"NORTHUMBERLAND, a maritime county at the extreme N. of England. It is bounded on the E. by the North Sea, on the W. it is separated from Scotland by the river Tweed and the Cheviot hills, and on the S. it adjoins Cumberland and Durham, being separated from the latter by the rivers Tyne and Derwent. Its greatest length is 62 miles, and its greatest breadth 50. It measures about 205 miles in circuit, of which 50 are on the coast, and the measure is 1,952 square miles, or 1,249,299, statute acres. It is comprised between 65° 45' and 54° 43' N. lat., and 2° 35' and 1° 20' W. long. Several small shires, as Berwick-on-Tweed, Newcastle, Islandshire, Sandberghshire, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire, which were formerly independent, now form part of the county. The coast from Berwick to Lindisfarne or Holy Island belongs to the county of Durham. At the earliest period of which we have any information, Northumberland and the adjacent parts of Scotland were inhabited by the Ottadeni or Meatae and the Gadeni. Agricola was the first of the Roman generals who advanced so far north, and in the year 80 he protected the territory he had acquired by a line of 18 forts stretching across the country from the Solway Frith to the mouth of the Tyne, and passing Haddon-on-the-Wall and St. Oswald's. These forts were erected as a defence against the incursions of the northern Britons, and were found so effective that they were subsequently strengthened by Hadrian and Severus, who built the wall, and formed the conquered country into a Roman province called Valentia. Besides the paved way which ran from turret to turret, immediately within the wall, another road proceeded in a direct line between the different stations. Two Roman roads, the Maiden Way and Watling Street, or Leeming Lane, traversed the county; the former passed from Alstone to Caervoran, on the wall, between the Irthing and the Tiffold, and the latter entered the county at Elchester, Corbridge, and passed over the Cheviot hills into Scotland to a spot about 4 miles N.E. of Jedburgh. A branch of the same road ran from Beuckley, about a mile N. of the wall, to Alnwick. The first Saxon settlement was effected in 547, by Idas, who built a castle at Bamburgh, and founded the kingdom of Northanbymbra, which was subsequently subdivided into Bryneich (Bernicia) and Deifyr (Deira). The Danes commenced their incursions in 844, when they slew Redwulf, the king of Northumbria, and in 867 the sons of Regnar Lodbrog occupied the greater part of the county. During the reign of King Alfred, Northumbria was included in the Danelagh, but in the subsequent wars with that nation Athelstane gave them a decisive defeat at Brunanburgh. At the time of the Norman conquest the N. of England had been so ravaged by the Scots and Danes, that the four northern counties were not included in the survey of the Domesday Book. Until the close of the 16th century the inhabitants of the border counties both of England and Scotland were perpetually engaged in cattle-lifting and in the skirmishes ensuing from this practice. Both countries possessed officers known as the Lord Wardens, and the wardens of the E., W., and middle branches, whose duty was in time of peace to do what they could to preserve peace, and to exact and demand compensation for all injuries, while in time of war they organised marauding expeditions into the hostile country. Upon the union of the two crowns by the accession of James VI. of Scotland to the English throne these offices were abolished. Numerous battles have been fought in Northumberland, including the two famous battles before Alnwick, in 1093 and 1174, in the former of which Malcolm Canmore, the king of Scotland, was killed, and in the latter William the Lion was taken prisoner; also the battles of Otterburn (1387), Homildon (1402), and Pepperdean (1436), between the earls of Northumberland and Douglas; the capture of Alnwick (1462), and Bamburgh (1464), by Margaret of Anjou; her subsequent defeats at Hedgley Moor and Hexham; and the battle of Flodden Field or Branxton, where the Earl of Surrey defeated and slew James IV., in 1513. During the civil wars of the seventeenth century, the county principally took the part of the king, and Newcastle was taken in 1644 by the Scotch army, on behalf of the Parliament. In the rebellion of 1715 Hexham was occupied for the Pretender by the Earl of Derwentwater and the other noblemen of the county, but they retired into Scotland on the approach of the king's troops under Carpenter. The surface of Northumberland gradually rises from the coast towards the Cheviot hills on the Scotch border, and becomes more and more barren as the elevation above the sea-level increases. The hills in the centre of the county are mostly clothed with green turf, but those on the borders -are covered with moss and heather. The highest point in the range is 2,658 feet