123-457: Northern Powerhouse Rail ( NPR ), sometimes referred to unofficially as High Speed 3 , is a proposed major rail programme designed to substantially enhance the economic potential of the North of England . The phrase was adopted in 2014 for a project featuring new and significantly upgraded railway lines in the region. The aim is to transform rail services between the major towns and cities, requiring
246-624: A Celtic culture, and had its own Celtic language, Cumbric , spoken predominately in Cumbria until around the 12th century. Parts of the north and east of England were subject to Danish control (the Danelaw ) during the Viking Age , but the northern part of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria remained under Anglo-Saxon control. Under the Vikings, monasteries were largely wiped out, and
369-787: A Knave (1968). There are no recognised minority languages in Northern England, although the Northumbrian Language Society campaigns to have the Northumbrian dialect recognised as a separate language. It is possible that traces of now-extinct Brythonic Celtic languages from the region survive in some rural areas in the Yan Tan Tethera counting systems traditionally used by shepherds. Contact between English and immigrant languages has given rise to new accents and dialects. For instance,
492-754: A Northern dialect area, some correspond the area north of a line that begins at the Humber estuary and runs up the River Wharfe and across to the River Lune in north Lancashire. This area corresponds roughly to the sprachraum of the Old English Northumbrian dialect , although the linguistic elements that defined this area in the past, such as the use of doon instead of down and substitution of an ang sound in words that end - ong ( lang instead of long ), are now prevalent only in
615-574: A Strategic Outline Business Case for NPR was to have been completed by the end of 2018, which was then delayed until 2020. This was then further delayed until the publishing of the Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) in November 2021. As well as a through station for Bradford, there have been calls for an additional station at Rochdale on the new line between Manchester and Leeds. NPR is being developed in addition to planned improvements including
738-636: A UK or Irish identity. 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 and Redcar 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%) and Blackburn with Darwen (69.1%) had among
861-610: A coherent entity at all. Many Industrial Revolution innovations began in Northern England, and its cities were the crucibles of many of the political changes that accompanied this social upheaval, from trade unionism to Manchester Liberalism . In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the economy of the North was dominated by heavy industry . Centuries of immigration, invasion, and labour have shaped Northern England's culture, and it has retained countless distinctive accents and dialects , music, arts, and cuisine. Industrial decline in
984-475: A desire to work with the government. They laid out a number of criticisms. Doubt has been cast on the magnitude of the reduction in journey times claimed. North of England Northern England , or the North of England , is a region that forms the northern part of England and mainly corresponds to the historic counties of Cheshire , Cumberland , Durham , Lancashire , Northumberland , Westmorland and Yorkshire . The region also coincides with
1107-591: A distinctive coarse-grained rock used to make millstones , is widespread in the Pennines, and the variety of other rock types is reflected in the architecture of the region, such as the bright red sandstone seen in buildings in Chester , the cream-buff Yorkstone and the distinctive purple Doddington sandstone. These sandstones also mean that apart from the east coast, most of Northern England has very soft water , and this has influenced not just industry, but even
1230-462: A lineage of female realist writers from the North that later included Winifred Holtby , Catherine Cookson , Beryl Bainbridge and Jeanette Winterson . Many of the angry young men of post-war literature were Northern, and working-class life in the face of deindustrialisation is depicted in novels such as Room at the Top (1959), Billy Liar (1959), This Sporting Life (1960) and A Kestrel for
1353-574: A major target for Luftwaffe attacks during the Second World War . The Blitz of 1940–1941 saw major raids on Barrow-in-Furness , Hull , Leeds , Manchester , Merseyside , Newcastle and Sheffield 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
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#17327762092271476-884: A more modern occupation known as the Creswellian culture around 12,000 years ago. Kirkwell Cave in Lower Allithwaite , Cumbria shows signs of the Federmesser culture of the Paleolithic , and was inhabited some time between 13,400 and 12,800 years ago. Significant settlement appears to have begun in the Mesolithic era, with Star Carr in North Yorkshire generally considered the most significant monument of this era. The Star Carr site includes Britain's oldest known house, from around 9000 BC, and
1599-419: A new 125 miles per hour (201 km/h) trans-Pennine high speed rail link connecting to the northern branches of HS2 at Manchester and Leeds (30-minute journey time), together with other regional rail developments, and the bringing forward of the construction of the northern part of HS2, as part of a regional transport plan including other road, intermodal port, and rail freight improvements. The estimated cost of
1722-502: A second high-speed line named High Speed 2 (HS2) is currently being constructed and is scheduled to come into service in the late 2020s. The HS3 designation implies the development of a third high-speed rail route. Historically, the use of the term High Speed 3 has been loose—the House of Lords' Economic Affairs Committee (March 2015) stated that there was no firm definition of the route implied by HS3: Improvements to east-west links in
