Acklington is a small village in

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

, England. It is situated to the south-west of Amble, inland from the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

coast. It is served by Acklington railway station. The name is Anglo-Saxon Old English meaning 'farmstead of Eadlac's people'. Acklington won the title of Northumberland Village of the Year in 2007. It has a parish church, St John the Divine, and a Church of England primary school. To the north of Acklington is Morwick Hall, a Grade II listed Georgian house. It was built by the

Grey Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. It is the color of a cloud-covered s ...

family of Howick; in the 1850s it was owned by William Linskill, a former High Sheriff of Northumberland. A World War II FW3/22 pillbox is located near the B6345. A dam was constructed on the River Coquet in 1776, causing problems for the river's salmon population. Many years later, the eccentric naturalist Frank Buckland erected a sign directing the salmon to another stream.

Acklington Air Station

RAF Acklington Royal Air Force Acklington, simply known as RAF Acklington, is a former Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force List of former Royal Air Force stations, station located southwest of Amble, Northumberland and north of Newcastle upon Tyne. The a ...

was an airfield close to the coast which opened during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. It was also used as the base for an Armament Practice Camp with the aircraft operating over Druridge Bay. After the war it became a training base. The RAF station closed in 1976. The airfield site is now the home of two prisons: HMP Acklington houses adults, while HMPYOI Castington houses young offenders.

Climate

Transport

;Railway

Acklington is served by Acklington railway station which is located on the

East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between its northern terminus at and southern terminus at . The key towns and cities of , , , , and are on the line. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Grea ...

, although in the 2025 timetable the only trains calling at Acklington were one (evening) northbound and two (morning and evening) southbound local services operated on Mondays to Saturdays by Northern. The line was opened by the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway, then joining the North Eastern Railway, it became part of the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after London, Midland and Scottish Railway, LMS) of the "Big Four (British railway companies), Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It ope ...

during the Grouping of 1923. The line then passed on to the Eastern Region of British Railways on

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...

in 1948.

References

Parish Church of St John Acklington - geograph

External links

Local history
{{authority control Villages in Northumberland Civil parishes in Northumberland