Northern England North of England / the North / Northumbria | |
|---|---|
 The three current Northern England statistical regions combined shown withinEngland. Other definitions of the North vary and have changed over time. | |
| Sovereign state |  United Kingdom |
| Constituent country |  England |
| Regions | North East England •North West England •Yorkshire & The Humber |
| Counties | |
| Devolved regions | |
| 10 largest settlements in order of population | |
| Area | |
• Total | 14,414 sq mi (37,331 km2) |
| Population (2011 census)[1] | |
• Total | 14,933,000 |
| • Density | 1,036.0/sq mi (400.02/km2) |
| • Urban | 12,782,940 |
| • Rural | 2,150,060 |
| Demonym | Northerner |
| Time zone | GMT (UTC) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+1 (BST) |
Northern England, or theNorth of England, often referred to as simplyThe North, is the northern part ofEngland and mainly corresponds to thehistoric counties ofCheshire,Cumberland,Durham,Lancashire,Northumberland,Westmorland andYorkshire.[2][3] Officially, it is a grouping of threestatistical regions: theNorth East, theNorth West, andYorkshire and the Humber, which had a combined population of 15.5 million at the2021 census,[4] an area of 37,331 km2 (14,414 square miles) and 17cities.
Northern England isculturally andeconomically distinct from both theMidlands andSouthern England. The area's northern boundary is theborder with Scotland, its western theIrish Sea and a shortborder with Wales, and its eastern theNorth 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.
The region corresponds to the borders of the sub-RomanBrythonic Celtic territory ofYr Hen Ogledd (the Old North), as well as themedievalAnglianKingdom of Northumbria. ManyIndustrial Revolution innovations began in Northern England, and its cities were the crucibles of many of the political changes that accompanied this social upheaval, fromtrade unionism toManchester Liberalism. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the economy of the North was dominated byheavy industry. Centuries of immigration, invasion, and labour have shaped Northern England's culture, and it has retained countless distinctiveaccents and dialects, music, arts, and cuisine.Industrial decline in the second half of the 20th century damaged the North, leading to greater deprivation than in the South. Although urban renewal projects and the transition to aservice economy have resulted in strong economic growth in parts of the North, theNorth–South divide remains in both theeconomy andculture of England.
For government and statistical purposes, Northern England is defined as the area covered by the three northernmoststatistical regions of England:North East England,North West England andYorkshire and the Humber.[5] This area consists of theceremonial counties ofCheshire,Cumbria,County Durham,East Riding of Yorkshire,Greater Manchester,Lancashire,Merseyside,Northumberland,North Yorkshire,South Yorkshire,Tyne and Wear andWest Yorkshire, plus the unitary authority areas ofNorth Lincolnshire andNorth East Lincolnshire within the ceremonial countyLincolnshire.
Other definitions usehistoric county boundaries, in which case the North is generally taken to compriseCumberland, Northumberland,Westmorland, County Durham, Lancashire andYorkshire, often supplemented by Cheshire.[6] The boundary is sometimes drawn without reference to human borders, using geographic features such as theRiver Mersey (the line between theHumber and Mersey estuaries being a common boundary) andRiver Trent.[7] TheIsle of Man is occasionally included in broad geographical definitions of "the North" (for example, by theSurvey of English Dialects,VisitBritain andBBC North West), although it is politically and culturally distinct from England.[6]
Some areas ofDerbyshire,Lincolnshire,Nottinghamshire andStaffordshire have northern characteristics and includesatellites of northern cities.[7] Towns in theHigh Peak borough of Derbyshire are included in theGreater Manchester Built-Up Area, as villages and hamlets there such as Tintwistle, Crowden and Woodhead were formerly in Cheshire before local government boundary changes in 1974,[8] due to their close proximity to the city ofManchester, and before this the borough was considered to be part of theGreater Manchester Statutory City Region. More recently, theChesterfield,North East Derbyshire,Bolsover, andDerbyshire Dales districts have joined with districts of South Yorkshire to form theSheffield City Region, along with theBassetlaw District of Nottinghamshire, although for all other purposes these districts still remain in their respective East Midlands counties. Some parts of northern Derbyshire (including High Peak),Shropshire and Staffordshire are served byBBC North West. Some areas of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire are served byBBC Yorkshire (formerly BBC North), whilst eastern Yorkshire sharesits BBC region with Lincolnshire and small parts of Nottinghamshire and north westNorfolk.[9] The historicpart of Lincolnshire known asLindsey (in essence the northern half of the county) is considered by many to be northern, or at least a larger part of Lincolnshire than merely the north and northeast Lincolnshire districts. The geographerDanny Dorling includes most of theWest Midlands and part of theEast Midlands in his definition of the North, claiming that "ideas of a midlands region add more confusion than light".[10]
Conversely, more restrictive definitions of Northern England also exist. Some are based on the extent of the historicalNorthumbria, which excludes Cheshire and northern Lincolnshire, though the latter formed the Kingdom of Lindsey, which was periodically under Northumbrian rule.[11] TheRedcliffe-Maud Report (1969) proposed that southern Cheshire be grouped with north Staffordshire as part of a West Midlands province as opposed to a North West England one.[12] Occasionally, "Northern England" may be used to describe England's northernmost reaches only, broadly the North East and Cumbria, excluding the entirety, or at least the majority, of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Some settlements, including Sheffield, located in the far south of what would typically be defined as "the North", have been referred to as being in the "North Midlands" as opposed to "the North".[13]
Personal definitions of the North vary greatly. When asked to draw a dividing line between North and South, Southerners tend to draw this line further south than Northerners do.[11] From the Southern perspective, Northern England is sometimes defined jokingly as the area north of theWatford Gap betweenNorthampton andLeicester[a] – a definition which would include much ofthe Midlands.[11][15] Various cities and towns have been described as or promoted themselves as the "gateway to the North", includingCrewe,[16]Stoke-on-Trent,[17] andSheffield.[18] For some in the northernmost reaches of England, the North starts somewhere in North Yorkshire around theRiver Tees – the Yorkshire poetSimon Armitage suggestsThirsk,Northallerton orRichmond – and does not include cities like Manchester andLeeds, nor the majority of Yorkshire.[19][20] Northern England is not a homogeneous unit,[21] and some have entirely rejected the idea that the North exists as a coherent entity, claiming that considerable cultural differences across the area overwhelm any similarities.[22][23]
ThePennines, anupland range sometimes referred to as "the backbone of England" run through most of the area defined as northern England, which stretches from theTyne Gap to thePeak District. Other uplands in the North include theLake District with England's highest mountains, theCheviot Hills adjoining the border with Scotland, and theNorth York Moors near theNorth Sea coastline.[24]
The geography of the North has been heavily shaped by theice sheets of thePleistocene era, which often reached as far south as the Midlands.Glaciers carved deep, craggy valleys in the central uplands, and, when they melted, deposited large quantities offluvio-glacial material in lowland areas like theCheshire andSolway Plains.[25] On the eastern side of the Pennines, a formerglacial lake forms theHumberhead Levels: a large area offenland which drains into theHumber and which is very fertile and productive farmland.[25]
Much of the mountainous upland remains undeveloped, and ofthe ten national parks in England, five – the Peak District, the Lake District, the North York Moors, theYorkshire Dales, andNorthumberland National Park – are located partly or entirely in the North.[b][26][27] The Lake District includes England's highest peak,Scafell Pike, which rises to 978 m (3,209 ft), its largest lake,Windermere, and its deepest lake,Wastwater.[28] Northern England is one of the mosttreeless areas in Europe, and to combat this the government plans to plant over 50 million trees in a newNorthern Forest.[29]
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Uniquely for such a large urban belt in Europe, the cities in this region are all as recent as the Industrial Revolution – most of them previously scattered villages.[30] Vast urban areas have emerged along the coasts and rivers, and they run almost contiguously into each other in places. Near the east coast, trade fuelled the growth of major ports and settlements (Kingston upon Hull,Newcastle upon Tyne,[c]Middlesbrough andSunderland) to create multiple urban areas.[30][31] Inland needs of trade and industry produced an almost continuousurbanisation from theWirral Peninsula toDoncaster, taking in the cities ofLiverpool,Manchester,Leeds, andSheffield, with a population of at least 7.6 million.[32]
Analysis byThe Northern Way in 2006 found that 90% of the population of the North lived in and around:Liverpool,Central Lancashire,Manchester,Sheffield,Leeds,Hull and Humber Ports,Tees Valley andTyne and Wear.[33] At the 2011 census, 86% of the Northern population lived in urban areas as defined by theOffice for National Statistics, compared to 82% for England as a whole.[34]
| Rank | Counties | Pop. | Rank | Counties | Pop. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leeds | West Yorkshire | 536,280 | 11 | Blackpool | Lancashire | 149,070 | ||
| 2 | Liverpool | Merseyside | 506,565 | 12 | Middlesbrough | North Yorkshire | 148,215 | ||
| 3 | Sheffield | South Yorkshire | 500,535 | 13 | York | North Yorkshire | 141,685 | ||
| 4 | Manchester | Greater Manchester | 470,405 | 14 | Huddersfield | West Yorkshire | 141,675 | ||
| 5 | Bradford | West Yorkshire | 333,950 | 15 | Blackburn | Lancashire | 124,955 | ||
| 6 | Newcastle-upon-Tyne | Tyne and Wear | 286,445 | 16 | Stockport | Greater Manchester | 117,935 | ||
| 7 | Kingston upon Hull | East Riding of Yorkshire | 270,810 | 17 | Gateshead | Tyne and Wear | 115,280 | ||
| 8 | Bolton | Greater Manchester | 184,090 | 18 | Rochdale | Greater Manchester | 111,255 | ||
| 9 | Warrington | Cheshire | 174,970 | 19 | Oldham | Greater Manchester | 110,720 | ||
| 10 | Sunderland | Tyne and Wear | 168,315 | 20 | Salford | Greater Manchester | 108,410 | ||
Due to differing definitions andcity limits, the list of largest towns and cities may be misleading. For example while Manchester is ranked fourth as a city, the greaterurban area it leads (Greater Manchester Built-up Area) is the largest in the region and larger than Leeds's urban area (West Yorkshire Built-up Area) despite Leeds being the largest as a sole city.[36] The table below shows the urban areas in the region with a population of at least 250,000.
