Akeld : Remodelling The Township : Landholding, Farm Tenancies And Field Enclosure
The number of households and tenancies listed in the documentary evidence relating to the township, summarised by Dixon (1985, II, 21-2), implies that the village retained its pre-existing, essentially medieval, form throughout the 17th century. Thus the Hearth Tax return of 1665 recorded eighteen households (PRO E179/158/103).
In the Wooler Court Roll of 1690 there were eleven tenants, nine of whom appear in the 1693 rental when eight leaseholders and five cottagers were recorded (NRO ZBM 5 & NRO 424 Box 4A). Likewise, much of the earlier field layout may still have continued in use at this stage since the township had evidently not yet been improved and enclosed.
It was stated in 1713 that:
The various parcels of land belonging to them (the two landowners) lay intermixt and in common, which is not only a great discouragement and bar to the improvement of them, but as the tenants are continually trespassing upon each other, the produce of the crops of hay and corn are greatly lessened and thereby the tenements stock reduced to their great impoverishment who also being many in number on so small an estate are all in low and mean circumstances.
The fundamental transformation of these associated settlement - and field patterns probably occurred in the mid 18th century. In 1713 Ralph Wallis sold his quarter of Akeld, plus the neighbouring township of Coupland, to John Ogle of Newcastle upon Tyne, who bought the estate on behalf of his son, Chaloner Ogle. On acquiring the Akeld estate, Sir Chaloner Ogle attempted to collect the scattered strips into two coherent holdings, but it was not until 1741 that an agreement was reached with the other landowner, Samuel Kettilby of Berwick, to divide the township into a series of compact tenancies. Kettilby had purchased the three quarters of Akeld which had belonged to the Grey lineage for the sum of £4200 in 1733 and thereafter had vainly sought to acquire the remaining portion of the township, offering Sir Chaloner Ogle £1800 for the estate in 1737 (NCH XII (1922), 234, 236). As a result of this remodelling of the holdings the number of tenants of Akeld recorded in the Wooler Court Rolls declined from nine to four between 1737 and 1745 (Dixon 1985, II, 22).
Early in the following century Akeld did at last become concentrated into a single estate, in the hands of Matthew Culley, of Denton in Teesdale, who bought the larger estate towards the end of the 18th century and completed his acquisition of the township when he subsequently inherited the smaller of the two estates.
The role of Matthew Culley, with his brother George, in improving Northumbrian agricultural practices is well known. One result was the introduction of new crops, including fodder crops such as turnips, into the rotational cycle to increase the number of livestock, particularly sheep, which could be maintained and thereby ensure proper manuring of the land (cf. Barnwell & Giles 1997, 68-9). At Akeld, the Culleys' work is perhaps reflected in the fact the township was later famous for turnips, of which the yield was considerable, as noted in Kelly's Directory for 1910 (1910, 177). More evident today is the impact of Matthew Culley's tenure on the layout and appearance of the village.