high, and lies a few miles S.W. of Wooler. Near this point the Hedgehope and Standrop range branch out into the centre of the county; and further S., the vales of the Coquet, Reed, and North Tyne, are formed by the spurs of the Cheviot, of which the most conspicuous heights are the Girdle fells, which separate the basins of the Reed and Tyne, and terminate in Hareslaw Moor. S. of the Tyne are the Allendale hills, which abound in lead mines. The coast is low and flat, and opposite Lindisfarne and the Fern Islands large tracts of sand, called "Flats," are laid bare at low, tide. These are found at intervals along the entire coast. The principal harbours are Berwick, Warkworth, Holy Island, and Seaton Road. There are lighthouses on Coquet Isle, at Warkworth, the Fern Islands, and at Berwick. The chief rivers in Northumberland are, the Tweed, which forms the N. W. boundary of the county, and is joined near Twisel by the Till, which flows northwards with the united waters of the Glen, the Caldgate, and the Breamish, which rise in the Cheviot hills. The Aln, which rises near Alnham, passes Whittingham and Alnwick, and forms Alnworth Harbour, after a course of about 20 miles. The Coquet, a very celebrated trout river, rises in the Cheviots, near Watling Street, and crosses the county, passing Alwinton and Rothbury, and falls into the sea at Warkworth, where a system of docks is in course of construction; the Alwine and numerous other small streams join it on its course. The Wansbeck, 24 miles in length, passes Morpeth and enters the sea near Seaton; the chief tributary is the Font, which rises in the South Forest. The Blyth runs nearly parallel with Wansbeck. The Tyne forms the southern boundary from Tynemouth to near Ovingham, and is navigable for large vessels as far as Newcastle. It is formed by the union of the North and South Tynes, which join at Warden, near Hexham. The former rises on the Keelder Moors, and flows S. E. past Falstone, Bellingham, and Wark, while the latter rises near Alstone Moor, and flows first in a northerly direction, altering its course at Haltwhistle to easterly. The respective lengths of the rivers are about 38 and 33 miles, and the main stream is about 30 miles in length. Numerous rivers and burns flow into both branches of the Tyne from the hills on either side, but the only river of any size is the Reed, which rises on Carter Fell and falls into the North Tyne near Bellingham. The Derwent forms for some distance the southern boundary of the county, and falls into the Tyne a little above Newcastle. The above rivers, and, in fact, nearly every stream in the county, abound in trout, and there are salmon fisheries in the Tweed, the Coquet, and the Aln, and formerly in the Tyne, but the navigation in that river now keeps away the salmon. The climate is considerably colder than that of the southern districts of England, but in different parts of the county the temperature varies considerably, the low lands on the E. side being warmer than the moor land on the Scotch border, although the former is also subject to cold E. winds. Of the geological features of the county, the most noted is the carboniferous formation, of which Newcastle is the centre. The coal measures run northwards from the Tyne as far as the river Aln, and are bounded on the W. by a line drawn through Alnmouth, Felton, Morpeth, Whalton, and Bywell. The coal is mixed with sandstone, clayslate, and limestone, and is in some places 1,600 feet thick. The principal pits are at Earsdon, Wallsend, Heddon, and Hartley. The first pit was worked at Newcastle in 1240. Between the above-mentioned line, and a similar one from Rothbury to Hexham and Alstone Moor, lies a belt of millstone grit, and W. of this, carboniferous limestone, with occasional seams of coal. The remainder of the county is chiefly composed of several varieties of sandstone, except the Cheviots, which are formed in great measure of porphyry, and the cliffs consist of trap near Bamburgh and Dunstanborough, and of magnesian limestone further S. There is also a tract of red sandstone along the Tweed, which yields gypsum. Flags and grindstones are quarried at Byker, and limestone for manure at Bamburgh. Iron is found in connection with the coal, and lead and zinc at Allendale, Alstone, Fallowfield, Coalcleugh, and Shildon. There are mineral springs at Thurston, Lady's Well, near Halystone, and at Eglingham. The soil of the eastern part of the county is a clayey or gravelly loam; in the centre and S.E. the loam rests on a clay subsoil. Towards the Scotch border there are about 450,000 acres of peat and moor land, divided into small freeholds called "marches," and employed as pasture for sheep, of which there are two breeds on the hills, the Cheviot, a hornless breed, and the ordinary mountain sheep. In the lower lands, the Leicester, Southdown, and other varieties are found. Turnips are very largely grown, also