Peat is found in thick, plentiful layers across the Pennines and Scottish Borders, and there are many large coalfields, including theGreat Northern,Lancashire andSouth Yorkshire Coalfields.[25]Millstone grit, a distinctive coarse-grained rock used to makemillstones, is widespread in the Pennines,[25] and the variety of other rock types is reflected in the architecture of the region, such as the bright redsandstone seen in buildings inChester, the cream-buffYorkstone and the distinctive purpleDoddington sandstone.[38] These sandstones also mean that apart from the east coast, most of Northern England hasvery soft water, and this has influenced not just industry, but even the blends of tea enjoyed in the region.[39][40]
Rich deposits ofiron ore are found in Cumbria and the North East, andfluorspar andbaryte are also plentiful in northern parts of the Pennines.[41]Salt mining in Cheshire has a long history, and both remainingrock salt mines in Great Britain are in the North:Winsford Mine in Cheshire andBoulby Mine in North Yorkshire, which also produces half of the UK'spotash.[42][43]
Northern England has a cool, wetoceanic climate with small areas ofsubpolar oceanic climate in the uplands.[44] Averaged across the entire region,[d] Northern England temperature range andsunshine duration is similar to the UK average and it sees substantially less rainfall than Scotland or Wales. It is cooler, wetter and cloudier than England as a whole, containing both England's coldest (Cross Fell) and rainiest point (Seathwaite Fell). These averages disguise considerable variation across the region, due chiefly to the upland regions and adjacent seas.[46][47]
Theprevailing winds across the British Isles arewesterlies bringing moisture from the Atlantic; this means that the west coast frequently receives strong winds and heavy rainfall while the east coast lies in arain shadow behind the Pennines. As a result the coast north of the Humber are the driest parts of the North, the Tees basin has 600 mm (24 in) of rain per year while parts of the Lake District receive over 3,200 mm (130 in). Lowland regions in the more southern parts of Northern England (such as Cheshire and South Yorkshire) are the warmest with average maximum July temperatures of over 21 °C (70 °F): the highest points in the Pennines and Lake District reach only 17 °C (63 °F). The North has a reputation for cloud and fog, with less sunshine than Southern England, and the east coast experiences a distinctive fog calledsea fret.Smog in urban areas was prevalent from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, but sunshine duration has increased in urban areas in recent years with theClean Air Act 1956 and decline of heavy industry.[46]
| Climate data for the England N climate region, 1981–2010 | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 6.4 (43.5) | 6.6 (43.9) | 8.8 (47.8) | 11.4 (52.5) | 14.7 (58.5) | 17.3 (63.1) | 19.4 (66.9) | 19.1 (66.4) | 16.5 (61.7) | 12.8 (55.0) | 9.1 (48.4) | 6.7 (44.1) | 12.4 (54.3) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 0.7 (33.3) | 0.6 (33.1) | 2.1 (35.8) | 3.4 (38.1) | 6.0 (42.8) | 8.9 (48.0) | 11.0 (51.8) | 10.9 (51.6) | 8.9 (48.0) | 6.2 (43.2) | 3.2 (37.8) | 0.9 (33.6) | 5.3 (41.5) |
| Averageprecipitation mm (inches) | 94.1 (3.70) | 69.2 (2.72) | 75.2 (2.96) | 64.9 (2.56) | 61.0 (2.40) | 71.9 (2.83) | 72.3 (2.85) | 82.4 (3.24) | 80.8 (3.18) | 100.6 (3.96) | 98.1 (3.86) | 99.2 (3.91) | 969.8 (38.18) |
| Average precipitation days(≥ 1 mm) | 14.2 | 11.1 | 12.5 | 10.9 | 10.5 | 10.7 | 10.7 | 11.5 | 10.9 | 13.6 | 14.3 | 13.7 | 144.5 |
| Mean monthlysunshine hours | 49.4 | 70.5 | 101.9 | 142.4 | 182.8 | 166.7 | 175.6 | 164.0 | 126.7 | 94.0 | 58.7 | 43.5 | 1,376.2 |
| Source: Met Office[47] | |||||||||||||
The English spoken today in the North has been shaped by the area's history, and some dialects retain features inherited fromOld Norse and thelocal Celtic languages.[49] They are adialectal continuum, middle areas that have a crossover between varieties spoken, around the North. Traditional dialectal areas are defined by their historic county or combined historic counties; includingCumbrian (Cumberland and Westmorland),Lancastrian (Lancashire),Northumbrian (Northumberland and Durham) andTyke (Yorkshire). During the Industrial Revolution urban areas gained some or further distinction from traditional dialects; such as areasMackem (Wearside),Mancunian (Manchester),Pitmatic (Great Northern Coalfield),Geordie (Tyneside),Smoggie (Teesside),Scouse (Liverpool) andaround Hull.
Linguists have attempted to define a Northern dialect area, some correspond the area north of a line that begins at the Humber estuary and runs up theRiver Wharfe and across to theRiver Lune in north Lancashire.[50] This area corresponds roughly to thesprachraum of theOld EnglishNorthumbrian dialect, although the linguistic elements that defined this area in the past, such as the use ofdoon instead ofdown and substitution of anang sound in words that end -ong (lang instead oflong), are now prevalent only in the more northern parts of the region. As speech has changed, there is little consensus on what defines a "Northern" accent or dialect.[51]
Northern English accents have not undergone theTRAP–BATH split, and a commonshibboleth to distinguish them from Southern ones is the Northern use of the short a (thenear-open front unrounded vowel) in words such asbath andcastle.[52] On the opposite border, most Northern English accents can be distinguished fromScottish accents because they arenon-rhotic, although some Lancashire and Northumberland accents remain rhotic.[53] Other features common to many Northern English accents are the absence of theFOOT–STRUT split (soput andputt arehomophones), the reduction of thedefinite articlethe to aglottal stop (usually represented in writing ast' or occasionallyth', although it is often not pronounced as a /t/ sound) or its totalelision, and the T-to-R rule that leads to the pronunciation oft as arhotic consonant in phrases likeget up ([ɡɛɹʊp]).[54]
Thepronounsthou andthee survive in some Northern English dialects, although these are dying out outside very rural areas, and many dialects have an informal second-person plural pronoun: eitherye (common in the North East) oryous (common in areas with historical Irish communities).[55] Many dialects useme as apossessive ("me car") and some treatus likewise ("us cars") or use the alternativewor ("wor cars"). Possessive pronouns are also used to mark the names of relatives in speech (for example, a relative called Joan would be referred to as "our Joan" in conversation).[56]
With urbanisation, distinctive urban accents have arisen which often differ greatly from the historical accents of the surrounding rural areas and sometimes share features with Southern English accents.[51] Northern English dialects remain an important part of the culture of the region, and the desire of speakers to assert their local identity has led to accents such as Scouse and Geordie becoming more distinctive and spreading into surrounding areas.[57]
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The contrasting geography of Northern England is reflected in its literature. On the one hand, the wild moors and lakes have inspired generations ofRomantic authors: the poetry ofWilliam Wordsworth and the novels of theBrontë sisters are perhaps the most famous examples of writing inspired by these elemental forces. Classics ofchildren's literature such asThe Railway Children (1906),The Secret Garden (1911) andSwallows and Amazons (1930) portray these largely untouched landscapes as worlds of adventure and transformation where their protagonists can break free of the restrictions of society.[58] Modern poets such as thePoets LaureateTed Hughes and Simon Armitage have found inspiration in the Northern countryside, producing works that take advantage of the sounds and rhythms of Northern English dialects.[59][60]
Meanwhile, the industrialising and urbanising cities of the North gave rise to many masterpieces ofsocial realism. Elizabeth Gaskell was the first in a lineage of female realist writers from the North that later includedWinifred Holtby,Catherine Cookson,Beryl Bainbridge andJeanette Winterson.[61] Many of theangry young men of post-war literature were Northern, and working-class life in the face of deindustrialisation is depicted in novels such asRoom at the Top (1959),Billy Liar (1959),This Sporting Life (1960) andA Kestrel for a Knave (1968).[59][62]
There are no recognised minority languages in Northern England, although the Northumbrian Language Society campaigns to have theNorthumbrian dialect recognised as a separate language.[63] It is possible that traces of now-extinctBrythonic Celtic languages from the region survive in some rural areas in theYan Tan Tethera counting systems traditionally used by shepherds.[64]
Contact between English andimmigrant languages has given rise to new accents and dialects. For instance, the variety of English spoken by Poles in Manchester is distinct both from typical Polish-accented English and from Mancunian.[65] At a local level, the diversity of immigrant communities means that some languages that are extremely rare in the country as a whole have strongholds in Northern towns:Bradford for instance has the largest proportion ofPashto speakers, while Manchester has mostCantonese speakers.[66]
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During theice ages, Northern England was buried under ice sheets, and little evidence remains of habitation – either because the climate made the area uninhabitable, or because glaciation destroyed most evidence of human activity.[68] The northernmostcave art in Europe is found atCreswell Crags in northern Derbyshire, near modern-day Sheffield, which shows signs ofNeanderthal inhabitation 50 to 60 thousand years ago, and of a more modern occupation known as theCreswellian culture around 12,000 years ago.[69] Kirkwell Cave inLower Allithwaite, Cumbria shows signs of theFedermesser culture of thePaleolithic, and was inhabited some time between 13,400 and 12,800 years ago.[70]
