The Horsley Holdings

There is no indication in any of the Inquisitions Post Mortem that the Umfravilles maintained any kind of manorial complex in the township nor did they need to. Their holdings in Alwinton could easily be administered from nearby Harbottle castle, the family’s main seat in the area and the headquarters of their liberty of Redesdale. However the Horsleys, who evidently possessed significant holdings in the vill, may have established some kind of manorial centre there.

The Horsleys were already established in the township by 1284 when Richard Horsley purchased a messuage and 3 acres of land there from John de Ludworth and Agnes his wife (NCH XV (1940), 420). In 1307 Richard had a grant of free warren on his demesne land there (i.e. royal permission to hunt small game - e.g. rabbit, hare, pheasant and partridge - on land kept directly in his own hands) and obtained licence to impark his wood of Alwinton.

Such references to a park and demesne land would be consisted with the existence of a Horsley manorial complex.  However the family’s main holding in the area was at Farnham, where they held at least a third of the vill, corresponding to High Farnham, plus Aldenshiels and Linbriggs further up the Coquet. They possessed a tower at Farnham in the 15th and 16th centuries and a stonehouse at Linbriggs which had been destroyed at some stage before 1541 (Leland Itin., cited in Bates 1891, 26; 1541 Survey: Bates 1891, 44; Selected Sources and Surveys no 4).

In contrast, no fortified building is recorded in Alwinton apart from the ‘lytle bastell house of stone’ which served as ‘the mansion of the vycaredge’, and it is evident that if the Horsleys did maintain a ‘capital messuage’ (manor house with ancillary buildings) in the township it must have been a small, unfortified affair. Armstrong depicts a gentry residence immediately to the north of the village in 1769, and ascribes ownership to ‘Mr Horsley’.

This is puzzling since the medieval Horsley lineage died out in the male line in the mid 16th century (shortly Bowes and Ellerker had completed their survey of the border’s defences in 1541) and there is no reference in the County History to any other branch of the family holding land in the township during the 18th century (cf. NCH XV (1940), 420, 436, 438-40).

The house depicted in 1769 may represent that held by the Selbys, but Armstrong’s label may suggest there was a local tradition that the Horsleys had previously possessed a house on the same site, as is also implied by Dixon - ‘the hall of the Horsleys and the Selbys has disappeared long ago and its site is now marked by a clump of ash trees and sycamores’ (1903, 217). This hall does not feature on the tithe map or 1st edition Ordnance Survey.