large crops of wheat, oats, barley, beans, and potatoes. The short-horned Durham cattle are very extensively bred, and large quantities of Scotch cattle are imported to fatten. The Clydesdale breed of carthorses has long been famous. The manufactories in Northumberland are chiefly dependent on the abundant supply of coal, and are scattered in various parts of the county, but more especially along the Tyne, where there are glass, iron, lead, and chemical works, also paper manufactories at Houghton, gloves at Hexham, potteries, brickfields, &c. For administrative purposes Northumberland is divided into six wards-Bamburgh, Glendale, Coquetdale, and Morpeth, which form the northern division of the county, and Castle and Tynedale wards forming the southern division. These contain 90 parishes and part of one more, with six extra-parochial places, and about 600 towns and villages, of which twelve are market towns, viz:, Newcastle, Morpeth, Alnwick, Belford, Bellingham, Berwick, Haltwhistle, Hexham, Rothbury, Tynemouth, Allendale, North Shields, and Wooler. Each division of the county returns two members to the House of Commons. The election towns are respectively Alnwick and Hexham, and the polling places, Elsdon, Morpeth, Berwick, and Wooler, for the N., and Newcastle, Bellingham, Haltwhistle, Allendale, and North Shields, for the S. Newcastle and Berwick also return two members each, and Morpeth and Tynemouth (with North Shields) one each. Newcastle is the county and assize town, and sessions are held there as well as at Alnwick, Morpeth, and Hexham. The first ten of the above-named towns, with Glendale and Castle wards, are the seats of the poor-law unions into which the county is divided. The first nine and last two have new county courts. Northumberland has a population of 343,025, according to the census of 1861, of which the northern division contained 93,041, and the southern 249,984, showing an increase of 39,457 since the former census of 1851, when the population was 303,568. The county is governed by a lord lieutenant, about 32 deputy lieutenants, a high sheriff, and a body of magistrates about 200 in number. It is in the northern circuit and the north-eastern military district. For ecclesiastical purposes it contributes two archdeaconries (Lindisfarne and Northumberland) in the diocese of Durham and the province of York. Lindisfarne is subdivided into the rural deaneries of Alnwick, Bamburgh, Morpeth, Norham, and Rothbury. Northumberland contains the deaneries of Bellingham, Corbridge, Hexham, and Newcastle. The benefices in the county number about 135. Northumberland formed an earldom in the Saxon times, and was held by various persons during the reigns of the early Norman kings. In 1148, Henry, Prince of Scotland, was Earl of Northumberland, and he was succeeded by his son and heir Malcolm. In 1377 the title was bestowed on Henry Percy, and it has been held by members of that family for many generations, with the exception of John Nevill, Lord Montagu (1164), John Dudley, Earl of Warwick (1551), and George Fitz-Roy, son of Charles II. The present dukedom dates from 1766. The principal seats in the county are Alnwick Castle, of the Duke of Northumberland, and one of the grandest historical mansions in the kingdom, restored in 1858 by the late duke to its pristine magnitude as a border castle; Ford Castle, of the Marquis of Waterford; Howick Hall, of Earl Grey; Chillingham, of the Earl of Tankerville; Gallowhill and Bolam House, of Lord Decies; Eslington Park, of Lord Ravensworth; Kielder Castle, of the Duke of Northumberland; Belsay Hall, of Monck, Bart.; Capheaton Hall, of Swinburne, Bart.; Ewart Park, at Doddington, of St. Paul, Bart.; Matfen Hall, of E. Blackett, Bart.; Wallington Hall, of Trevelyan, Bart.; Riding House, of Lord Charles Beauclerk; Beaufront, of Cuthbert, Esq.; Belford, of Rev. J. D. Clarke; Biddlestone, of Walter Selby, Esq.; Blenkinson, of Col. J. B. Coulson; Bywell Hall, of W. Blackett Beaumont, Esq., M.P.; Callaley Castle, of E. J. Clavering, Esq.; Chesters House, of J. Clayton, Esq.; Chipchase Castle, of Ralph W. Grey, Esq., M. P.; Craster Tower, of T. W. Craster, Esq.; Dissington Hall, of E. Collingwood, Esq.; Gosforth House, of W. Smith, Esq.; Harbottle Castle, of P. F. Clenhell, Esq.; Little Harley Tower, of T. Anderson, Esq.; Heddon, of G. Burdon, Esq.; Hesleyside, of W. H. Charlton, Esq.; Kirkley Hall, of E. C. Ogle, M.A.; Lilburn Tower, of E. J. Collingwood, Esq.; Milburn Hall, of N. Bates, Esq.; Minster Acres, of H. C. Silvertop, Esq.; Mitford Castle, of Mrs. Osbaldeston; Morwick Hall, of W. Linskill, Esq.; Nunwick Hall, of Hunter Allgood, Esq.; Pallinsburn House, of Watson Askew, Esq.; Roddam, of W. Roddam, Esq.; Shawdon, of W. J. Pawson, Esq.; Swinburne Castle, of J. B. Coulson, Esq.; Westwodd Hall, of Rev. L. S. Orde; besides numerous other seats of landed gentry. The county is hunted by Lord Elcho's