Significant settlement appears to have begun in theMesolithic era, withStar Carr in North Yorkshire generally considered the most significant monument of this era.[71][72] The Star Carr site includes Britain's oldest known house, from around 9000 BC, and the earliest evidence of carpentry in the form of a carved tree trunk from 11000 BC.[71][73]
TheLincolnshire andYorkshire Wolds around the Humber Estuary were settled and farmed in theBronze Age, and theFerriby Boats – one of the best-preserved finds of the era – were discovered near Hull in 1937.[74] In the more mountainous regions of the Peak District,hillforts were the main Bronze Age settlement and the locals were most likelypastoralists raising livestock.[75]
Roman histories name the Celtic tribe that occupied the majority of Northern England as theBrigantes, likely meaning "Highlanders". Whether the Brigantes were a unified group or a looser federation of tribes around the Pennines is debated, but the name appears to have been adopted by the inhabitants of the region, which was known by the Romans asBrigantia.[76] Other tribes mentioned in ancient histories, which may have been part of the Brigantes or separate nations, are theCarvetii of modern-day Cumbria and theParisi of east Yorkshire.[77]
The Brigantes allied with theRoman Empire during theRoman conquest of Britain:Tacitus records that they handed the resistance leaderCaratacus over to the Empire in 51.[78] Power struggles within the Brigantes made the Romans wary, and they were conquered in a war beginning in the 70s under the governorship ofQuintus Petillius Cerialis.[79] The Romans created the province of "Britannia Inferior" (Lower Britain) in the North, and it was ruled from the city ofEboracum (modernYork).[80] Eboracum andDeva Victrix (modern Chester) were the mainlegionary bases in the region, with other smaller forts includingMamucium (Manchester) andCataractonium (Catterick).[81][82] Britannia Inferior extended as far north asHadrian's Wall, which was the northernmostborder of the Roman Empire.[e] Although the Romans invaded modern-day Northumberland and part of Scotland beyond it, they never succeeded in conquering the reaches of Britain beyond theRiver Tyne.[83]
After theend of Roman rule in Britain and the arrival of theAngles, YrHen Ogledd (the "Old North") was divided into rival kingdoms,Bernicia,Deira,Rheged andElmet.[84] Bernicia covered lands north of the Tees, Deira corresponded roughly to the eastern half of modern-day Yorkshire, Rheged to Cumbria, and Elmet to the western-half of Yorkshire. Bernicia and Deira were first united asNorthumbria byAethelfrith, a king of Bernicia who conquered Deira around the year 604.[85] Northumbria then saw aGolden Age in cultural, scholarly and monastic activity, centred onLindisfarne and aided by Irish monks.[86] The north-west of England retained vestiges of a Celtic culture, and had its own Celtic language,Cumbric, spoken predominately in Cumbria until around the 12th century.[87]
Parts of the north and east of England were subject to Danish control (theDanelaw) during theViking Age, but the northern part of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria remained under Anglo-Saxon control.[f] Under the Vikings, monasteries were largely wiped out, and the discovery ofgrave goods in Northern churchyards suggests thatNorse funeral rites replaced Christian ones for a time.[89] Viking control of certain areas, particularly around Yorkshire, is recalled in theetymology of manyplace names: thethorpe in town names such asCleethorpes andScunthorpe, thekirk inKirklees andOrmskirk and theby ofWhitby andGrimsby all have Norse roots.[90]
The 1066 defeat of the Norwegian kingHarald Hardrada by the Anglo-SaxonHarold Godwinson at theBattle of Stamford Bridge near York marked the beginning of the end of Viking rule in England, and the almost immediate defeat of Godwinson at the hands of the NormanWilliam the Conqueror at theBattle of Hastings was in turn the overthrow of the Anglo-Saxon order.[91] The Northumbrian and Danish aristocracy resisted theNorman Conquest, and to put an end to the rebellion, William ordered theHarrying of the North. In the winter of 1069–1070, towns, villages and farms weresystematically destroyed across much of Yorkshire as well as northern Lancashire and County Durham.[92][93] The region was gripped by famine and much of Northern England was deserted. Chroniclers at the time reported a hundred thousand deaths – modern estimates place the total somewhere in the tens of thousands, out of a population of two million.[92] When theDomesday Book was compiled in 1086, much of Northern England was still recorded as wasteland,[93] although this may have been in part because the chroniclers, more interested inmanorial farmland, paid little attention to pastoral areas.[94]
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Following Norman subjugation, monasteries returned to the North as missionaries sought to "settle the desert".[95] Monastic orders such as theCistercians became significant players in the economy of Northern England – the CistercianFountains Abbey in North Yorkshire became the largest and richest of the Northern abbeys, and would remain so until theDissolution of the Monasteries.[96] Other Cistercian abbeys are atRievaulx,Kirkstall andByland. The 7th-centuryWhitby Abbey wasBenedictine andBolton Abbey,Augustinian. A significantFlemish immigration followed the conquest, which likely populated much of the desolated regions of Cumbria, and which was persistent enough that the town ofBeverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire still had anethnic enclave called Flemingate in the thirteenth century.[97]
Duringthe Anarchy, Scotland invaded Northern England and took much of the land north of theTees. Inthe 1139 peace treaty that followed, PrinceHenry of Scotland was madeEarl of Northumberland and kept the counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumbria, as well as part of Lancashire. These reverted to English control in 1157, establishing for the most part the modern England–Scotland border.[98] The region also saw violence duringThe Great Raid of 1322 whenRobert the Bruce invaded and raided the whole of Northern England. There was also theWars of the Roses, including the decisiveBattle of Wakefield, although the modern-day conception of the war as a conflict between Lancashire and Yorkshire is anachronistic –Lancastrians recruited from across Northern England, including Yorkshire, even requiring mercenaries fromScotland andFrance, while theYorkists drew most of their power from Southern England, Wales and Ireland.[99] TheAnglo-Scottish Wars also touched the region, and in just 400 years,Berwick-upon-Tweed – now the northernmost town in England – changed hands more than a dozen times.[100] The wars also saw thousands of Scots settle south of the border, chiefly in the border counties and Yorkshire.[101]
After theEnglish Reformation, the North saw several Catholic uprisings, including theLincolnshire Rising,Bigod's Rebellion in Cumberland and Westmorland, and largest of all, the Yorkshire-basedPilgrimage of Grace, all againstHenry VIII.[102] His daughterElizabeth I faced another Catholic rebellion, theRising of the North.[103] The region would become the centre ofrecusancy as prominent Catholic families in Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire refused to convert to Protestantism.[104] Royal power over the region was exercised through theCouncil of the North atKing's Manor, York, which was founded in 1484 by Richard III. The Council existed intermittently for the next two centuries – its final incarnation was created in the aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace and was chiefly an institution for providing order and dispensing justice.[105]
Northern England was a focal point for fighting during theWars of the Three Kingdoms. The border counties were invaded by Scotland in theSecond Bishops' War, and at the 1640Treaty of RiponKing Charles I was forced to temporarily cede Northumberland and County Durham to the Scots and pay to keep the Scottish armies there.[106] To raise enough funds and ratify the final peace treaty, Charles had to call what became theLong Parliament, beginning the process that led to theFirst English Civil War. In 1641, the Long Parliament abolished the Council of the North for perceived abuses during thePersonal Rule period.[105] By the time war broke out in 1642, King Charles had moved his court to York, and Northern England was to become a major base of theRoyalist forces until they were routed at theBattle of Marston Moor.[107]
At the beginning of theIndustrial Revolution, Northern England had plentiful coal andwater power while the poor agriculture in the uplands meant that labour in the area was cheap. Mining and milling, which had been practised on a small scale in the area for generations, began to grow and centralise.[108] The boom inindustrial textile manufacture is sometimes attributed to the damp climate andsoft water making it easier to wash and work fibres, although the success of Northern fabric mills has no single clear source.[39] Readily available coal and the discovery of large iron deposits in Cumbria andCleveland allowed ironmaking and, with the invention of theBessemer process,steelmaking to take root in the region. High quality steel in turn fed theshipyards that opened along the coasts, especially on Tyneside and atBarrow-in-Furness.[109]
