Lordship in the Valley : the Barony of Alnwick

The eastern more lowland portion of Alwinton parish fell within a different lordship, the barony of Alnwick, held by the Vesci lineage. This portion contained the eight townships of 'Chirmundesden', Biddlestone, Clennell, Netherton, Burradon, Sharperton, Farnham and Alwinton. All of these were already recorded as separate localities in the feudal aid of 1242, preserved in the Book of Fees, and were evidently territorial vills or townships by this date (Liber Feodorum II, 1117-9, 1126-7; Selected Sources and Surveys no. 1).

Three more townships are recorded in this area during the medieval era, formed when new villages or hamlets were established on the territory of existing townships as the rural population expanded and settlement density intensified. Thus Newhall and Newton were carved out of Biddleston whilst Foxton emerged in the eastern part of Chirmundesden Township, but all three of these newcomers had apparently ceased to exist by the end of the medieval period. The eight original vills listed in 1242 were also all members of the so-called 'Ten towns of Coquetdale', along with Ingram and Fawdon in the Breamish valley, namely the ten townships in the Alnwick barony which were subinfeudated to the Umfravilles.

The Vescis were probably granted their barony by Henry I (1100-1135), in common with the great majority of Anglo-Norman barons established in Northumberland (Kapelle 1979, 199, 207, 284, 287). They were certainly well-established by 1166 when Henry II ordered all his barons, or 'tenants-in-chief', to render account of the service by which they held their lands and the holdings of all knights enfeoffed by them (Liber Niger Scaccarii, 329-39; cf. Hedley 1968, 21, 209; 1970, 90, 272). In the return he made for the barony, William de Vesci listed a total of 13 knights' fees created before 1135, plus a couple more established in the intervening thirty or so years, making it the single largest of all the Northumbrian lordships in these terms.

The earliest Vesci baron of Alnwick was probably Eustace`fitz John, William's father, one of the 'principal agents of (the first) Henry's government in Northumberland' (Kapelle 1979, 207). Eustace witnessed his first act concerning Northumberland in 1119 and by 1121 he certainly held land north of the Tyne (Kapelle 1979, 287, n.80), suggesting that the barony was established around this time, when Henry I was finally tightening the Anglo-Norman grip on Northumberland, fifty or so years after the initial conquest .

The Vesci line was extinguished when William de Vesci III died leaving no legitimate male heirs in 1297. Possession of the barony of Alnwick then passed to Anthony Bek, bishop of Durham, and in 1310 the bishop in turn sold the barony to Henry de Percy, who was establishing his family's position on the border at that stage (Bean 1954; Tuck 1971, 33 - 5). Thereafter the Alnwick barony has remained in Percy hands to this day, forming the core of their Northumbrian holdings.