1845-594: Is culturally and economically distinct from both the Midlands and Southern England . The area's northern boundary is the border with Scotland , its western the Irish Sea and a short border with Wales , and its eastern the North Sea . Its southern border is often debated, and there has been controversy in defining what geographies or cultures precisely constitute the 'North of England' — if, indeed, it exists as
1968-570: Is "very clearly not [an] England and Wales" project. The Welsh Government stated it should be classed as "England-only" and the current classification was "wrong". In the Technical Annex to the IRP the TfN proposals that had been considered were summarised as three options. • Option 1 was a mixture of new-build high-speed line, covering roughly half the route from Liverpool to Leeds, and upgrades to
2091-609: 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
2214-610: Is classified as an England and Wales project, facing criticism from some Welsh politicians. NPR forms part of High Speed North, the overarching proposal that includes improvements to both roads and rail. These developments are designed to improve transport connections between major northern English cities and transport hubs, including Liverpool, Manchester , Manchester Airport , Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Doncaster , Sheffield , York , Newcastle and Hull, as well as other significant economic centres. The High Speed North project aims to improve public transport journey times between
2337-399: Is promoted by the combined public transport authority Transport for the North (TfN) and, according to analysis by TfN, currently fewer than 10,000 people in the North can access four or more of the North's largest economic centres within 60 minutes. This could rise to around 1.3 million once High Speed North is fully delivered. A plan to improve rail journey times in northern England,
2460-601: Is reflected in its literature. On the one hand, the wild moors and lakes have inspired generations of Romantic authors: the poetry of William Wordsworth and the novels of the Brontë sisters are perhaps the most famous examples of writing inspired by these elemental forces. Classics of children's literature such as The Railway Children (1906), The Secret Garden (1911) and Swallows and Amazons (1930) portray these largely untouched landscapes as worlds of adventure and transformation where their protagonists can break free of
2583-403: Is stopping people getting in their car." The site of a new through station at Bradford has been earmarked to be located on the current St James' Market, itself built upon the former Adolphus Street station site. The current food market, which is said to have outgrown the site, would be moved elsewhere. There has been no detail of exactly how the railway lines would access the station, however,
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#17327762092272706-814: The Calder Valley route . TfN's aspirational Manchester–Manchester Airport and Leeds–Sheffield journey times were identified as being achievable by the HS2 scheme, with modifications to through running to Sheffield city centre. At the 2016 Budget , the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, endorsed the general proposals by the National Infrastructure Commission for a high speed line between only Manchester and Leeds, with an aim of reducing journey times to 30 minutes between
2829-946: The Chesterfield , North East Derbyshire , Bolsover , and Derbyshire Dales districts have joined with districts of South Yorkshire to form the Sheffield City Region , along with the Bassetlaw 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 by BBC North West . Some areas of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire are served by BBC Yorkshire (formerly BBC North), whilst eastern Yorkshire shares its BBC region with Lincolnshire and small parts of Nottinghamshire and north west Norfolk . The historic part of Lincolnshire known as Lindsey (in essence
2952-811: The Department for Transport released the future of the Island Line , which include adding a new passing loop at Brading and upgrading Ryde pier and bring new trains to the Isle of Wight. On 1 December 2022, the Transport Secretary published the High Level Output Statement for Control Period 7 and confirmed via the Statement of Funds Available that £44bn would be made available to Network Rail for that Control Period. As of
3075-644: The Great Depression the outer British unemployment rate was 16.1% and the Southern rate was less than half that at 7.1%. The weakening economy and interwar unemployment caused several episodes of social unrest in the region, including the 1926 general strike and the Jarrow 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. For
3198-716: The High Peak borough of Derbyshire are included in the Greater 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, due to their close proximity to the city of Manchester , and before this the borough was considered to be part of the Greater Manchester Statutory City Region . More recently,
3321-579: The Johnson government significantly curtailed the scheme in the Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands (IRP). Under the IRP the existing lines to Warrington from Liverpool will be upgraded, using the southern Liverpool–Manchester line . Instead of building a dedicated high speed line to Leeds via Bradford the scaled back scheme will only provide dedicated high speed rail track from Manchester as far as Marsden, West Yorkshire , where
3444-545: The Norman Conquest , and to put an end to the rebellion, William ordered the Harrying of the North . In the winter of 1069–1070, towns, villages and farms were systematically destroyed across much of Yorkshire as well as northern Lancashire and County Durham. 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
3567-571: The North Sea coastline. The geography of the North has been heavily shaped by the ice sheets of the Pleistocene 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 of fluvio-glacial material in lowland areas like the Cheshire and Solway Plains . On the eastern side of
3690-666: The Northern Hub , or, as currently called, the Great North Rail Project, was developed from a 2009 scheme to improve the rail network around Manchester. Schemes to improve the Leeds–Manchester line speed by 2014 were included in Network Rail's CP5 improvements, with an aim to reduce Manchester – Leeds journey times by 15 minutes. In 2011, the approximately £290 million electrification of