and the Tynedale packs of hounds. The principal lines of railway are the Newcastle and Berwick, a branch of the Great Northern which connects these two towns, running parallel to the coast, and passing through Morpeth and Belford, with branches to Newsham and Alnwick; the Berwick and Kelso line runs along the southern bank of the Tweed, leaving Northumberland near Carham; the Newcastle and Carlisle follows the course of the Tyne from Tynemouth to Haltwhistle, where a branch line from Alstone Moor joins it, and another line leaves it at Hexham, and runs along the North Tyne into Scotland, passing Bellingham, from which town there is a line recently constructed to Morpeth, and thence to Bedlington and Tynemouth, with two branches to North Seaton and Blyth; there is also a line from North Shields, joining the above at the Hartley Colliery. Another line is in contemplation, passing through the centre of the county near Rothbury and Wooler to join the Berwick and Kelso and Morpeth and Bellingham lines. The Edinburgh road passes through Newcastle to Morpeth, and so through Alnwick and Belford to Berwick, 62 miles. Another road to Edinburgh runs from Newcastle through Loughasley, Edlingham, and Wooler to Berwick, with branches to Branxton and Kelso, 63 miles. A third road traverses the vale of the Reed, and another road passes by Ponteland, Kirkharle, and Elsdon, to Kelso, 54 miles. The road up the valley of the Tyne passes Heddon, Bywell, Borbridge, Hexon, and Haydon Bridge, to Haltwhistle, 35 miles. The road down the Tyne valley passes Wallsend and Shields to Tynemouth, 8 miles. The Roman remains in this county are among the most interesting in the island, including those of the great wall, mentioned at the commencement of this article, and the forts by which it was defended, eighteen in number, but of these the sites of eleven only are within the county. There are remains of stations at Cousins House, or Wallsend (Segedunum), Newcastle (Tons Elii), Benwell Hill (Condercum), Halton Chesters (Vindobala), Rutchester (Hunnum), Walwick Chesters (Ciluruum) Carrowburgh (Procolita), Housesteads (Borcovicum), Little Chesters (Vindolana), Great Chesters AEsica), Caervoran (Magna), Ebchester (Vindomora), Corbridge (Corstopitum), Risingham. (Habitancum), Rochester (Brerneniurn), and Chew Green (Ad Fines). Of these remains the most perfect is that at Little Chesters; which covered a space of about 15 acres. There are traces of Roman camps at Whatton, Whitley Castle, near Kirkhaugh, Haltwhistle, Rosedon Edge, Kirknewton, Thirlwall Castle, Bolam, Bamburgh, Belford, Rothbury, Callaley, Glanton Pike, Bewick Hill, Hardan, Cornhill, and other places. There are also Druidical remains at Ilderton and Humbledon, and a British ruin on Yevering Bell Mountain, near Wooler, which last deserves a more particular mention. It consists of a large cairn surrounded by a stone wall 8 feet thick on the summit of the mountain, while around and lower down the mountain are the remains of buildings of a circular form, and of a grove of oak trees. In the same neighbourhood, on Homildon Hill, is a stone pillar to commemorate the battle fought there in 1402. The ruins of border castles are very numerous. Of these Norham and Wark on the banks of the Tweed are the most interesting. On the Till are Heton, Dudhowe, and Ford, the latter being still used as a residence. Prudhoe Castle, a seat of the Percys, stands on a hill on, the S. bank of the Tyne, near Ovingham. The keep and gate tower are still standing, but the remainder, including the chapel, is in ruins. In the same part of the county are Langley Castle, near Hexham, and Featherstone, Thirlwall, Bellister, and Blenkinsop, near Haltwhistle. Along the coast are Bamburgh, a structure of the highest antiquity, Dunstanborough, and Warkworth castles. Near Morpeth are Mitford, Bothal, Marnham, and Helsay castles. Others are Bellingham, Elsdon near Bellingham, Witton near Rothbury, now used as a parsonage, Staward le Peel, on the Allen, Willimotesweck, Simonsburn, Fowberry, Kielder, Cockley, Ayden, Halton, Welton, Harbottle, Hepple, Edlingham, Lilbourne, and Horton. Most of the large towns, as Newcastle, Alnwick, Berwick, Morpeth, and Tynemouth, possessed castles, of which there are some remains, and of which a description will be found in the articles on those towns. The religious houses of which there are remains are the following:-Blanchland Premonstratensian Abbey on the Derwent was founded in 1175; one of the towers is still used for the celebration of Divine service. There were also abbeys at Alnwick, Hulne, and Newminster, and priories at Brinckburn, near Rothbury, Tynemouth, and on Holy Island. On the banks of the Coquet at Warkworth there is a hermitage, consisting of two rooms and a chapel, cut out of the rock. The churches at Hexham, Elsdon, Bolam, Heddon, Ponteland, and Seaton Delaval are deserving of notice from their age."

