Alnwick is a market community in Northumberland, England, of which it is the standard county town. The population at the 2011 Census was 8,116. The town is on the south bank of the River Aln, 32 miles (51 kilometres) south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Scottish border, 5 miles (8 km) inland from the North Sea at Alnmouth and also 34 miles (55 km) north of Newcastle upon Tyne. The town dates to about advertisement 600, and flourished as a farming centre. Alnwick Castle was the home of the most effective medieval north baronial family, the Earls of Northumberland. It was a hosting post on the Great North Road between Edinburgh and also London, and more recently has come to be a dormitory community for close-by Newcastle-upon-Tyne [citation needed] The town centre has actually changed reasonably bit, yet the community has seen some development, with several real estate estates covering what had been pasture, as well as new factory and trading estate developments along the roadways to the south.