3813-644: The Personal Rule period. 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 the Royalist forces until they were routed at the Battle of Marston Moor . At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution , Northern England had plentiful coal and water power while the poor agriculture in the uplands meant that labour in
Northern Powerhouse Rail - Misplaced Pages Continue
3936-695: The River Mersey (the line between the Humber and Mersey estuaries being a common boundary) and River Trent . The Isle of Man is occasionally included in broad geographical definitions of "the North" (for example, by the Survey of English Dialects , VisitBritain and BBC North West ), although it is politically and culturally distinct from England. Some areas of Derbyshire , Lincolnshire , Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire have northern characteristics and include satellites of northern cities. Towns in
4059-468: The Wirral Peninsula to Doncaster , taking in the cities of Liverpool , Manchester , Leeds , and Sheffield , with a population of at least 7.6 million. Analysis by The 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 and Tyne and Wear . At
4182-482: The ice 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. The northernmost cave art in Europe is found at Creswell Crags in northern Derbyshire, near modern-day Sheffield, which shows signs of Neanderthal inhabitation 50 to 60 thousand years ago, and of
4305-788: The local Celtic languages . They are a dialectal 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; including Cumbrian (Cumberland and Westmorland), Lancastrian (Lancashire), Northumbrian (Northumberland and Durham) and Tyke (Yorkshire). During the Industrial Revolution urban areas gained some or further distinction from traditional dialects; such as areas Mackem (Wearside), Mancunian (Manchester), Pitmatic (Great Northern Coalfield), Geordie (Tyneside), Smoggie (Teesside), Scouse (Liverpool) and around Hull . Linguists have attempted to define
4428-709: The medieval era borders of Anglian Northumbria , the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik , and the Brythonic Celtic Hen Ogledd kingdoms . The North is a grouping of three statistical regions : the North East , the North West , and Yorkshire and the Humber . These had a combined population of 15.5 million at the 2021 census , an area of 37,331 km (14,414 square miles) and 17 cities . Northern England
4551-800: The 1640 Treaty of Ripon King Charles I was forced to temporarily cede Northumberland and County Durham to the Scots and pay to keep the Scottish armies there. To raise enough funds and ratify the final peace treaty, Charles had to call what became the Long Parliament , beginning the process that led to the First English Civil War . In 1641, the Long Parliament abolished the Council of the North for perceived abuses during
4674-461: The 1950s reshaped Northern England once more, and there are now significant populations from the Indian subcontinent in towns and cities such as Bradford, Leeds, Preston and Sheffield. Deindustrialisation continued and unemployment gradually increased during the 1970s, but accelerated during the government of Margaret Thatcher , who chose not to encourage growth in the North if it risked growth in
4797-521: The 2011 census, 86% of the Northern population lived in urban areas as defined by the Office for National Statistics , compared to 82% for England as a whole. Due to differing definitions and city limits , the list of largest towns and cities may be misleading. For example while Manchester is ranked fourth as a city, the greater urban area it leads ( Greater Manchester Built-up Area ) is the largest in
4920-663: The Brigantes made the Romans wary, and they were conquered in a war beginning in the 70s under the governorship of Quintus Petillius Cerialis . The Romans created the province of " Britannia Inferior " (Lower Britain) in the North, and it was ruled from the city of Eboracum (modern York ). Eboracum and Deva Victrix (modern Chester) were the main legionary bases in the region, with other smaller forts including Mamucium (Manchester) and Cataractonium ( Catterick ). Britannia Inferior extended as far north as Hadrian's Wall , which
5043-475: The Department for Transport published the "high level output specification" for Control Period 6. In October 2017, a Statement of Funds Available report was published which announced that £48 billion would be allocated for CP6. In October 2018, the Office of Rail Regulation approved of the spending plans which include spending £7.7bn on spending of maintaining the existing railway and £16.6bn for renewing
Northern Powerhouse Rail - Misplaced Pages Continue
5166-553: The Great North Rail Project. HS2 Ltd and Network Rail have been commissioned by TfN to prepare engineering and costing studies on a range of rail infrastructure options. This could involve new and upgraded rail infrastructure. In addition to serving the six previously identified centres, work is also underway to develop options to serve Other Significant Economic Centres (OSECs). Options for NPR stations will also promote and integrate with masterplans and wider spatial plans, including Leeds Station and Manchester Piccadilly. In March 2019, it
5289-490: 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 the west's high average rainfall and
5412-560: The NIC studied additional improvements on the Manchester–Leeds route, focussing on the Diggle route (via Huddersfield ) utilising disused track plus new-build tunnels, and identified potential journey time savings of between 1 and 10 minutes. A preliminary study by Network Rail did not rule out that the aspirational Leeds–Manchester journey time of 30 minutes could be achieved on
