Our joint Parishes include Lordenshaws, which has a number of cup and ring marked stones dating back 5000 years to the Stone Age. We have information about the archaeological site on this website, and a Northumberland National Park leaflet is available providing more detailed information. Lordenshaws is popular with members of our local community and visitors, and we decided to mirror the Stone Age messages with stone markings of our own. We have moved a very large piece of sandstone, similar to that with the cup and ring markings, from a farm in the parish to our community field at The Lee, opposite Embleton Terrace. We have had the stone engraved, by a local stone mason, with the 100 family names of the 277 adults and children living in the Parishes.

The project provides a record of the parishes at this millennium which local people and visitors can walk to, and contemplate the human habitation in the area over the last 7000 years. We will also encourage local schools to visit our site when they visit the Lordenshaws sites to provide a modern context to the their study of the history of the area.

We will have a ceremony to unveil the stone on 1 September 2002, when Paul Frodsham, the National Park Archaeologist, will discuss the context. We then plan to hold a community event each year when all the members of our sparsely populated rural Parishes can come together. We hope that the stone in our field will remain for the next 1000 years!

David Owen

Vice Chair

Brinkburn and Hesleyhurst Parish Council

Mason Mather Maudslay Milburn

Nelless Norwood

Oliver Outhwaite Owen

Pogue Potts Powell Preston Provost

Rayner Reid Roberts Robinson Robson
Roger Rowe

Seville Seward Sharp Sheppard
Shotton Skipsey Stansby Steel Stephenson Stewart Storer Sumner Swinburn

Taylor Terry Teulon Todd Turnbull Vannan

Walker Wilkinson Winter

Young