Alwinton : Potential For Further Research

Alwinton is a bifocal village, with the main settlement located to the north and a smaller hamlet around St Michael’s Church to the south.

The history of Alwinton is bound up with that of the so-called ‘Ten Towns of Coquetdale’, of which it was the principal parochial centre (serving eight of the townships, the other detached pair falling in Ingram Parish in the Breamish Valley to the north).

There are many unresolved questions regarding the origins and development of this territorial grouping. Their history is intimately involved with development of de Vesci (Alnwick Barony) and, in particular, Umfraville lordship in the liberty of Redesdale. However the suggestion that the territorial grouping may have originated at an earlier date, either as part of an early medieval multiple estate, or ‘shire’ centred on the Breamish Valley (‘Bromic’) or as part of similar territory centred on Harbottle, remains unproven.

The surrounding landscape of Upper Coquetdale contains a wealth of archaeological sites, belonging to a wide variety of periods, including a hillfort and a subsequent Romano-British settlement on Gallow Law, which hints at an earlier form of community in this part of the valley.