Yeavering

Yeavering (/ˈjɛvəriŋ/) is a hamlet in the north-east corner of the civil parish of Kirknewton in the English county of Northumberland. It is located on the River Glen at the northern edge of the Cheviot Hills. It is noteworthy as the site of a large Anglo-Saxon period settlement that archaeologists have interpreted as being one of the seats of royal power held by the kings of Bernicia in the 7th century AD.

Evidence for human activity in the vicinity has been found from the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age periods, although it would be in the Iron Age that significant settlement first occurred at Yeavering. In this period, a heavily inhabited hillfort was constructed on Yeavering Bell which appears to have been a major settlement centre at the time.

According to Book 2 Chapter 14 of the Ecclesiastical History of the Venerable Bede (673–735), in the year 627 Bishop Paulinus of York accompanied the Northumbrian king Edwin and his queen Æthelburg to their royal vill (the Latin term is villa regia), Adgefrin, where Paulinus spent 36 days preaching and baptising converts in the river Glen. The placename Gefrin, which is a Brittonic name meaning 'hill of the goats', survives as the modern Yeavering.