I have not read this for some time because I got a bit stuck and decided to do the Manor House and the Church, which will follow.
There will be more of this but I would appreciate any comments now.
History
– third attempt.
If you were to visit Kirkheaton
Northumberland in 2019, you might travel north from Newcastle to the village of
Belsay and a mile beyond you would take a left turn onto a minor road which
would take you past the walls of the Belsay estate and on, due west, for 5
miles, the last ¾ of a mile being on single track with passing places. Then you
would arrive at the large and historic Village Green.
This is still the size of the original
medieval Green and surrounded by the original cottage and farm houses, though
they have all been enlarged and some rebuilt over the centuries. The house at
the top is new, though there are signs on old maps of a small building in the
area. It is near the ancient Manor House. It is unusual to find a cottage in
the middle of a medieval green but there is one here and it appears on old maps.
There were never trees on Northumbrian greens and those you see today were all
planted during the 20th century. Outside of the circle round the
village green, as you would expect, there are more houses but they are not
obvious and do not detract from the original. There are remarkably few and it
is only recently that the planners have accepted that the community must grow
to survive.
The origin of the settlement of Kirkheaton
is unknown, the first known mention in old papers being in 1290. However, the
Roman Road known as the Devil’s Causeway, runs through the eastern end of the
parish and has signs of bell pits on either side, so there could have been some
form of settlement in Roman times. The Devil’s Causeway is thought to have been
older than Hadrian’s Wall. It starts just north of the Wall close by Corbridge,
quite some distance south of Kirkheaton and runs north to Berwick. The bell
pits were a very early form of mining for coal, so named because of their
shape.
At the time Kirkheaton was first mentioned
there were two separate places, Little Heton and Caldstrother. There are
outlying farm houses, though they may have been built much later. The site of Caldstrother
is unknown but it is often mentioned in connection with Kirkheaton. It was almost certain to have been to the west
of Kirkheaton, as the land to the East is better farm land and no signs are to
be found while to the West it is wilder and with modern methods, such as
Drones, it may be possible to identify it. When I arrived in 1981 villagers
spoke of a lost village to the west.
Something of the size of both places can be
guessed at from the Subsidy Roll of 1296 when there were 15 people mentioned in
Kirkheaton and 6 in Caldestryer (one of the several spellings used in old
papers). Subsidy Rolls are records of taxation in England
made between the 12th and 17th centuries. Ownership at that time is
vague though it seems that Walter de Bolam and John de Cambhou were involved. In
those days, people tended to call themselves after the places where they lived,
in this case Bolam and Cambo.
The chapel, (St. Bartholomew’s Church today),
was held by The Prior and Convent of Hexham Priory (Hexham Abbey today). In
1314 the Priory “obtained a licence to acquire the moiety (half) of the manor
of Little Heaton from John de Cambhou and in 1323 to obtain land from Hilbert
de Babynton, (another local place now Bavington), William Heeson and Robert,
son of Hugh de Cambhowe”.
Gilbert and John de Middleton separately
owned land in Chuldstrothre and West Heaton, another old name for Kirkheaton. The
Middleton family still owns an estate in and around Belsay and Belsay Hall and
Castle belong to English Heritage. In 1317 there
was a rebellion against Edward II in which the Middletons were involved, so
Gilbert Middleton was known as a Rebel and his lands were confiscated. Edward II
granted a toft and 10 acres in Chuldstrothre to Thomas de Heton and in 1333
John de Crumbwell (Constable for the Tower of London) died seized of Lands in
Caldstruther, and in 1335 Sir John Strivelyn of Belsay obtained grant of lands
of John Middleton (rebel). The receipt to the Bailiffs is held at Kew. Sir
John, in 1373, by deeds entailed certain lands in Caldstrother, “which is a
hamlet of Kirkheaton”. After Sir John died, the lands reverted to Sir John de
Middleton.
