Tracing the Busy Gap Rogues

Busy Gap is one of the earliest attested place names located along the line of the central sector of Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, yet in Newcastle during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was a term of abuse, applied collectively to those who came from upland Tynedale and was synonymous with the Border Reivers. Archaeological and historical sources indicate that throughout the Middle Ages the place was located in a zone of seasonal settlement, characterized by groups of shielings probably associated with townships located in the valley of the South Tyne. The question is how to understand the role of Busy Gap, a place identified with a triangular earthwork on the north side of the Roman Wall. This paper will consider the results of recent archaeological investigations carried out by the author on the site and will investigate the place and its setting within the archaeological and historical context of early-modern Northumberland.     

Educational

Initiated in the seventeenth century, the growth of Scotland's glass industry was severely restrained by taxation laws and reached a low ebb in the 1820s. Recovery after the repeal of these laws enabled developments in every branch of glass making. Big demands for containers, especially from the drink trades, assisted the setting up of numerous container works particularly in Glasgow. Tied to coal rather than to sand, the industry was concentrated in Central Scotland. Since 1950 the use of oil and natural gas have enabled the establishment of works outside the traditional areas, but Glasgow, Alloa, Irvine, Kinghorn and Edinburgh (Penicuik) continue to be the main locations of the glass industry in 1980.