Falstone : Early Medieval Stonework

The discovery of several pieces of early medieval carved stonework, which evidently belonged originally to two separate monuments, is undoubtedly the single most intriguing aspect of Falstone's past and sets it apart from all the other villages of the National Park. All but one of the stones is now preserved in the Museum of Antiquities at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Conclusion

The carved stonework from Falstone may denote the existence of a chapel serving an extensive upland estate, perhaps tended by a line of hereditary priests, or alternatively it may represent an minor monastic site, established before the Viking onslaught had extinguished the once bright light of Northumbrian monasticism.

Indeed the two alternatives could essentially amount to one and the same thing. As early as the 730s, Bede was deploring the practice whereby members of the secular Northumbrian nobility established monasteries on lands they had received from the king, with themselves as hereditary abbots, in order to avoid royal impositions, such as military service, which they found too onerous.

Here we are being driven into the realms of speculation, albeit informed speculation. However, what this assemblage of carved stonework undeniably demonstrates is that the upper reaches of North Tynedale were far from deserted in the 8th and 9th centuries (cf. Barrow 1974, 170). Elaborate carved and inscribed monuments are an indication of a high status site, usually with ecclesiastical functions.

It is extremely unlikely that such a site stood in isolation, in a valley otherwise devoid of permanent settlement. Rather it would have been located at the top of a hierarchy of lesser, satellite settlements, inhabited by communities of dependent peasants which, through their labours, provided the resources to sustain such conspicuous expenditure by the elite - lay or ecclesiastical - of the Northumbrian Kingdom.