 

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)
Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]

Search the GENUKI Gazetteer. [Click the Gazetteer link at the top of any page, not the search box which searches GENUKI pages.] 
The GENUKI Gazetteer covers the whole of England, Wales and Scotland and can be searched by place-name (or part of a place-name) or Ordnance Survey Grid Reference (six-figure, eg NZ183848). If there are multiple place-names matching the name you enter, you will initially be presented with a drop-down list of the matching place-names with their distances and bearings from London, England.

The GENUKI Church Database. [Click the Churches link at the top of any page, not the search box which searches GENUKI pages.]
This covers the whole of the UK and includes facilities for listing other churches and parishes within any specified distance of the parish church.

• The Vision of Britain site provides: A vision of Britain between 1801 and 2001. Including maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions. 
  - read the guide to searching places, units and locations 
  - check the sources on which this excellent site is based
• The downloadable PARLOC program is available from Dave & Chris Bennett's site.
• The Open Domesday project enables you to locates places (and their details) from the Domesday book.

GENUKI Gazetteer maintenance - Ireland

Basic information

All the Irish Civil Parishes and Townlands appear in the gazetteer, but for many we do not have an actual location. So as a starting point it uses the centre of the county when we have no location. Where we have a parish location we use that as a starting location for the townland. All very approximate but it helps guide reasearchers to the appropriate area and as we add locations it gets nearer and nearer to the real value. So most of this work is to achieve that. There is also other documentation describing how it is achieved.

• The status of each county section can be seen on the statistics page which helps identiy the amount of work required for each county.
• Details of the format of the source files and basic techniques are described in the Gazetteer maintenance page.
• Work already mostly done on developing the Irish counties is a useful adjunct.

Work required

The starting point for each county is to take a look at the Parishes column on the statistics page. If you hold the mouse over the numbers it explains what they represent. We want to get to the stage where there is just single number here where we've created a web page for each parish. If there is a name other than Phil Stringer in the Maintainers column then somebody is already working on this county.

In the end we want to get to the stage where there is nothing in the Approx column, and nothing in the No links column but it is easiest to do some of the tasks in a particular order.

Exact location for parish

In the Approx column, if there is a number marked Parishes with an approximate location this is the simplest one to resolve first. It is those parishes that had a location in our original data and location should be nearly right. Click the number for the names of the parishes, and click each name to see a page with links to online maps. Select This place shown on a Google map. Zoom the map appropriately and drag the icon to where you think the centre of that place is. You then have the correct value to go the csv file and can change the Approx field (column C)from Y to N. If you find the Google map does not take you to a place and ther is none nearby on the map, then perhaps then perhaps an error was made in the past. So use the instructions in the next step for finding the centre location of the parish.

