Islandshire (Parish of Holy Island) was part of Co Durham because of the origins of the church on Holy Island. Norhamshire (the parish of Norham) was originally the hinterland to Norham Castle, a possession of the Bishop of Durham, which one can think of as the place where he fulfilled his obligations towards defending this region from Scottish attack. Norhamshire was the district from which the Castle would have been victualled etc, so it was important that it be under the direct temporal control of the Bishop of Durham, as part of his Palatine (Co Durham) and not only as part of his wider ecclesiastical Diocese Bedlingtonshire Parish of Bedlington (the first resting-place of St Cuthbert's remains after the Community left Lindisfarne) were together taken as forming "North Durham".
7 & 8 Vict., chap. 61 (1844). By this Act detached parts of counties, which had already for parliamentary purposes been amalgamated with the county by which they were surrounded or with which the detached part had the longest common boundary (2 & 3 Wm. IV, chap. 64—1832), were annexed to the same county for all purposes; some exceptions were, however, permitted.
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