In 1479, the survey of the possessions of
the Priory, contained in the Black Book of Hexham tells us that at Kirkheaton
and Caldstrother, seven tenants who held of the prior, by homage and suit of
court, thirty-three who held husbandlands , and eight cottagers. The land
occupied by the last two groups totalled 1169 acres.
The last mention of Caldstrother is in
1505/6, when “Sir Thomas Ilderton, son and heir of Thomas Ilderton, lately
deceased, granted Thomas Shaftow.....and also all those lands, etc , in the
vill territory, and fields of Caldstroder.”
(Vill – Territorial unit or division under the feudal system, consisting
of a number of houses or buildings with their adjacent lands, more or less
contiguous and having a common organisation; corresponding to the Anglo-Saxon
tithing and to the modern township or civil parish.)
Some idea of the size of Kirkheaton can be
gained from the Muster Roll of 1538. This showed that there were 5 men – able
with horse and harness and 10 with neither horse nor harness, so it was not a
large community. Information about this period is fragmentary, because it was a
very unsettled time with the Border Reiving. If the Scots were not coming over
the border and thieving, raping and burning, the people of the Northern areas
were doing the same on the Scottish side of the border. Some information can be
found in the records of some of the big families, such as the Swinburnes and
Herons. There are references to Kirkheaton in the ‘Swinburne (Capheaton)
Manuscripts’ and it is known that Matthew Heron, a younger son of the Herons of
Chipchase, built The Manor House in about 1570 as a Bastle, or fortified house.
After the union of England and Scotland things gradually became more settled
and the Herons acquired much of the land.
By 1663 a Matthew Heron owned 6/7th
of the “lands of the Township”, whilst John Atkinson owned the remaining 1/7th
so that when the enclosures came in 1722, 1/7th of the land to the
northwest of the village was allocated to a Jacob Atkinson (probably a son or
grandson of John) together with a house on the South side of the village, in
which he was living. This remains to this day as Kirkheaton Farm and includes
Black Hill, now ruined. Black Hill had a single room on the east end and a byre
for the cattle on the west and may have been occupied by a shepherd. There are
also signs of outbuildings. It stands on a bluff overlooking a marshy area,
where the River Blythe rises and is exposed to all winds.
The Reiving stopped early in the 17th
Century and life will have changed to be more peaceful.
Farming
could continue without fear of losing your stock to the Scots but ownerships
continued to change. For instance, the coal mines which had belonged to the
Priory and thence to the King, were, by 1689 were owned by Sir William Blackett
of Wallington.
In about 1664, ownership of the township of
Kirkheaton finally passed from the Herons, when Matthew Heron sold it to Sir
Richard Stote of Stote’s Hall, Newcastle. He died unmarried in 1707 and left
all his estates to his three younger sisters, Margaret, Frances and Dorothy.
The last survivor was Dame Dorothy Windsor, who had married Dixie Windsor,
third son of Thomas, first earl of Plymouth. She was responsible for rebuilding
the Church which was roofless and adding a wing to the Manor House. She died a
widow, childless and intestate, owning, amongst other estates, 1,759 acres in
Kirkheaton, including Kirkheaton Hall and a land sale colliery which had
probably been acquired from the Blacketts. Dame Dorothy’s death was followed by
much litigation.
The
following is a summary of the events taken from the Crasters’ papers (Craster,
Archaeologia Achana Vol xxxi, 4th series) – “Six weeks
before this wedding (Feb 3, 1757) an aged widow died in Upper Brook St,
childless and intestate. Her name was Dame Dorothy Windsor. She was the last
surviving child of that Sir Richard Stote who had helped to make John Craster’s
grandfather, sheriff of Northumberland in Charles ll reign, and whose mother,
Jane Bewick, had for her grandfather an Edmund Craster who had owned Craster in
the days of Elizabeth. So she was 3rd cousin once removed to John.