Parishes where we need a location

These can be identified in the Parishes column, and are labelled Civil parishes for we don't yet have a location. Click the number and see the list of names. Click a name to take you to links to online maps, the ones in the south are much easier to do.

• North - the Irish Times site is your friend as it shows where they all are on a map. It is not always easy to relate this to the modern Google map as it does not show place names. But you need to open a Google map in another browser tab and pan it and move the marker to then centre of the area shown on the Irish Times. You then have the centre location of the parish.
• South - follow the link to the Irish Ordnance survey site. Use the search menu on the right, and select the county and then Historic parishes. That shows you a historic map of the parish along with its boundaries. Pan the map until the red cross is in the centre of the parish. Don't pan it again on subsequent clicks as it changes the location that you've just found!. I find it best then to go to the 'Preview map series' menu on the right and select 'Wind report' it changes to a modern map which is much easier to relate to the Google map. Zoom, without, panning so that you can see place names that you can relate to a Google map that you've open in another tab. So look at that the OS map with one eye and move the marker on the Google map to the same location. You then have the centre location of the parish.

Cut and paste the location (Lat/Lon) into column B in the csv file for that parish entry. Change the Approx field (column C) from Y to N. Now for all the townlands without a location in this parish, change the Approx field (column C) to P, and add the parish centre location to column B. This makes the most significant improvement to the gazetteer.

Places with no location at all

As updated versions of the csv file are updated the entries that need attention in the statistics file thankfully drop. At this point the Places with no location at all in the Approx column should now have disappeared. If not it is worth fixing these now as there will be very few left for this county. Sometimes you may see Market Town in column K with the name of a description in column L. Search the gazetteer for this place to read the description. It may tell you this is also a parish. If so copy column L into column L for the parish where it is missing and then you can probably just delete the duplicate Market Town entry. For others a Google search can help identify it and lead to a location.

Townlands with a parish centre location

We are now getting to the more tedious work, but once done it makes it much more useful for researchers. In the Approx column there is probably a significant number entitled Places with a parish location. This gives list of all the names which can be clicked to link to maps, such as Google centred on the parish centre, the value in that entry in the csv file. However going through this alphabetically can be slow and it isn't as easy to spot mistakes.

The easiest method I've found is to look in the csv file at all the entries in a parish, the smaller parishes being easier. Use the gazetteer to search for the entry for the parish and ask it to display all the places in the parish on a Google map. There will be townland names on the Google map which should match the ones you need to find. If none match then the parish location may be wrong! There do seem to townlands in other parishes with the same name as actual parishes. In the rare event that this has happened, then fix the parish centre location as described above. Drag and drop the marker on the map to find the location of the townlands and change the location field in the csv file and also change the Approx to N.

Start with the ones where we already have an approximate location as they show up reasonably easily to start with. Then compare the unknown townland names nearby on the Google map with the csv file. Where they match, drag and drop and you have another answer. Google does at times have two identical names close by. I tend to use the one in the larger font as that seems to be the older one. If both are the same size I drag to point mid-way between.

So what about the townlands that don't seem to be on the Google map? Well we can go to the Irish OS site and search for the townland and see where it is on the map. Be careful that the one you get is the one you want as there can be multiple townlands with the same name. Again a useful check is to look at adjacent ones on the map and see if they are in that parish in the cav file. The Irish OS technique can only be used for counties in the South as it doesn't have the countties and townlands in the search menu for the north. If it is a county in the North try the map provided by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. We haven't found a way to link into a location so you will need to zoom and pan to the parish location and then search for townland names. There does seem to be better coverage than Google, and it appears to have more accurate locations.

There will be some very small townlands that the Irish OS site doesn't have in the menu. If it is an island, then browse the Irish OS 6" historic map for the parish and pan and zoom across the wet areas. It is easy to find island names there. For tiny townlands that aren't islands, try a Google search as somebody may have described the location. Otherwise you are left with panning the historic 6".

There is also a technique that will find the townlands plotted on a Google map. Go to https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@?dg=dbrw&newdg=1 and put the place and county in the search bar. It normally finds it and shows a marker on a map with a rough outline of the townland. What you want is the location of the marker. So right click next to the marker and a menu will appear. Select What's here? and the lat/lon is placed in the search bar. I tend to compare that with other places in the parish to make sure it is nearby and so the right one.