5535-542: The NPR minister Jake Berry MP stated that a possible underground interchange at Manchester Piccadilly would inflate the cost of the project and lead to an offset of spend somewhere else on the project: "...spending an extra £6bn on that [Manchester Piccadilly underground] means we have to find £6bn that we won’t spend somewhere else - and that might be putting in the parkway station in Bradford. The people of Bradford, if they want to get to Leeds or Manchester, [would] have to get in their car and what we have to absolutely be doing
5658-492: 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". 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. From
5781-480: The North East) or yous (common in areas with historical Irish communities). Many dialects use me as a possessive ("me car") and some treat us likewise ("us cars") or use the alternative wor ("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). With urbanisation, distinctive urban accents have arisen which often differ greatly from
5904-437: The North emigrated, chiefly to the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The First World War was the turning point for the economy of Northern England. In the interwar 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
6027-433: The North starts somewhere in North Yorkshire around the River Tees – the Yorkshire poet Simon Armitage suggests Thirsk , Northallerton or Richmond – and does not include cities like Manchester and Leeds , nor the majority of Yorkshire. Northern England is not a homogeneous unit, and some have entirely rejected the idea that the North exists as a coherent entity, claiming that considerable cultural differences across
6150-406: The North. 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 . Northern England is one of the most treeless areas in Europe, and to combat this the government plans to plant over 50 million trees in a new Northern Forest . Uniquely for such a large urban belt in Europe,
6273-405: The North–South divide strengthened the distinct Northern English identity, which, despite regeneration in some of the major cities, remains to this day. The region saw several IRA attacks during the Troubles , including the M62 coach bombing , the Warrington bomb attacks and the 1992 and 1996 Manchester bombings . The latter was the largest bomb detonation in Great Britain since the end of
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#17327762092276396-404: The Norwegian king Harald Hardrada by the Anglo-Saxon Harold Godwinson at the Battle 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 Norman William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings was in turn the overthrow of the Anglo-Saxon order. The Northumbrian and Danish aristocracy resisted
6519-436: The Pennines, a former glacial lake forms the Humberhead Levels : a large area of fenland which drains into the Humber and which is very fertile and productive farmland. Much of the mountainous upland remains undeveloped, and of the ten national parks in England , five – the Peak District, the Lake District, the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales , and Northumberland National Park – are located partly or entirely in
6642-419: The Romans as Brigantia . Other tribes mentioned in ancient histories, which may have been part of the Brigantes or separate nations, are the Carvetii of modern-day Cumbria and the Parisi of east Yorkshire. The Brigantes allied with the Roman Empire during the Roman conquest of Britain : Tacitus records that they handed the resistance leader Caratacus over to the Empire in 51. Power struggles within
6765-430: The Roses , including the decisive Battle 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 from Scotland and France , while the Yorkists drew most of their power from Southern England, Wales and Ireland. The Anglo-Scottish Wars also touched
6888-419: The Second World War, and damaged or destroyed much of central Manchester. 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. At the 2021 census , Northern England had a population of 15,550,000, in 6,659,700 households. This
7011-403: The South. The era saw the 1984–85 miners' strike , which brought hardship for many Northern mining towns. Northern metropolitan county councils, which were Labour strongholds often with very left-wing leadership (such as Militant-dominated Liverpool and the so-called " People's Republic of South Yorkshire "), had high-profile conflicts with the national government. The increasing awareness of
7134-419: The Southern perspective, Northern England is sometimes defined jokingly as the area north of the Watford Gap between Northampton and Leicester – a definition which would include much of the Midlands . Various cities and towns have been described as or promoted themselves as the "gateway to the North", including Crewe , Stoke-on-Trent , and Sheffield . For some in the northernmost reaches of England,
7257-457: 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 as Northumbria by Aethelfrith , a king of Bernicia who conquered Deira around the year 604. Northumbria then saw a Golden Age in cultural, scholarly and monastic activity, centred on Lindisfarne and aided by Irish monks. The north-west of England retains vestiges of
7380-527: The UK's potash . Northern England has a cool, wet oceanic climate with small areas of subpolar oceanic climate in the uplands. Averaged across the entire region, Northern England temperature range and sunshine 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
7503-422: The Yorkshire-based Pilgrimage of Grace , all against Henry VIII . His daughter Elizabeth I faced another Catholic rebellion, the Rising of the North . The region would become the centre of recusancy as prominent Catholic families in Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire refused to convert to Protestantism. Royal power over the region was exercised through the Council of the North at King's Manor , York, which
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#17327762092277626-650: The absence of the FOOT – STRUT split (so put and putt are homophones ), the reduction of the definite article the to a glottal stop (usually represented in writing as t ' or occasionally th ' , although it is often not pronounced as a /t/ sound) or its total elision , and the T-to-R rule that leads to the pronunciation of t as a rhotic consonant in phrases like get up ( [ɡɛɹ ʊp] ). The pronouns thou and thee 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: either ye (common in