TheGreat Famine in Ireland of the 1840s drove migrants across theIrish Sea, and many settled in the industrial cities of the North, especially Manchester and Liverpool – at the1851 census, 13% of the population of Manchester andSalford were Irish-born, and in Liverpool the figure was 22%.[110] In response there was a wave ofanti-Catholic riots and ProtestantOrange Orders proliferated across Northern England, chiefly in Lancashire, but also elsewhere in the North. By 1881 there were 374 Orange organisations in Lancashire, 71 in the North East, and 42 in Yorkshire.[111][112] From further afield, Northern England saw immigration from European countries such as Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia and Scandinavia. Some immigrants were well-to-do industrialists seeking to do business in the booming industrial cities, some were escaping poverty, some were servants or slaves, some were sailors who chose to settle in the port towns, some were Jews fleeingpogroms on the continent, and some were migrants originally stranded at Liverpool after attempting to catch an onwards ship to the United States or to colonies of theBritish Empire.[113][114][115] At the same time, hundreds of thousands from depressed rural areas of the North emigrated, chiefly to the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.[115][116][117]
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TheFirst World War was the turning point for the economy of Northern England. In theinterwar years, the Northern economy began to be eclipsed by the South – in 1913–1914, unemployment in "outer Britain" (the North, plus Scotland and Wales) was 2.6% while the rate in Southern England was more than double that at 5.5%, but in 1937 during theGreat Depression the outer British unemployment rate was 16.1% and the Southern rate was less than half that at 7.1%.[118] The weakening economy andinterwar unemployment caused several episodes of social unrest in the region, including the1926 general strike and theJarrow March. The Great Depression highlighted the weakness of Northern England's specialised economy: as world trade declined, demand for ships, steel, coal and textiles all fell.[119] For the most part, Northern factories were still using nineteenth-century technology, and were not able to keep up with advances in industries such as motors, chemicals and electricals, while the expansion of theelectric grid removed the North's advantages in terms of power generation and meant it was now more economic to build new factories in the Midlands or South.[120]
The industrial concentration in Northern England made it a major target forLuftwaffe attacks during theSecond World War.The Blitz of 1940–1941 saw major raids onBarrow-in-Furness,Hull,Leeds,Manchester,Merseyside,Newcastle andSheffield with thousands killed and significant damage done. Liverpool, a vital port for supplies from North America, was especially hard hit – the city was the most bombed in the UK outside London and Hull, with around 4,000 deaths across Merseyside and most of the city centre destroyed.[121] Hull, the worst bombed city outside of London suffered damage to 98% of all buildings, the highest percentage of any town or city. The rebuilding that followed, and the simultaneousslum clearance that saw whole neighbourhoods demolished and rebuilt, transformed the faces of Northern cities.[122] Immigration from the "New Commonwealth", especiallyPakistan andBangladesh, starting in the 1950s reshaped Northern England once more, and there are now significant populations from theIndian subcontinent in towns and cities such as Bradford, Leeds,Preston and Sheffield.[123]
Deindustrialisation continued and unemployment gradually increased during the 1970s, but accelerated during the government ofMargaret Thatcher, who chose not to encourage growth in the North if it risked growth in the South.[124][125] The era saw the1984–85 miners' strike, which brought hardship for many Northern mining towns. Northernmetropolitan county councils, which were Labour strongholds often with very left-wing leadership (such asMilitant-dominated Liverpool and the so-called "People's Republic of South Yorkshire"), had high-profile conflicts with the national government. The increasing awareness of the North–South divide strengthened the distinct Northern English identity, which, despite regeneration in some of the major cities, remains to this day.[124]
The region saw severalIRA attacks duringthe Troubles, including theM62 coach bombing, theWarrington bomb attacks and the1992 and1996 Manchester bombings. The latter was the largest bomb detonation in Great Britain since the end of the Second World War, and damaged or destroyed much of central Manchester.[126] The attack led to Manchester's ageing infrastructure being rebuilt and modernised, sparking the regeneration of the city and making it a leading example of post-industrial redevelopment followed by other cities in the region and beyond.[127][128]
At the2021 census, Northern England had a population of 15,550,000,[129] in 6,659,700 households.[130] This is an increase from the 14,933,000 (and 6,364,000 households) counted in the 2011 census, and itself a growth of 5.1% from 2001. This means that Northerners comprise 28% of the English population and 24% of the UK population.
Taken overall, 8% of the population of Northern England were born overseas (3% from the European Union including Ireland and 5% from elsewhere), substantially less than the England and Wales average of 13%, and 5% define their nationality as something other than a UK or Irish identity.[g][131][132][133] 90.5% of the population described themselves as white, compared to an England and Wales average of 85.9%; other ethnicities represented include Pakistani (2.9%), Indian (1.3%), Black (1.3%), Chinese (0.6%) and Bangladeshi (0.5%). The broad averages hide significant variation within the region:Allerdale andRedcar and Cleveland had a greater percentage of the population identifying as White British (97.6% each) than any other district in England and Wales, while Manchester (66.5%), Bradford (67.4%) andBlackburn with Darwen (69.1%) had among the lowest proportions of White British outside London.[134][135]
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95% of the Northern population speak English as a first language – compared to an England and Wales average of 92%[h] – and another 4% speakEnglish as a second language well or very well.[66][136] The 5% of the population who have another native language are chiefly speakers of European or South Asian languages. At the 2011 census, the largest languages apart from English werePolish (spoken by 0.7% of the population),Urdu (0.6%) andPunjabi (0.5%), and 0.4% of the population speak avariety of Chinese: a similar distribution to that in the whole of England.[136] Redcar and Cleveland has the largest proportion of the population speaking English as a first language in England, with 99.3%.[66]
At the 2011 census, the North East and North West had the largest proportion of Christians in England and Wales; 67.5% and 67.3% respectively (the proportion in Yorkshire and the Humber was lower at 59.5%). Yorkshire and the Humber and the North West both had significant populations of Muslims – 6.2% and 5.1% respectively – while Muslims in the North East made up only 1.8% of the population. All other faiths combined comprised less than 2% of the population in all regions.[137]
The census question on religion has been criticised by theBritish Humanist Association asleading, and other surveys of religion tend to find very different results.[138] The 2015 British Election Survey found 52% of Northerners identified as Christian (22%Anglican, 14%non-denominational Christian, 12%Roman Catholic, 2%Methodist, and 2% other Christian denominations), 40% as non-religious, 5% as Muslim, 1% as Hindu and 1% as Jewish.[139]
One major manifestation of the North–South divide is in health andlife expectancy statistics.[140] All three Northern England statistical regions have lower than average life expectancies and higher than average rates ofcancer,circulatory disease,respiratory disease andobesity.[141][142]Blackpool has the lowest life expectancy at birth in England – male life expectancy at birth between 2012 and 2014 was 74.7, against an England-wide average of 79.5 – and the majority of English districts in the bottom 50 were in the North East or the North West. However, regional differences do seem to be slowly narrowing: between 1991 and 1993 and 2012–2014, life expectancy in the North East increased by 6.0 years and in the North West by 5.8 years, the fastest increases in any region outside London, and the gap between life expectancy in the North East and South East is now 2.5 years, down from 2.9 in 1993.[142]
These health inequalities manifested during theCOVID-19 pandemic in high infection rates, death rates andexcess mortality in Northern England, and in severe job losses in the followingGreat Lockdown recession.[143] By June 2020, the infection rate in Northern England was nearly double that in London,[144] and a study by the Northern Health Science Alliance found that of the six worst affected areas inEngland during the pandemic in their study, five were located in the North.[143]
Before the 19th century, there were no universities in Northern England. The first was theUniversity of Durham, founded in 1832.[145] The next universities built in the North were part of the wave of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with Durham being joined by fiveredbrick university institutions (all in theRussell Group of leading research universities):Leeds,Liverpool,Manchester,Newcastle andSheffield. These six, plus theplateglass universities ofYork (also in the Russell Group) andLancaster, form theN8 Research Partnership.[146] The universities ofCentral Lancashire,Salford andTeesside are part of theUniversity Alliance. Other universities in the North includeBolton,Bradford,Chester,Cumbria,Edge Hill,Huddersfield,Hull,Leeds Trinity,Leeds Arts,Liverpool Hope,Liverpool John Moores,Manchester Metropolitan,Northumbria,Sheffield Hallam,Sunderland andYork St John.
