Great Tosson : Potential For Further Research

Great Tosson preserves a standing medieval tower coupled with early 17th century historic mapping, which allows the form of the early modern village and its wider township landscape components to be restored with considerable confidence. The early modern pattern in turn sheds much light on the likely medieval layout of Great Tosson village and Tosson township.

The surrounding landscape of upper Coquetdale contains a wealth of archaeological sites of a wide variety of periods. The looming presence of Tosson Burgh hillfort hints at an earlier form of community in this part of the valley.

The Anglian burial finds from Great Tosson provide a rare piece of evidence for the early medieval period in upland Northumberland, and hint that this locality may have been a focus of community at an earlier date in the medieval period than indicated by the earliest 12th century documentary evidence.

In addition to township villages of Great Tosson and Little Tosson, and the hospital site of Allerdene (Alriburne), next to Ryehill, the site of a further, late-medieval/early modern township village or hamlet, Fernelow, can be identified in the locality, 2.3 km WSW of Great Tosson at NZ 005 998 - now completely deserted.