigo Bay 1702 - Vigo nr Birtley 🧵

Barrowburn, Upper Coquetdale. A short walk on a lovely sunny morning. #BlackAndWhitePhotography #Photography #Northumberland #FootpathFriday

Almost there… www.mickoxley.com/fresh-paint

How times have changed. We only ever had lucozade when we were ill. Or to use the local phrase "when we were bad". Off school bad though, not "just a cold".

Catherine Cookson died on this day 1998, aged 91. One of Britain's most prolific and widely read novelists. She wrote more than 100 historical sagas inspired by her deprived youth in South Shields.

Over there I am doing "things you can walk past and not spare a second glance at but actually.....". This ,⬇️, is a good example. More examples welcome.

Volunteering in the school shop this afternoon and hear an unmistakable accent. Ears prick up & I engineer a conversation. Whitley Bay. "I thought my accent had softened".😉. "Not as much as mine"!

Queen Anne's Lace, Simonside and a sky with fluffy clouds. #Northumberland #Landscape #Photography

As it's Wor George's birthday.... Guinevere takes the train to Wylam to pronounce like a local. Wile um. No will. Means "the settlement at the fishtraps." Recorded as Wylum 1120 which funnily enough is exactly how it's said. Fish traps ? Yes. OE wile, a woven osier basket.

Newcastle upon Tyne, 1975, photo by Trevor Ermel. A British Rail Class 47 approaches Central Station via High Level Bridge.