There is a significant attainment gap between Northern and Southern schools, and pupils in the three regions are less likely than the national average to achieve five higher-tierGCSEs,[147] although this may be down to economic disadvantages faced by Northern pupils rather than a difference in school quality.[148] Northern students are under-represented atOxbridge, where three times as many places go to southerners as to northerners, and at other Southern universities; while southerners are under-represented at leading Northern universities such as Sheffield, Manchester and Leeds.[149] There are calls for the government to invest in education in disadvantaged parts of Northern England to redress the disparities in educational attainment and university admissions between north and south.[150]
Like the UK as a whole, the Northern English economy is now dominated by theservice sector – in September 2016, 82.2% of workers in the Northern statistical regions were employed in services, compared to 83.7% for the UK as a whole. Manufacturing now employs 9.5%, compared to the national average of 7.6%.[151] The unemployment rate in Northern England is 5.3% compared to an England-wide and UK-wide average of 4.8%, and the North East has the highest unemployment rate in the UK, at 7.0% in December 2016, more than onepercentage point higher than any other region.[152][153] In 2015, thegross value added (GVA) of the Northern English economy was £316 billion,[154] and if it were an independent nation, it would be the tenth largest economy in Europe.[155] The region does have poor growth andproductivity rates compared to Southern England and to other EU countries.[156]
Growth, employment and household income have lagged behind the South, and the five mostdeprived districts in England[i] are all in Northern England,[157][158] as are ten of the twelve most declining major towns in the UK.[j][159] The picture is not clear-cut, as the North has areas which are as wealthy as, if not wealthier than, fashionable Southern areas such asSurrey. Yorkshire'sGolden Triangle which extends from north Leeds toHarrogate and across to York is an example, as is Cheshire'sGolden Triangle, centred onAlderley Edge.[160][161] There are major disparities even across individual cities:Sheffield Hallam is one of the wealthiest constituencies in the country, and is the richest outside London and the South East, whileSheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, just on the other side of the city, is one of the most deprived.[160][162] Housing in Northern England ismore affordable than the UK average: the median house price in most Northern cities was below £200,000 in 2015 with typical increases of below 10% over the previous five years. However, some areas have seen house prices fall considerably, putting inhabitants at risk ofnegative equity.[163][164]
The decline of coal mining and manufacturing in Northern England has led to comparisons with theRust Belt in the United States.[165] To stimulate the Northern economy, the government has organised a series of programmes to invest in and develop the region, of which the latest as of 2017 is theNorthern Powerhouse. The North has also been a significant recipient ofEuropean Union Structural Funds. Between 2007 and 2013, EU funds created around 70,000 jobs in the region, and the majority of Northern Powerhouse funding comes from theEuropean Regional Development Fund and theEuropean Investment Bank.[166] The loss of these funds followingBrexit, combined with potential reductions in exports to the EU, has been identified as a threat to Northern growth.[167][168]
Thepublic sector is a major employer in Northern England. Between 2000 and 2008, the majority of new jobs created in Northern England were for the government and its suppliers and contractors.[169] All three Northern regions have public sector employment above the national average, and North East has the highest level in England with 20.2% of the workforce in the public sector as of 2016 – down from 23.4% a decade earlier.[170][171] Theausterity programme under the government ofDavid Cameron saw significant cuts to public services, and the reduction in public sector employment resulted in job losses for around 3% of the Northern England workforce with significant impact on the regional economy.[169]
There are 2,580,000 hectares (6,400,000 acres; 25,800 km2; 10,000 sq mi) of farmland in Northern England.[172] The rough Pennine terrain means that most of Northern England is unsuited for growing crops; like Scotland, Northern farming was traditionally dominated byoats, which grow better thanwheat in poor soil.[173][174] Today, the mix of cereals and vegetables grown is similar to that of the UK as a whole, but only a minority of land isarable. Only 32% of Northern farmland is primarily used for growing crops, compared to 49% for England as a whole. Conversely, 57% of the land is given over to rearinglivestock, and 33% of England's cattle, 43% of its pigs and 46% of its sheep and lambs are reared in the North.[172]
The only part of the region that is predominantly given over to crops is the land around the Humber estuary, where the well-drained fens result in excellent quality land.[25][173] The lowland Cheshire Plain is mostly given over to dairy farming, while in the Pennines and Cheviots grazing sheep play an important role not just in agriculture but also in land management more generally.[173]Heather moorland in the Pennine uplands is home todriven grouse shooting from 12 August (theGlorious Twelfth) until 10 December every year. The number of grouse moors in Northern England is a major threat to natural predators, which are often killed by gamekeepers to protect grouse, and as a result, theCumbria Wildlife Trust describes the North's moors as a "black hole" for the endangeredhen harrier.[175]
Sea fishing is an important industry for Northern coastal towns. Major fishing ports includeFleetwood, Grimsby, Hull and Whitby. At its height, Grimsby was the largest fishing port in the world, but the Northern fishing industry suffered greatly from a series of events in the second half of the twentieth century: theCod Wars withIceland and establishment of theexclusive economic zone ended British access to rich North Atlantic fishing grounds, while the North Sea was badlyoverfished and the EuropeanCommon Fisheries Policy put strict quotas on catches to protect the almost depleted stocks.[176][177] Grimsby is now transitioning to the processing of importedseafood and to offshore wind to replace its fishing fleet.[177]
Northern England has a strong export-based economy, withtrade more balanced than the UK average, and the North East is the only region of England to regularly export more than it imports.[178][179] Chemicals, vehicles, machinery and other manufactured goods make up the majority of Northern exports, just over half of which go to EU countries.[179] Major manufacturing plants include car plants atVauxhall Ellesmere Port,Jaguar Land Rover Halewood andNissan Sunderland, theLeyland Trucks factory, theHitachi Newton Aycliffe train plant, theHumber,Lindsey andStanlow oil refineries, theNEPIC cluster of chemical works based around Teesside, and the nuclear processing facilities atSpringfields andSellafield.[180]
Offshore oil and gas from North Sea and Irish Sea, and more recentlyoffshore wind power, are significant components in Northern England's energy mix.[181] Althoughdeep-pit coal mining in the UK ended in 2015 with the closure ofKellingley Colliery, North Yorkshire, there are still severalopen-pit mines in the area.[182]Shale gas is especially prevalent across Northern England, although plans to extract it throughhydraulic fracturing ("fracking") have proven to be controversial.[183]
Around 10% of the Northern England workforce is employed in retail.[185] Of theBig Four supermarkets in the UK, two –Asda andMorrisons – are based in the North. Northern England was the birthplace of the moderncooperative movement, and the Manchester-basedCo-operative Group has the highest revenue of any firm in the North West.[186][187] The area is also home to manyonline retailers, with startups emerging around tech hubs in Northern cities.[188]
With urban regeneration, high-value service sector industries such ascorporate services andfinancial services have taken root in Northern England, with major hubs around Leeds and Manchester.[185]Call centres – attracted by low labour costs and a preference for Northern English accents among the public – have replaced heavy industry as major employers of unskilled workers, with more than 5% of workers in all Northern England regions working in one.[189][190]
Together, the N8 research universities have over 190,000 students and contribute more to the Northern economy in terms of GVA than agriculture, car manufacturing or media.[146] Discoveries and inventions at these universities have resulted inspin-offs worth hundreds of millions to local economies: the discovery ofgraphene at the University of Manchester produced theNational Graphene Institute and the Sir Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials, while robotics research at the University of Sheffield led to the development of theAdvanced Manufacturing Park.[188]
Recent decades have seen the growth of high-tech companies based around Northern England's major cities. There are eleven high-tech firms worth over $1 billion based in the region, and digital industries support around 300,000 jobs.[188][191]Game development, online retail,health technology andanalytics are among the major high-tech sectors in the North.[188][192]
The expansion of the railway network in the second half of the nineteenth century meant most in the North lived within reach of the coast, and seaside towns saw a major tourism boom. By around 1870 Blackpool on the Lancashire coast had become overwhelmingly the most popular destination – not just for Northern families, but many from the Midlands and Scotland as well.[193] Other resorts popular with Northerners includedMorecambe in northern Lancashire,Whitley Bay near Newcastle, Whitby inNorth Yorkshire, andNew Brighton on theWirral Peninsula, as well asRhyl over the border inNorth Wales.[194][195]
The same social forces that had built these resorts in the nineteenth century proved to be their undoing in the twentieth. Transport links continued to improve and it became possible to travel overseas quickly and affordably. The Belgian coast atOstend became popular with Northern working-class tourists in the first half of the twentieth century, and the introduction ofpackage holidays in the 1970s was the death of most Northern seaside resorts.[196] Blackpool has maintained a focus on tourism, and remains one of the most visited towns in England, but visitor numbers are far below their peak and the town's economy has suffered – both employment rates and average earnings remain below the regional average.[197]
The wild landscapes of the North are a major draw for tourists,[198] and many urban areas are looking for regeneration throughindustrial,heritage andcultural tourism: of the 24national museums and galleries in England outside London, 14 are located in the North.[199] In 2015, Northern England received around a quarter of alldomestic tourism within the UK, with 28.7 million visitors in 2015, but only 8% of international tourists to the United Kingdom visit the region.[200][201]
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Manchester Network Access Point is the onlyinternet exchange point in the UK outside London, and forms the main hub for the region.[202] Household internet access in Northern England is at or above the UK average, but speeds and broadband penetration vary greatly.[203][204] In 2013 the average speed in central Manchester was 60 Mbit/s, while in nearbyWarrington the average speed was only 6.2 Mbit/s.[205] Hull, which is unique in the UK in thatits telephone network was never nationalised, has simultaneously some of the fastest and slowest internet speeds in the country: many households have "ultrafast" fibre optic broadband as standard, but it is also one of only two places in the UK where over 30% of businesses receive less than 10 Mbit/s.[206] Speeds are especially poor in the rural parts of the North, with many small towns and villages completely without high speed access. Some areas have therefore formed their own community enterprises, such asBroadband 4 Rural North in Lancashire andCybermoor in Cumbria, to install high-speed internet connections.Mobile broadband coverage is similarly patchy, with3G and4G almost universal in cities but unavailable in large parts of Yorkshire, the North East and Cumbria.[207]
As part of a drive to reduce media centralisation in London, the BBC and ITV have moved much of their programme production toMediaCityUK in Salford andChannel 4 has moved its headquarters to Leeds. Of the four national eveningsoap operas, three are set and filmed in Northern England (Coronation Street in Manchester,Emmerdale in the Yorkshire Dales andHollyoaks in Liverpool but set in Chester) and these are important to the local TV industry – the commitment toEmmerdale saved ITV Yorkshire'sLeeds Studios from closure.[208][209] The region also has a reputation for drama serials and has produced some the most successful and acclaimed series of recent decades, includingBoys from the Blackstuff,Our Friends in the North,Clocking Off,Shameless,Waterloo Road andLast Tango in Halifax.[210][211]