7749-420: The area overwhelm any similarities. The Pennines , an upland range sometimes referred to as "the backbone of England" run through most of the area defined as northern England, which stretches from the Tyne Gap to the Peak District . Other uplands in the North include the Lake District with England's highest mountains, the Cheviot Hills adjoining the border with Scotland, and the North York Moors near
7872-484: 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. The boom in industrial textile manufacture is sometimes attributed to the damp climate and soft water making it easier to wash and work fibres, although the success of Northern fabric mills has no single clear source. Readily available coal and the discovery of large iron deposits in Cumbria and Cleveland allowed ironmaking and, with
7995-417: The benefits in "due course" and it is "responsible for heavy rail infrastructure across England and Wales", therefore it spends the money directly for Wales rather than provide funds to the Welsh Government. Plaid Cymru described the decision as a push of "blatant lies", that the project "harms the Welsh economy" and that rail infrastructure should be devolved to Wales . The Welsh Liberal Democrats stated it
8118-409: The blends of tea enjoyed in the region. Rich deposits of iron ore are found in Cumbria and the North East, and fluorspar and baryte are also plentiful in northern parts of the Pennines. Salt mining in Cheshire has a long history, and both remaining rock salt mines in Great Britain are in the North: Winsford Mine in Cheshire and Boulby Mine in North Yorkshire, which also produces half of
8241-428: 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 fleeing pogroms 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 the British Empire . At the same time, hundreds of thousands from depressed rural areas of
8364-522: The cities in this region are all as recent as the Industrial Revolution – most of them previously scattered villages. 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 , , Middlesbrough and Sunderland ) to create multiple urban areas. Inland needs of trade and industry produced an almost continuous urbanisation from
8487-418: The city centre destroyed. 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 simultaneous slum clearance that saw whole neighbourhoods demolished and rebuilt, transformed the faces of Northern cities. Immigration from the " New Commonwealth ", especially Pakistan and Bangladesh , starting in
8610-419: The conquest, which likely populated much of the desolated regions of Cumbria, and which was persistent enough that the town of Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire still had an ethnic enclave called Flemingate in the thirteenth century. During the Anarchy , Scotland invaded Northern England and took much of the land north of the Tees . In the 1139 peace treaty that followed, Prince Henry of Scotland
8733-439: The cost to be less per mile than that of HS2, giving a cost of under £6 billion. Initial responses to the proposal were mixed: Jeremy Acklam of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) suggested that planners should look at connecting other northern cities such as Liverpool, and potentially North East England via York; commentators noted that the proposal could be viewed as an attempt to gain political support in
8856-747: The desert". Monastic orders such as the Cistercians became significant players in the economy of Northern England – the Cistercian Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire became the largest and richest of the Northern abbeys, and would remain so until the Dissolution of the Monasteries . Other Cistercian abbeys are at Rievaulx , Kirkstall and Byland . The 7th-century Whitby Abbey was Benedictine and Bolton Abbey , Augustinian . A significant Flemish immigration followed
8979-496: The discovery of grave goods in Northern churchyards suggests that Norse funeral rites replaced Christian ones for a time. Viking control of certain areas, particularly around Yorkshire, is recalled in the etymology of many place names : the thorpe in town names such as Cleethorpes and Scunthorpe , the kirk in Kirklees and Ormskirk and the by of Whitby and Grimsby all have Norse roots. The 1066 defeat of
9102-518: The distance from London to Paris". It also recommended collaboration between TfN and HS2 Ltd on the design of the northern parts of HS2; and on the design of the improved Manchester Piccadilly station, together with Manchester City Council and other rail bodies. The Report suggested the development of a HS3 link after the completion of Network Rail's £2bn trans-Pennine electrification upgrade (scheduled to take place between 2015 and 2022, leading to 40-minute journey times). A report by Arup commissioned by
9225-425: The draft Strategic Transport Plan should be an Outline Business Case, that was to have been submitted by the end of 2018. At Manchester Piccadilly, it is likely a new NPR station will be needed and options include a new underground station or a new surface turnback station. Between Manchester and Sheffield, TfN is currently looking at whether it can upgrade the existing line or whether a new line will be needed. Again,
9348-661: The earlier ones are retrospective, and not necessarily of 5 years duration. As Network Rail is responsible for developing and maintaining railway infrastructure, the Control Periods are used to decide priorities for investment. Infrastructure developments have taken place or are planned as follows: CP3 included the following work: CP4 included the following work as part of the Enhancements Programme: CP5 includes: CP5 ran over budget and some projects were delayed. In July 2015, Sir Peter Hendy
9471-719: The earliest evidence of carpentry in the form of a carved tree trunk from 11000 BC. The Lincolnshire and Yorkshire Wolds around the Humber Estuary were settled and farmed in the Bronze Age , and the Ferriby Boats – one of the best-preserved finds of the era – were discovered near Hull in 1937. In the more mountainous regions of the Peak District, hillforts were the main Bronze Age settlement and
