Falstone is a small village and civil parish in Northumberland, England, just east of Kielder Water. The village is from the Anglo–Scottish border. Much of the village is clustered around its two churches, St. Peter's Anglican and the United Reformed Church.
Falstone holds a popular annual agricultural show.
Etymology
The name
Falstone is first attested in 1255, as
Faleston. This derives from the
Old English words
fealu 'yellow, grey, mottled' and
stān 'stone; thus it originally meant something like 'speckled stone'.
[ The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society, ed. by Victor Watts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), , s.v. FALSTONE.]
The district of Falstone also once contained a place called Powtreuet, first attested in 1325 as Poltrerneth, whose name comes from the Brittonic language.[Bethany Fox, ' The P-Celtic Place-Names of North-East England and South-East Scotland', The Heroic Age, 10 (2007), appendix.]
History
On 24 October 1985, near the village, Luftwaffe
Panavia Tornado '44+45' of Jagdbombergeschwader 32 crashed, with two aircrew killed, taking part in 'Operation Mallet Blow', Hans Joachim Schimpf and Holger Zacharias.
[ Times Monday July 27 1987, page 3][ 1985 air incident][ IWM]
Governance
Falstone is in the parliamentary constituency of Hexham. Falstone has its own Parish council.
Falstone parish was created in 1811 when the ancient parish of Simonburn was divided by Act of Parliament.
Transport
Falstone was served by Falstone railway station on the Border Counties Railway which linked the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, near
Hexham, with the Border Union Railway at Riccarton Junction. The first section of the route was opened between
Hexham and
Chollerford in 1858, the remainder opening in 1862. The line was closed to passengers by
British Railways in 1956.
External links