SinceThe Guardian (formerlyThe Manchester Guardian) moved to London in 1964, no major national paper is based in the North, and Northern news stories tend to be poorly covered in the national press.[212][213]The Yorkshire Post promotes itself as "Yorkshire's national paper" and covers some national and international stories, but is primarily focused on news from Yorkshire and the North East.[214] An attempt in 2016 to create a dedicated North-focused national newspaper,24, failed after six weeks.[215] Across Northern England as a whole,The Sun is the best selling newspaper, but theongoing boycott around Merseyside following the newspaper's coverage of the 1989Hillsborough disaster has seen the paper fall behind both theDaily Mail and theDaily Mirror in the North West.[216][217][218] In general national readership in the North drags behind that of the South; theMirror and theDaily Star are the only national papers with more readers in Northern England than in the South East and London.[212] Local newspapers are the top-selling titles in both the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber, although Northern regional newspapers have seen steep declines in readership in recent years.[218][219] Only seven daily Northern papers had circulation figures above 25,000 in June 2016:Manchester Evening News,Liverpool Echo,Hull Daily Mail,Newcastle Chronicle,The Yorkshire Post andThe Northern Echo.[219]
The individual regions of the North have had their own identities and cultures for centuries, but with industrialisation, mass media and the opening of the North–South divide, a common Northern identity began to develop. This identity was initially a reactionary response to Southern prejudices—the North of the nineteenth century was largely depicted as a dirty, wild and uncultured place, even in sympathetic depictions such asElizabeth Gaskell's 1855 novelNorth and South[220]—but became an affirmation of what Northerners saw as their own personal strengths.[221][222][223]
Traits stereotypically associated with Northern England arestraight-talking,grit and warmheartedness, as compared to the supposedly effete Southerners.[221][224] Northern England—especially Lancashire, but also Yorkshire and the North East—has a tradition ofmatriarchal families, where thewoman of the house runs the home and controls the family's finances. This too has its roots in industrialisation, when mills offered well-paid work for women: during depressions when demand for coal and steel were low, women were often the main breadwinners. Northern women are still stereotyped as strong-willed and independent, or affectionately asbattle-axes.[225][226][227]
The phraseit's grim up north is associated withcoal mining, industrial mills, weather and the way of life in the north of England during the Victorian and post World War I eras, when mills, coal mining,child labour and slums were common. The phrase is often used by those who are not from the north of England, who paint the north as being different to the south of England. The currentMayor of Greater Manchester,Andy Burnham, has quoted the north as being grim, but not a bad thing.[229][230][231][232][233] The phrase was quoted in 1991 when the band The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu a.k.a.The KLF used it in relation to a lot of places in the north of England includingCheshire,Greater Manchester,Lancashire,Merseyside andYorkshire. As well as parts of theEast Midlands Region andCumbria and they use the phrase repeatedly in theirsong of the same name.
The North of England is often stereotypically represented through the clothing worn by working-class men and women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[234] Working men would wear a heavy jacket and trousers held up bybraces, an overcoat, and a hat, typically aflat cap, while women would wear adress, or askirt andblouse, with anapron on top as protection from dirt; in colder months they would often wear ashawl orheadscarf.[234][235][236] Themaud, a woollen plaid woven in a pattern of small black and white checks, was also popular in Northern England until the early twentieth century.[237]
If not wearing leather lace-up shoes, some men and women would have wornEnglish clogs, which were hardwearing and had replaceable soles and tips.[236] Factory workers tapping their feet in time with the click of machinery developed a type of folk clog dance referred to asclogging, which was intricately developed in the North.[238]
In the second half of the twentieth century, these traditional clothes fell out of fashion. Other styles such as "casual clobber" (mainland Europeandesigner clothing brought back by touring football fans) andsportswear became more popular, and the influence of Northern bands and football teams helped spread them across the country.[239][240] In the twenty-first century, some traditional Northern items of clothing have begun to make a comeback – in particular, the flat cap.[234][241]
Impressions of Northern English cuisine are still shaped by the working-class diet of the early twentieth century, which was heavy onoffal, high in calories and often not particularly healthy. Dishes such asblack pudding,tripe,mushy peas andmeat pie remain stereotypical Northern English foods in the national imagination. As a result, there is a concerted effort among Northern chefs to improve the region's image.[242] Some Northern dishes such asYorkshire pudding andLancashire hotpot have spread across the UK, and only their names now hint at their origin. Among the Northern delicacies that have achievedProtected Geographical Status aretraditional Cumberland sausage,traditional Grimsby smoked fish,Swaledale cheese,Yorkshire forced rhubarb andYorkshire Wensleydale.[k][244]
The North is known for its often crumbly cheeses, of whichCheshire cheese is the earliest example. Unlike Southern cheeses likeCheddar, Northern cheeses typically use uncooked milk and a pre-salted curd pressed under enormous weights, resulting in a moist, sharp-tasting cheese.[245] Wensleydale, another crumbly cheese, is unusual in that it is often served as a side to sweet cakes,[246] which are themselves well represented in Northern England.Parkin, anoatmeal cake withblack treacle andginger, is a traditional treat across the North onBonfire Night,[247] and the fruityscone-likesinging hinny andfat rascal are popular in the North East and Yorkshire respectively.[248]
While a variety of beers are popular across Northern England, the region is especially associated withbrown ales such asNewcastle Brown Ale,Double Maxim andSamuel Smith Old Brewery's Nut Brown Ale.[249] Beer in the North is usually served with a thickhead which accentuates the nutty, malty flavours preferred in Northern beers.[250] On the non-alcoholic side, the North – in particular, Lancashire – was the hub of thetemperance bar movement which popularisedsoft drinks such asdandelion and burdock,Tizer andVimto.[251][252]
According toThe Tab, the bakery chainGreggs is an integral part of Northern identity, using the number of people per Greggs as an indicator as to whether a town should be considered Northern.[253]
Immigration to Northern England has shaped its cuisine. The Teessideparmo is one example, derived fromescalope Parmesan brought to the area by anItalian-American immigrant and adapted to the region's taste.[254] There are largeChinatowns inLiverpool,Manchester andNewcastle, and communities from theIndian subcontinent in all major towns.[242] Bradford has won the Federation of Specialist Restaurant's "Curry Capital" title six years in a row as of 2016,[255] while theCurry Mile in Manchester formerly had the largest concentration of curry restaurants in the UK and now offers a wide range ofSouth Asian andMiddle Eastern cuisine.[256]
Traditionalfolk music in Northern England is a combination of styles of England and Scotland – what is now called the Anglo-Scottishborder ballad was once prevalent as far south as Lancashire.[257] In the Middle Ages, much of Northern folk was accompanied bybagpipes, with styles including theLancashire bagpipe,Yorkshire bagpipe andNorthumbrian smallpipes. These disappeared in the early nineteenth century from the industrialising south of the region, but remain in themusic of Northumbria.[258]
TheBritish brass band tradition began in Northern England at around the same time: the dismissal of the Cheshire, Lancashire and Yorkshiremilitary bands after theNapoleonic Wars, combined with the desire of industrial communities to better themselves, led to the founding of civilian bands. These bands provided entertainment at community events and led protest marches during the era ofradical agitation.[259] Although the style has since spread across much of Great Britain, brass bands remain a stereotype of the North, and theWhit Friday brass band contests draw hundreds of bands from across the UK and further afield.[259][260]
Northern England also has a thrivingpopular music scene. Influential movements includeMerseybeat from the Liverpool area, which producedThe Beatles,Northern soul, which broughtMotown to England, andMadchester, the precursor to therave scene.[261][262] Across the Pennines, Sheffield is the birthplace of influentialelectronic pop bands fromCabaret Voltaire toPulp, theNew Yorkshireindie rock movement of the 2000s gave the country theKaiser Chiefs and theArctic Monkeys, andTeesside has a rock scene stretching fromChris Rea toMaxïmo Park.[263][264][265] The press frequently frames music stories and reviews in terms of cultural and class differences between North and South, notably in the 1960srivalry between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the 1990sBattle of Britpop betweenOasis andBlur.[266][265]
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Sport has been both one of the most unifying cultural forces in Northern England and, thanks to local rivalries such as the Lancashire–YorkshireRoses rivalry, one of the most divisive. As huge numbers of people moved into recently built cities with little cultural heritage, local sports teams offered the population a sense of place and identity that was otherwise absent.[267]
Many early Northern sports players were working class and needed to miss work to play, with their teams compensating them for lost wages. By contrast, Southern teams, drawing from the traditions ofpublic schools andOxbridge, put great emphasis onamateurism and the Southern-dominated governing bodies forbade payments to players. This tension shaped the sports ofassociation football andcricket, and led to the schism between the two main forms ofrugby. The North is also associated with theanimal sports ofdog racing withwhippets,pigeon racing andferret legging, although these are now far more popular in stereotype than in reality.[268][269]
Manchester hosted the2002 Commonwealth Games, which left it a legacy of sporting facilities including theCity of Manchester Stadium,Manchester Aquatics Centre and theNational Cycling Centre, headquarters ofBritish Cycling.[270] TheGrand Départ for the2014 Tour de France was in Leeds, and every year since Yorkshire has hosted theTour de Yorkshire cycling event, part of theUCI Europe Tour.[271] Tyneside meanwhile hosts theGreat North Run, the UK's biggest mass-participation sporting event and the most popularhalf marathon in the world.[272]
The first football club in the UK wasSheffield F.C., founded in 1857. Early Northern football teams tended to adopt theSheffield Rules rather than theFootball Association Rules, but the two codes were merged in 1877. Many of the innovations of Sheffield Rules are now part of the global game, includingcorners,throw-ins, andfree kicks for fouls.[273]
In 1883Blackburn Olympic, a team composed mainly of factory workers, became the first Northern team to win theFA Cup, and the next yearPreston North End won an FA Cup match against London-basedUpton Park.[274][275] Upton Park protested that Preston had broken FA rules by paying their players. In response, Preston withdrew from the competition and fellow Lancashire clubsBurnley andGreat Lever followed suit. The protest gathered momentum to the point where more than 30 clubs, predominantly from the North, announced that they would set up a rival British Football Association if the FA did not permit professionalism.[274] A schism was avoided in July 1885 whenprofessionalism was formally legalised in English football.[275][276] TheFootball League was founded in 1888, and marked its independence from the London-basedFootball Association (FA) by establishing headquarters in Preston – the League retained a Northern identity even after it accepted several Southern teams into its ranks.[277]
Organisedwomen's football followed as the workforces of majority-female factories of Northern England in the First World War entered the 1917–18 Tyne, Wear & Tees Munition Girls Cup – the world's first women's football tournament. However, the FA did not support women's football andbanned it altogether in 1921.[278] Intenselocal derbies between neighbouring teams mean that there is less of a North–South rivalry than in some other sports.[267]
Many of the powerhouses of English football came from the North – as of the2024–25 season, of the 127 top-flight league titles since 1888, 87 (69%) have been won by teams based north of Crewe.[279]Everton,Liverpool,Manchester United andManchester City are among the mainstays of thePremier League, while teams likeBlackburn Rovers,Middlesbrough,Newcastle United andSunderland have had more inconsistent runs in recent years, regularly being promoted and relegated from the top flight.[279]
Northern England is also the birthplace of the largest proportion the country's top players – as ofEuro 2016, 537 Northerners had played for theEngland team, compared to 266 Midlanders and 367 Southerners,[280] and 15 of the 23 man squad for the2018 World Cup, as well as 14 of the2019 Women's World Cup squad, were born in the region.[281]
Rugby league culturally dominates rugby union in this part of the world, as exhibited by the fact that the largest sporting crowd ever in northern England was the 1954 rugby league Challenge Cup Final at Bradford, which hosted in excess of 120,000 spectators.
