Alwinton

In the medieval period, Alwinton was often described as the leading settlement of the “ten towns of Alwinton”. Whatever their origins, by the eighteenth century they were more frequently described as townships similar to those in the parish of Elsdon in Redesdale. Although all but two (Ingram and Fawdon) were located in the parish of Alwinton, several of them, Burradon, Farnham, Netherton and Peels, are outside the boundaries of the present Northumberland National Park.

Among those settlements in Alwinton Parish which do lie within the National Park, including Biddlestone, Clennell, Fairhaugh and Linbriggs, the largest, historically, were Alwinton and Sharperton, the former having the parish church as well as a couple of inns, while the latter had several tradesmen resident in it. The majority of the population earned their living from upland pastoral agriculture.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ownership of land in these townships was dominated by the Selby family, whose home was at Biddlestone Hall. Returns to the Parliamentary survey of the ownership of land carried out in the 1870s indicate that the Selbys owned about 30,000 acres of land at that time, all of which was located in upper Coquetdale. Most of this property was in the form of upland sheep farms.

Other significant landowners were the Fenwicke-Clennells of Harbottle and the Wilkinson family who had a large house at Clennell as well as property at Sheraton in County Durham. As explained above, the Selbys experienced severe financial difficulties in the early twentieth century and were forced to sell all their estates by 1914. Over 8000 acres was purchased by the Army for its ranges while the remainder was disposed of to a number of buyers. Chief among these were Farquhar Deuchar, a brewer, who bought Biddlestone Hall and approximately 1500 acres of land and H T Beavan who purchased a number of sheep farms amounting to several thousand acres.

For a number of years these new proprietors continued the farming and sporting traditions of their predecessors, but they eventually began to be affected by the problems of economic depression that afflicted all agricultural activities in the 1920s and 1930s. Consequently when the War Office decided to expand the Ranges in the 1940s, many landowners were content to sell substantial portions of their property.

Between 1940 and 1943, the Army was able to add over 19,000 acres in upper Coquetdale to the land that it had purchased before the First World War. Further purchases in the 1950s added nearly 3000 acres to this total. Although the Army leased out the land for farming, there was some enlargement of the holdings so that the number of houses and jobs diminished. In addition there was also some sale of land for forestry purposes.

These structural changes in land ownership together with the late twentieth century problem of low returns to hill farming have meant that the population of Alwinton has fallen significantly. Tourism has been encouraged, but how successful this has been is not yet clear.

Problems of communication still exist and the decline in population has seen the closure of village schools and shops which in turn pose further difficulties for the remaining families. A challenge remains to map these changes, to describe and analyse them and use the Historic Atlas as a starting point for placing them in the context of the past.