9594-479: The east coast experiences a distinctive sea fret . Smog in urban areas was prevalent from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; sunshine duration has increased in urban areas in recent years with the Clean Air Act 1956 and the area's heavy industry in decline. The English spoken today in the North has been shaped by the area's history, and some dialects retain features inherited from Old Norse and
9717-458: The existing lines into Leeds (via Huddersfield) and Liverpool (via Warrington Bank Quay) for the rest of the route. • Option 2 was for an entirely new-build high-speed line between Leeds and Manchester, including a new station on the outskirts of Bradford; a new line from Warrington to Liverpool (with a parkway station at Warrington); and an underground Piccadilly station with a connection allowing it to be used for Sheffield services. • Option 3
9840-529: The extent of the historical Northumbria , which excludes Cheshire and northern Lincolnshire, though the latter formed the Kingdom of Lindsey, which was periodically under Northumbrian rule. The Redcliffe-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. Occasionally, "Northern England" may be used to describe England's northernmost reaches only, broadly
9963-428: The high-speed Manchester–Leeds rail link was circa over £5bn, with a proposed completion date of 2030; the entire project was costed at £10bn to £15bn. George Osborne attended the project launch, and provided his backing for the project. A report Rebalancing Britain published by High Speed Two Limited in late 2014 also acknowledged the need for improved east–west transportation links in northern England, and recommended
10086-412: The historical accents of the surrounding rural areas and sometimes share features with Southern English accents. 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. The contrasting geography of Northern England
10209-528: The invention of the Bessemer process , steelmaking to take root in the region. High quality steel in turn fed the shipyards that opened along the coasts, especially on Tyneside and at Barrow-in-Furness . The Great Famine in Ireland of the 1840s drove migrants across the Irish Sea , and many settled in the industrial cities of the North, especially Manchester and Liverpool – at the 1851 census , 13% of
10332-563: The line will join the upgraded TransPennine line to Leeds via Huddersfield . In July 2022, the House of Commons Transport Committee expressed concern that the evidence base for the IRP was insufficient and made a number of specific comments. These included that A full analysis of the wider economic impacts of the different Northern Powerhouse Rail options is needed, and BCR [benefit-cost ratio] analyses must be produced for all NPR options. Upgrading lines will bring modest benefits, but not to
10455-512: The line would be developed on existing routes, from Liverpool to Warrington using the southern Liverpool–Manchester line and from Marsden to Leeds using the TransPennine line . The benefits of this plan compared to the previous proposals are stated as being that it would: This announcement met with anger and disappointment from the Board of Transport for the North. However, they expressed
10578-511: The locals were most likely pastoralists raising livestock. Roman histories name the Celtic tribe that occupied the majority of Northern England as the Brigantes , 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
10701-524: The lowest proportions of White British outside London. Network Rail Control Periods Network Rail Control Periods are the 5-year timespans into which Network Rail , the owner and operator of most of the rail infrastructure in Great Britain , works for financial and other planning purposes. Each Control Period begins on 1 April and ends on 31 March to coincide with the financial year . These periods were inherited from Railtrack , so that
10824-428: The major cities in the North of England. Present-day rail connections between cities such as Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds are slow compared to commuter journeys across Greater London . By improving transport connections, it is proposed that commuters will be able to travel to work more freely, allowing these cities to compete together as one large single economy, rather than competing against one another. The NPR scheme
10947-504: The major northern cities, with cost estimates from £5bn to £19bn, and estimated journey times of one half to two thirds of current routes; alternative upgrades of existing routes were costed in the £1bn to £7bn range, and had lesser journey time reductions, of the order of 10–15 minutes; the proposals were in addition to existing High Speed 2 route options for Liverpool and Sheffield-Leeds. The development options were planned for Network Rail Control Period 6 (2019–24). In March 2016,
11070-696: The more northern parts of the region. As speech has changed, there is little consensus on what defines a "Northern" accent or dialect. Northern English accents have not undergone the TRAP – BATH split , and a common shibboleth to distinguish them from Southern ones is the Northern use of the short a (the near-open front unrounded vowel ) in words such as bath and castle . On the opposite border, most Northern English accents can be distinguished from Scottish accents because they are non-rhotic , although some Lancashire and Northumberland accents remain rhotic. Other features common to many Northern English accents are
11193-428: 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 the electric 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. The industrial concentration in Northern England made it
11316-446: The network forms part of the existing and future rail network of the north. £60M of funding was provided to generate plans for a route by 2017. In October 2017, the then Chancellor Philip Hammond allocated £300M to future-proof junctions between NPR and HS2, to allow east–west services to use HS2 infrastructure. Later in the same month, it was proposed that an underground station for Manchester Piccadilly should be built to accommodate