TheRugby Football Union (RFU), which enforced amateurism, suspended teams who compensated their players for missed work and injury, leading teams from Lancashire, Yorkshire and surrounding areas to split away in 1895 and form theRugby Football League (RFL). Over time, the RFU and RFL adopted different rules and the two forms of the game –rugby union andrugby league – diverged. Rugby league's stronghold remains Northern England along the "M62 corridor" between Liverpool and Hull.[282] As of the2025 season, 11 of the 12 teams in theSuper League (the highest level of rugby league in the Northern Hemisphere) are from Northern England, with one team from France, and the 14-teamChampionship below it has 12 Northern teams, one London team and 1 French team.[283]
Rugby union was not entirely driven from Northern England, and in the 1970s the region was home to several strong teams.[284] The high-water mark of rugby union in Northern England was the1979 New Zealand tour during which the English Northern Division was the only team to defeat theAll Blacks.[285] In the 21st century the region's club sides have become less popular, with association football, cricket and rugby league attracting more spectators and talent.[284] In the2024–25 season,Sale Sharks andNewcastle Falcons play in theEnglish Premiership, andCaldy RFC andDoncaster Knights play in theRFU Championship.[286]
Cricket has a strong following in Northern England, and three counties are represented byfirst-classcounty cricket teams:Durham,Lancashire andYorkshire. TheRoses Match (named for theRed Rose of Lancaster and theWhite Rose of York) between Lancashire and Yorkshire is one of the hardest fought rivalries in the sport – the pride of both sides, and their determination not to lose, resulted in the teams developing a slow, stubborn and defensive style that proved unpopular elsewhere in the country.[287] The London-basedMarylebone Cricket Club, which controlled the game at the time, selected few Northern players forTest matches, and this was perceived as a snub to their playing style – the anger united Lancashire and Yorkshire against the South and helped cast a shared Northern identity that transcended the Roses rivalry.[287][288] This divide was illustrated in the1924 County Championship, when Yorkshire beat London-basedMiddlesex to claim the title.Surrey accused Yorkshire of scuffing the pitch and intimidating thebowlers, while the match with Middlesex was so vicious that the team threatened to never play in Yorkshire again.[287][288] The Lancashire captainJack Sharp on the other hand was quoted as saying "I'm real glad a rose won it. Red or white, it doesn't matter."[288] Durham are a recent addition to top-flight cricket, having only achieved first-class status in 1992, but have won theCounty Championship three times.[289]
Although Yorkshire and Lancashire were traditionally more relaxed about professionalism than other counties, cricket did not see the same regional schisms on the topic that rugby and football did – there were debates overamateur status in first-class cricket, but these tensions were given release in theGentlemen v Players fixture.[290] Nevertheless, the annualNorth v South games were among the most popular and competitive in the sport, running annually from 1849 until 1900 and intermittently thereafter.[291]
Northern England, as the first area in the world to industrialise, was the birthplace of much modern political thought.Marxism and, more generally,socialism were shaped by reports into the lives of the Northernworking class, fromFriedrich Engels'The Condition of the Working Class in England toGeorge Orwell'sThe Road to Wigan Pier.[292] Meanwhile, enterprise and trade at the North's ports influenced the birth ofManchester Liberalism, alaissez-fairefree trade philosophy. Expounded byC. P. Scott and theManchester Guardian, the movement's greatest success was the repeal of theCorn Laws, protests against which had led to the 1819Peterloo Massacre in Manchester.[293]
The firstTrades Union Congress was held in Manchester in 1868,[294] and as of 2015trade union membership in Northern England remained higher than in Southern England, although it is lower than in the otherHome Nations.[295] Since the Thatcher era, theConservative Party struggled to gain support in the area.[23][124][296] Today, Northern England is generally described as a stronghold of theLabour Party – although the Conservatives hold some rural seats, they traditionally held almost no urban seats and as of the2021 local elections there are no Conservative councillors onLiverpool City Council,Manchester City Council orNewcastle City Council, and only one onSheffield City Council.[23] During the2019 general election, many traditionally Labour constituencies in Northern England swung heavily towards the Conservatives, and the collapse of the "red wall" of Northern Labour seats was a major factor in the Conservative victory.[297] Historically the region was also a heartland for theLiberals, and between the 1980s and the 2010s their successors in theLiberal Democrats benefited from Conservative unpopularity by positioning themselves as thecentrist alternative to Labour in the North.[298][299]
At the2016 EU membership referendum, all three Northern England regions voted to leave, as did all English regions outside London. The largest Northern Remain vote was 60.4% in Manchester; the largest Leave vote was 69.9% inNorth East Lincolnshire.[300] In total, the Leave vote in the Northern England regions was 55.9% – higher than in the Southern England regions and the other Home Nations, but lower than in the Midlands or theEast of England.[300] TheEuroscepticUK Independence Party (UKIP) positioned themselves as the main challenger to Labour in Northern constituencies, and came second in many at the2015 general election.[301][302] UKIP originally struggled in the region due tovote splitting with thefar-rightBritish National Party (BNP), who exploited racial tensions in the wake of the2001 Bradford riots and other riots in Northern towns. In 2006, 40% of BNP voters lived in Northern England and both BNPMEPs elected at the2009 European elections came from Northern constituencies.[303][304] After 2013, BNP support in the region collapsed as most voters swung to UKIP.[305] The Northern UKIP vote in turn collapsed following the EU referendum, with most UKIP voters returning to their former allegiances.[306]
Campaigns for Northern Englishdevolution have seen little electoral support. Plans by Labour underTony Blair to createdevolvedregional assemblies for the three Northern regions were abandoned after the government lost the2004 North East England devolution referendum against a No vote of 78%.[307]
TheregionalistYorkshire Party andNorth East Party only hold seats at the local council level,[308] and theNorthern Party, which campaigned for a devolved Northern government with the power to make laws and full control of taxation and spending, was wound up in 2016.[309][310]TheNorthern Independence Party was founded in October 2020, a secessionist and democratic socialist political party that seeks to make Northern England an independent nation, under the name ofNorthumbria.[311][312][313]
Combined authority mayors form northern England launchedThe Great North Partnership, chaired by North East MayorKim McGuinness, in May 2025.[314][315]
Christianity has been the largest religion in the region since the Early Middle Ages; its existence in Britain dates back to the late Roman era and the arrival ofCeltic Christianity. The Holy Island ofLindisfarne played an essential role in the Christianisation of Northumbria, afterAidan fromConnacht founded a monastery there as the firstBishop of Lindisfarne at the request of KingOswald.[317] It is known for the creation of theLindisfarne Gospels and remains a place of pilgrimage.[318][319]Saint Cuthbert, a monk of Lindisfarne, was venerated from Nottinghamshire to Cumberland, and is today sometimes named thepatron saint of Northern England.[320][321] TheSynod of Whitby saw Northumbria break from Celtic Christianity and return to the Roman Catholic church, ascalculations of Easter andtonsure rules were brought into line with those of Rome.[322]
After the English Reformation Northern England became a centre of Catholicism, andIrish immigration increased its numbers further, especially in North West cities like Liverpool and Manchester.[117] In the 18th and 19th centuries, the area underwent areligious revival that ultimately producedPrimitive Methodism,[323] and at its peak in the 19th centuryMethodism was the dominant faith in much of Northern England.[324]
As of 2016, the list of places of worship registered for marriage for Northern England included at least 1,960 that are Methodist orIndependent Methodist, 1,200 Roman Catholic, 370United Reformed, 310Baptist orParticular Baptist, 250Jehovah's Witness and 240Salvation Army, as well as many hundreds of churches from smaller denominations.[l][326]
In the ecclesiastical administration of theChurch of England the entire North is covered by theProvince of York, which is represented by theArchbishop of York – the second-highest figure in the Church after theArchbishop of Canterbury. The unusual situation of having two archbishops at the top of Church hierarchy suggests that Northern England was seen as asui generis.[327] Likewise, with the exception of parts of theDiocese of Shrewsbury andDiocese of Nottingham, the North is covered inRoman Catholic Church administration by theProvince of Liverpool, represented by theArchbishop of Liverpool.[328]