What was also much to the point, she owned large and profitable estates in the
South of Northumberland. These comprised 1,056 in Long Benton, 296 in
Willington and 89 acres in Jesmond. John’s genealogical researches gave
prospect of yielding a substantial dividend. He asserted his claim to be Dame
Dorothy’s next-of-kin and heir at law, while the Earl of Northumberland, the
Earl of Carlisle and Sir William Blackett all asserted that there were no heirs
at all and claimed various portions of the estates as escheats. More than one
suit was started in the Court of Exchequer, and legal proceedings dragged on
for three years, threatening to involve the litigants in considerable expense.
John Craster thought it wise to come to terms with Sir Robert Bewicke and make
common cause with him against the other parties. They agreed to act in concert
and to share expenses and benefits. Events justified the Craster-Bewicke
partnership. Judgement was given in their favour and they entered into
possession of the coveted estates as tenants in common”
In 1781 there was another court case
disputing the title of the Crasters and Bewickes to the Windsor estates by
Stote Manby, who claimed nearer kinship to the Stotes. Stote Manby was a
descendant of Sir Richard Stote’s brother Cuthbert. He obtained a verdict in
his favour, but he compounded his claim by accepting £300 a year for life from
the Bewicks and Crasters. In 1855-7 there was yet another court case brought by
a grandson of Stote Manby but it was unsuccessful.
Until 1838 the joint ownership continued but
then Thomas Wood Craster began to sell off farms and by 1849 he had realised
his share of the surface rights in the Windsor estates while retaining the coal
royalties. The Bewickes continued to own the Kirkheaton Estate until 1924.
During the Napoleonic wars, a letter was
written to William Loraine of Kirke Harle, which resulted in his writing, on
September 18th 1803 to Mr Robson of High Heaton the following letter: He needed to know the number of Carts that
would be required for the Removal of the Infirm and Children in the Parish and
the number of carts that would be left for the other uses of Government. He
instructed Mr Robson – “You will have the Number Station marked upon the Carts
appropriated for the Conveyance of the Infirm etc and send me the Name of the
Owner of the carts and the name of the drivers. You will appoint if possible a
Blacksmith and a Carpenter with their Tools to each Twelve Carts and let me
know their names and also appoint a few steady Farmers who are unfit from age
to be called into actual Service and who will engage to mount themselves and
provide some Arms for the Defence of the Carts from Domestic Plunderers. Sir
John is of the opinion that the marking of the Cattle and Sheep should by no
means be neglected with all possible dispatch. Every person should put their
own private mark and also a publick one. The publick one in your Parish should
be on the Shoulder of the sheep behind the Neck the figure 9 and on the Cattle
the same figure on the left buttock near the top of the Back” (I have included this letter , even though I
am not sure whether it was to Kirkheaton or Capheaton because I find it of
historical interest!)
The Rev. Humphrey Brown took up residence in
the Manor House in 1770. He was Chaplain and also curate of Throckrington. A
series of Vicars of Throckrington continued to live in the Manor House until
1900, when repairs were needed and the current owner, one of many Calverly
Bewickes, was not prepared to do them. (For more on the Manor and on the Church,
see the chapters on them.)
The population in the 19th
century was quite high – 1801-147, 1811-152, 1821-140, 1851-153, 1881-133,
1891-133, 1931-134 – but in 1951 it was only 70. The reason for the drop was
the closure of the Brandy Well mine in 1927 (?) and the start of a decline in
people working on the land, which no doubt accounts for the decrease to 51 in
the 1991 census. By 2000 it had dropped even further to 46. At the time of
writing in 2019, there are 56, with one
house empty and 2 more to be built in the near future. Also there are a number of young
children, so the future looks good.
There are 5 farms or houses that are mentioned in registers
but no longer exist. Black Hill, above the source of the River Blythe, is still
there but now a ruin. Fairshaw was a farm between the Ingo road and Mount Huly
Farm. The trees surrounding it are still there. A researcher into Thomas
Bewick's ancestry found that another Thomas Bewick lived in Cross Stone House,
Kirkheaton, while Pilfield Hall and Redwell Hall are mentioned in Registers.
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