11439-411: The new services of up to eight trains per hour; an underground station would require less building work and still provide good links to HS2. In December 2017, TfN announced a proposal for a new project called NPR. On 16 January 2018, TfN released their draft 30-year Strategic Transport Plan of staged developments for northern England. It included NPR with proposals for The outcome of the consultation on
11562-502: The newly established governmental advisory body, the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), chaired by Lord Adonis , reported on transport infrastructure projects in the north of England. It recommended bringing forward HS3 proposals, beginning with the Manchester–Leeds section. The NIC's report, High Speed North stated that "It takes longer to get from Liverpool to Hull by train than to travel twice
11685-408: The north of England have often been referred to as "HS3". This term has been used interchangeably to mean the connection between Leeds and Manchester or a longer route running from Liverpool to Hull via Manchester and Leeds. Such a railway would not necessarily need to be high-speed. [..] We refer to "east-west links" rather than "HS3" in this report as there is no clear indication yet what form or route
11808-683: The north of England in the run-up to the 2015 general election : the Institute of Economic Affairs characterised the proposal as a "headline grabbing vanity project designed to attract votes". The British Chambers of Commerce , Confederation of British Industry and others were cautiously positive about the proposal, but emphasised the need to deliver on existing smaller scale schemes. On 5 August 2014, an alliance of six city councils—Leeds, Liverpool, Hull, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sheffield —unveiled an initial regional transport plan linking their cities called 'One North'. This plan incorporated
11931-413: The northern cities' influence was comparatively less than London's and that the link would promote economies of agglomeration . Osborne suggested the line should be considered as part of a review of the second phase of High Speed 2. Initial estimates suggested a rail line with a 140 miles per hour (230 km/h) line speed, and Leeds–Manchester journey times reduced to 30 minutes. Osborne estimated
12054-597: 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 geographer Danny Dorling includes most of the West Midlands and part of the East Midlands in his definition of the North, claiming that "ideas of a midlands region add more confusion than light". Conversely, more restrictive definitions of Northern England also exist. Some are based on
12177-819: The population of Manchester and Salford were Irish-born, and in Liverpool the figure was 22%. In response there was a wave of anti-Catholic riots and Protestant Orange 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. 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
12300-543: The progressing of the schemes in the 'One North' report. On 20 March 2015, the Department of Transport published plans for transport infrastructure improvements in the north of England, including proposals by the TfN working group; the TransNorth report proposed a number of options for improved rail links between Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and Hull with line speeds up to 140 miles per hour (230 km/h). The proposals included new-build routes between
12423-507: The proposals might take or if the trains will be "high speed" in the same sense as HS2. In June 2014, at a speech given at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry , the incumbent Chancellor of the Exchequer , George Osborne , proposed a high speed rail link between Leeds and Manchester; the line would utilise the existing route between Leeds and Manchester, with additional tunnels and other infrastructure. Osborne argued that
12546-511: The proviso that: In line with the Government's existing approach to rail enhancements, commitments will be made only to progress individual schemes up to the next stage of development, subject to a review of their readiness. It announced the cancellation of the eastern leg of the HS2 project, and that NPR would be slimmed down. The NPR line would now be built as a new high-speed line between Warrington, Manchester and Marsden . The rest of
12669-470: The railway part of Bradford Interchange would close. On 17 March 2023, the project was classified by HM Treasury as an "England and Wales" project, although no infrastructure for the project would be in Wales . As a result of the classification, Wales would not receive a Barnett consequential of funding, estimated to be £1 billion, unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland. The UK Government said it would state
12792-457: The railways . In February 2018, Network Rail announced its strategic business plan for CP6; the plan will prioritize performance and reliability improvements over major new schemes. In February 2019, Network Rail approved of its spending plan and had no objections to the ORR's decision on spending. It would publish its spending plan at the end of March 2019. In September 2019, Network Rail and
12915-503: The region and larger than Leeds's urban area ( West Yorkshire Built-up Area ) despite Leeds being the largest as a sole city. 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 the Great Northern , Lancashire and South Yorkshire Coalfields . Millstone grit ,
13038-628: The region's single biggest transport investment since the Industrial Revolution . The original scheme would have seen a new high-speed rail line from Liverpool to Warrington continuing to join the HS2 tunnel which it would share into Manchester Piccadilly station . From there, the line would have continued to Leeds with a stop at Bradford . The line was intended to improve journey times and frequency between major Northern cities as well as creating more capacity for local service on lines that express services would have been moved out from. However, in 2021,
13161-632: The region, and in just 400 years, Berwick-upon-Tweed – now the northernmost town in England – changed hands more than a dozen times. The wars also saw thousands of Scots settle south of the border, chiefly in the border counties and Yorkshire. After the English Reformation , the North saw several Catholic uprisings, including the Lincolnshire Rising , Bigod's Rebellion in Cumberland and Westmorland, and largest of all,