Small Jewish communities arose in Beverley, Doncaster, Grimsby,Lancaster, Newcastle, and York in the wake of the Norman Conquest but suffered massacres and pogroms, of which the largest was the York Massacre in 1190.[329] Jews were forcibly banished from England by the 1290Edict of Expulsion until theResettlement of the Jews in England in the seventeenth century, and the first synagogue in the North appeared in Liverpool in 1753.[330]Manchester also has a long-standing Jewish community: the now-demolished 1857Manchester Reform Synagogue was the secondReform synagogue in the country,[331][332] and Greater Manchester has the onlyeruv in the United Kingdom outside London.[333] Traditionally, there is also a large Jewish presence inGateshead. In total, there are 84 synagogues in Northern England registered for marriages.[326]
Spiritualism flourished in Northern England in the nineteenth century, in part as a backlash to the fundamentalist Primitive Methodist movement and in part driven by the influence ofOwenist socialism.[334] There remain 220 Spiritualist churches registered in the North, of which 40 identify asChristian Spiritualist.[326]
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The firstmosque in the United Kingdom was founded by the convertAbdullah Quilliam in theLiverpool Muslim Institute in 1889.[335] Today, there are around 500 mosques in Northern England.[326][336]Indian religions are also represented: there are at least 45gurdwaras, of which the largest is the Sikh Temple in Leeds, and 30mandirs, of which the largest isBradford Lakshmi Narayan Hindu Temple.[326][337][338]
Transport in the North has been shaped by the Pennines, creating strong north–south axes along each coast and an east–west axis across the moorland passes of the southern Pennines.[339] Northern England is a centre offreight transport and handles around one third of all British cargo.[340] Both passenger and freight links between Northern cities remain poor, which is a major weakness of the Northern economy.[341]
Thepassenger transport executive (PTE) has become a major player in the organisation ofpublic transport within Northern city regions; of the six PTEs in England, five (Transport for Greater Manchester,Merseytravel,Travel South Yorkshire,Nexus Tyne and Wear andWest Yorkshire Metro) are located in the North.[342] These coordinate bus services, local trains and light rail in their regions. Following the passage of theCities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016,Transport for the North became a statutory body in 2018 with powers to coordinate services and offerintegrated ticketing throughout the region.[341]
ThePreston By-pass, opened in 1958, was the firstmotorway in the UK. The major north-south motorway routes are the westernM6 and easternM1/A1(M), theGreat North Road became the modernA1 road with the M1 using an alternative route and the A1 (M) is the upgraded A1.[339][343] TheA19 is a major north-south A-road also in the east. TheM62 (over the south Pennines) is the major east-west motorway, it follows theRoman road between York and Chester. The A59, A66 and A69 are also major east-west A-roads.[344]
Older streets in the north are called gates with a number of terms for small streets such aschare,wynd, tenfoot,vennel, snicket andginnel. York goes as far as to merge the latter two terms with alleyway to form the termsnickelways. These small streets can becobbled orblock-paved; pitched paving is a common in-between type of paving most often used.
Buses are an important part of the Northern transport mix, with bus ridership above the England and Wales average in all three Northern regions.[345] Many of themunicipal bus companies were located in Northern England creating intense competition andbus wars followingderegulation in the 1980s and 1990s.[346] Increasing car ownership in the same era caused bus use to decline, although it remains higher than in most areas of the South.[347]
The North of England pioneeredrail transport. Milestones include the 1758Middleton Railway in Leeds, the first railway authorised byAct of Parliament and the oldest continually operating in the world; the 1825Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first public railway to usesteam locomotives; and the 1830Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first modern main line.[348] Today the region retains many of its original railway lines, including theEast Coast andWest Coast main lines and theCross Country Route. Passenger numbers on Northern routes increased over 50% between 2004 and 2016, and Northern England handles over half of total UKrail freight, but infrastructure is poorly funded compared to Southern railways: railways in London received £5426 per resident in 2015 while those in the North East received just £223 per resident, and journeys between major cities are slow and overcrowded.[349][350]
To combat this, theDepartment of Transport has devolved many of its powers to Rail North, an alliance of local authorities from the Scottish Borders down to Staffordshire which manages theNorthern Rail andTransPennine Express franchises that operate many routes in Northern England.[350][351] Meanwhile, new build such as theNorthern Hub around Manchester andNorthern Powerhouse Rail from Liverpool to Hull and Newcastle is planned to increase capacity on important Northern routes and decrease travel times.[350] The plannedHigh Speed 2 (HS2) line would have connected Manchester and Leeds to Birmingham and London, but cuts to HS2 saw all Northern branches of the line cancelled.[352]
The first passengertram line in the UK was built inBirkenhead andopened on 30 August 1860 (partially open intermittently asa heritage tramway).[353] Trams turned out to be especially well suited for Northern cities, with their growing working-classsuburbs, and by the turn of the century, most Northern towns had an extensive interconnected electric tram network.[354] At the network's height, it was possible to travel entirely by tram from LiverpoolPier Head to the village of Summit, outsideRochdale, a distance of 52 miles (84 km), and a gap of only 7 miles (11 km) separated the North-Western network from the West Yorkshire network.[355] Starting in the 1930s, these were largely replaced by motor buses andtrolley buses.[354] With the closure ofSheffield Tramway in 1960 andGlasgow Tramway in 1962,Blackpool Tramway – popular as a tourist attraction as much as a means of transport – was left as the only public tram system in the UK until theManchester Metrolink opened in 1992.[356] Today there are fourlight rail systems in the North – Blackpool Tramway, Manchester Metrolink,Sheffield Supertram andTyne & Wear Metro.[357]
In total, there are six international airports in the North; these are (in descending order of passenger traffic)Manchester,Newcastle,Liverpool John Lennon,Leeds Bradford,Teesside andHumberside.[358][359]
Manchester Airport is a major hub and the busiest airport anywhere in the UK outside London, handling 23.3 million people in 2022 (10.5% of all UK passengers), and Newcastle (4.1 million), Liverpool (3.5 million) and Leeds-Bradford (3.3 million) serve their city regions.[358]
Other airports in the North have struggled. Teesside and Humberside both see very little traffic while other airports have closed to commercial flights entirely:Blackpool closed in 2014,Carlisle Lake District in 2020 andDoncaster Sheffield in 2022.[360][361][362] Many of these airports were developed during the boom inlow-cost air travel during the early 2000s and suffered following theGreat Recession andCOVID lockdowns.[363]
The devolution ofAir Passenger Duty in Scotland allows Scottish airports to offer cheaper flights than their English rivals[364] as well as London airports turning Northern airports tospoke airports, forcing connecting passengers to travel via London or continental European airports for major destinations.
The first modern canal in England wasSankey Brook, opened in 1757 to connect Liverpool's ports to theSt Helens coalfields.[365] By 1777, theGrand Trunk Canal had opened, linking the rivers Mersey and Trent and making it possible for boats to travel directly from Liverpool to Hull.[365] Manchester, 40 miles (64 km) inland, was connected to the Irish Sea by theManchester Ship Canal in 1894, although the canal never saw the success that was hoped for.[366] The North retains many navigable canals, including theCheshire,North Pennine andSouth Penninecanal rings, although they are now used mostly for pleasure rather than transport – theAire and Calder Navigation, which carries over 2 million tons of oil, sand and gravel per year, is a rare exception.[367]
Many Northern coastal towns were built on trade, and retain large sea ports. The Humber ports ofGrimsby andImmingham (counted as a single port for statistical purposes) are the busiest in the UK in terms of tonnage, serving 59.1 million tons as of 2015, andTeesport and thePort of Liverpool are also among the country's largest – in total, 35% of British freight was shipped through Northern ports.[368][349]Roll-on/roll-off ferries offer passenger and freight connections to theIsle of Man andIreland along the west coast,[369] while east coast ports connect to Belgium and the Netherlands,[370] although Northern ports handle only a small percentage of the UK's vehicle traffic.[371]Liverpool Cruise Terminal opened in 2007, cruises also operate out ofPort of Hull andNewcastle International Ferry Terminal.
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Sources relating to the historic counties of Cheshire, Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, Westmorland and Yorkshire.
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