Here Northumbria is taken to mean Northumberland, the northernmost county of England, and County Durham. The region possesses a distinctive style of folk music with a strong and continuing tradition. The region is particularly noted for its tradition of border ballads, the Northumbrian smallpipe (a form of bagpipe unique to north-east England) and also a strong fiddle tradition in the region that was already well-established in the 1690s. Northumbrian music is characterised by considerable influence from other regions, particularly southern Scotland and other parts of the north of England. Irish tunes are also much played in the region, as they are elsewhere. There has been a continuous tradition of traditional and distinctive Northumbrian styles since the 18th century - there have also been 'revivals' in the late nineteenth century and again in the mid-twentieth. More recently, Northumbrian folk music, and particularly the use of the Northumbrian pipes, has become one of the liveliest and most widely known forms of folk music in Britain.
Northumbria shares with southern Scotland the long history of border ballads, such as 'The Ballad of Chevy Chase'. It is also known for local dances, including the rapper dancing and Northumbrian clog dancing. Although many tunes are shared with other regions of England or other nations, there is often a distinct difference between a Northumbrian version of a tune and versions from elsewhere. For instance a simple Irish tune, 'The Chorus Jig', with three strains, appears in the Northumbrian tradition as 'Holey Ha'penny', an ornate five-strain variation set. A Scottish strathspey, 'Struan Robertson's Rant' appears, stripped of the Scotch snap, as a smallpipe tune, 'Cuckold come out of the Amrey', again a variation set. From 1770-2 William Vickers made a manuscript collection of local dance tunes, of which some 580 survive, including both pipe and fiddle tunes, many of which are from Scotland, southern England, Ireland and even France, revealing the very extensive and varied repertoire of local musicians at that time. .
