Extract from the Sanitary Report of 1849 by Rawlinson

Morpeth is a market-town and borough situated on the east coast of England, about five miles westward from the German Ocean, 291 miles north and west from London, but by railway 321 ¾ miles, and 108 ¼ miles by railway from Edinburgh. The market day is Wednesday, when a considerable quantity of corn, and lean cattle and sheep are sold; previous to the opening of the railway it was one of the largest cattle markets in England…

It is likely that as a village Morpeth was inhabited long before the Norman Conquest. In old writings the name is variously spelled, as ‘More-path’; and sometimes it appears in the Latinized form ‘Morpathia’ – the town on the path over moor. William the Norman, after the Conquest, gave a grant of Morpeth to one of his followers, William de Merlay, whose descendants were lords of Morpeth until the family merged in the Greystocks, Dacres, and the Howards, the present barons of Morpeth. Arms were granted to the town during the reign of Edward VI., in the year 1552; they have the appropriate motto of;

Inter Sylvas et Flumina Habitans - (dwelling amongst woods and rivers)

View of Morpeth