13284-642: The region, due chiefly to the upland regions and adjacent seas. The prevailing winds across the British Isles are westerlies bringing moisture from the Atlantic; this means that the west coast frequently receives strong winds and heavy rainfall while the east coast lies in a rain 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
13407-482: The restrictions of society. Modern poets such as the Poets Laureate Ted 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. Meanwhile, the industrialising and urbanising cities of the North gave rise to many masterpieces of social realism . Elizabeth Gaskell was the first in
13530-521: 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 a service economy have resulted in strong economic growth in parts of the North, the North–South divide remains in both the economy and culture of England. For government and statistical purposes, Northern England is defined as the area covered by
13653-400: The three northernmost statistical regions of England: North East England , North West England and Yorkshire and the Humber . This area consists of the ceremonial counties of Cheshire , Cumbria , County Durham , East Riding of Yorkshire , Greater Manchester , Lancashire , Merseyside , Northumberland , North Yorkshire , South Yorkshire , Tyne and Wear and West Yorkshire , plus
13776-493: The total somewhere in the tens of thousands, out of a population of two million. When the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, much of Northern England was still recorded as wasteland, although this may have been in part because the chroniclers, more interested in manorial farmland, paid little attention to pastoral areas. Following Norman subjugation, monasteries returned to the North as missionaries sought to "settle
13899-617: The trans-Pennine Manchester–Leeds line was given funding. Work started on the electrification in 2013. NPR has often been referred to in the press as "High Speed 3" or "HS3", in reference to the development of high-speed rail in the United Kingdom . The first high-speed railway line to be built in Britain was High Speed 1 (HS1), the route connecting London to the Channel Tunnel , which opened 2003–2007. The southern phase of
14022-504: The transformative extent needed to end regional imbalances. In October 2022, early on in her short-lived Premiership , Liz Truss said that her government's plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail meant a full new high-speed rail line all the way from Liverpool to Hull with a stop at a new station in Bradford. The succeeding government said in its November 2022 financial statement that only the 'core' parts of NPR would be funded. The project
14145-500: The two destinations. In August 2016, the Institute of Public Policy Research urged the Government to prioritise HS3 over HS2. In August 2017, the former chancellor, George Osborne called for the Government to commit to NPR following backing of Crossrail 2 and scrapping of electrification schemes in July 2017. Transport for the North is developing the NPR programme and is considering how
14268-458: The unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire within the ceremonial county Lincolnshire . Other definitions use historic county boundaries, in which case the North is generally taken to comprise Cumberland , Northumberland, Westmorland , County Durham, Lancashire and Yorkshire , often supplemented by Cheshire. The boundary is sometimes drawn without reference to human borders, using geographic features such as
14391-486: The variety of English spoken by Poles in Manchester is distinct both from typical Polish-accented English and from Mancunian. 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 of Pashto speakers, while Manchester has most Cantonese speakers. During
14514-590: Was announced a new commission had been established to plan a new £6bn city centre station in Liverpool to accommodate HS2 and NPR services. In July 2019, the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to fund the Leeds to Manchester section of the NPR route as a first stage of NPR. It was also revealed that the plans would be published in the Autumn 2019, after the review of HS2 had concluded. However, in September 2019,
14637-504: Was appointed Chairman of Network Rail "and asked by the Secretary of State to conduct a thorough review of the enhancement programme in England & Wales to see what can be delivered in an affordable and timely way within the funding period to 2019". (Table 37 of the report lists the revised work programme for CP5). Additionally, Dame Colette Bowe investigated how future investment programmes could be implemented better. In July 2017,
14760-662: 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. Northern England was a focal point for fighting during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms . The border counties were invaded by Scotland in the Second Bishops' War , and at
14883-456: Was made Earl 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. The region also saw violence during The Great Raid of 1322 when Robert the Bruce invaded and raided the whole of Northern England. There was also the Wars of
15006-611: Was the northernmost border of the Roman Empire . Although the Romans invaded modern-day Northumberland and part of Scotland beyond it, they never succeeded in conquering the reaches of Britain beyond the River Tyne . After the end of Roman rule in Britain and the arrival of the Angles , Yr Hen Ogledd (the "Old North") was divided into rival kingdoms, Bernicia , Deira , Rheged and Elmet . Bernicia covered lands north of
15129-417: Was the same as Option 2, but with a new central station underground at Warrington (still offering less convenient interchange to Bank Quay), and an underground station in the vicinity of the existing Bradford Interchange station. The IRP chose Option 1. In November 2021, the proposals were substantially curtailed with the publication of the Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands (IRP). It contained
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