In the larger parishes I find it useful to put in a framework of townlands, upload the csv file, and wait for the nightly update. Things are then clearer on the map the next day. There is less clutter and it is easier to finds ones that still need doing. You need to zoom in for Google to make some visible.

The remaining places with approximate locations

That ones that are left with approximate locations come from the CIA World Fact Book. Some will be duplicates of existing places, some geographic features and some places smaller than townlands. So take each one in the list, and select nearby places on a Google map.

• Look at nearby places marked on the map, and if a duplicate, remove it from the csv file.
• I look at all Cross Roads and tend to remove any that match the name of a nearby townland. If it is a new name check on the Irish OS map and zoom in when it usually becomes visible. You then know the exact location and can drag/drop the Google marker. It is also useful loohing at the historic 6" to see which parish it was in, and put that name in the Parish field. The CIA didn't always get the spelling right, so make any adjustments that are needed.
• If it is a named bridge, then I keep these setting the exact location, and filling in the Parish name.
• Then any small places I treat in a similar way.

It is during this phase that the towlands with parish boundaries running through them become visible as we have two or more markers at the same spot. Zoom in to make it clearer and perhaps drag one to the side to check the names and the parishes.

We only want the user to be presented with a single place at that location. We don't multiple gazetteer entries for any of these as we are trying to specify where they are, not to document an administrative hierarchy. But we can do our best to tell the user that it is in multiple parishes. So for the first entry for the townland put the names of the parishes it lies in, in the parish field separating the names with a colon ':' character (without quotes). Then delete the entries from the other parishes. We then have a single place listing all the parishes it is in.

Gotchas

There do seem to be some parishes split across counties. If you find one, get in touch with Phil as he has devised a technique to handle it but has not yet implemented it.

The Post Office's Postcode Finder

The Post Office no longer supports their postcode finder tool. Instead they advise: for the most up-to-date address and postcode details, please use your preferred mapping service such as Google Maps or Apple Maps, or use a search engine.

• The GENUKI Gazetteer covers the whole of England, Wales and Scotland and can be searched by place-name (or part of a place-name) or Ordnance Survey Grid Reference (six-figure, eg NZ183848). If there are multiple place-names matching the name you enter, you will initially be presented with a drop-down list of the matching place-names with their distances and bearings from London, England.
• A Gazetteer of British Place Names provided by the Association of British Counties. This comprehensive place-name index for Britain lists more than 50,000 places and gives the Ordnance Survey grid reference, the ancient or geographical County, and current local government information for each place name. There is comprehensive coverage of alternative spellings (including Welsh and Gaelic versions) and detailed notes specifically aimed at historians and genealogists. Appendices relate present day registration districts to local government areas and list those places which lay in a different "registration county" to their ancient County in the 19th century.
• The GB1900  Project - a crowd-sourced historical gazetteer based on the 1:10560 Ordnance Survey mapping of Great Britain
• GENUKI Church Database provides an online Parish Locator covering the whole of the UK. This includes facilities for listing other churches and parishes within any specified distance of the parish church.
• UK Placename Finder from Popular Archaeology includes details of 160,000 UK places.
• The archived copy of the BBC Domesday Project Reloaded website provides a method of searching the contents of the original BBC Domesday Gazetteer disk - a huge crowd-sourced description of the UK, dating from 1986 - by using the TNA Discovery Catalogue's results filtering facility.

Some historical gazetteers:

Lewis, Samuel. A Topographical Dictionary of England. 4 vols. London: S. Lewis and Co., 1831

Southall, Humphrey; Aucott, Paula; Fleet, Christopher; Pert, Tom; Stoner, Michael. GB1900: engaging the public in very large scale gazetteer construction from the Ordnance Survey “County Series” 1:10,560 mapping of Great Britain. Journal of Map & Geography Libraries, Vol. 13, No. 1, (2017), p. 7-28. [PDF]

Wilson, John M. The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales. Six Volumes. Edinburgh, Scotland: A. Fullerton, 1870

The National Gazetteer: A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands. Virtue and Co., London (1868) 3 vols. [Full text - vol 1 (A-E), vol. 2 (F-M), vol. 3 (N-Z)]

Gazetteer of the British Isles. Edinburgh, Scotland: John Bartholomew and Sons, Ltd., 1966.