ABSTRACT
The pilot study for the research involved an extended analysis of fourteen adjacent parishes in north Northumberland. Together they represent one of the most deeply rural parts of England, with the Scottish border to their north and west and containing no town much larger than 2000 people at any point since 1801. No new churches were built or enlarged, although seven Church of England churches were renovated, three vicarages were built, and three Free Church chapels were renovated. Presbyterian churches characteristically reached a peak of Communion Roll membership in the 1860s or 1870s, and then declined rapidly, closing their first major church in 1903. The village and parish of Lowick well illustrates this problem of debt between rival Presbyterian churches in the 1880s. A dramatic switch in the balance between the Church of England and the Free Churches seems to have occurred in the course of the first half of the nineteenth century.
