Great Tosson : Extent And Population
Some indication of the extent of the village in the late medieval period, after the Ogle family had acquired full possession, is provided by the Inquisition Post Mortem for Robert Ogle senior, in 1437, which found he died possessed 8 messuages, 6 cottages, 200 acres of land, 30 acres of pasture and a water mill in the vill of Great Tosson, plus 28 acres in the neighbouring vill of Falowleys (Hodgson 1828, 272).
The messuages are probably house plots related to substantial husbandlands - customary tenancies formerly known as bondage holdings and usually comprising about 24 acres of land (two bovates). The cottages were probably small holdings - houses and plots of no more than an acre or two for wage labourers or craft specialists. This tallies reasonably well with the 1632 Wellbeck Atlas maps which show eight messuages with attached tofts on the south side of the village and three cottages on the north side with no attached land.
There is no mention of a ‘capital messuage’ the label which would probably have been applied to the tower in such inquisitions, which might imply the tower had not yet been erected. However this is obviously an argument based on an absence of evidence with all the caveats that entails. Certainly there was need of such a defence at this time. Inquisitions of Ogle estates/holdings in 1406, 1416 and 1436/7 all declared that the manor of Hepple had been wasted by the Scots (NCH XV (1940), 384).
An impression of the population level of the township at the high medieval zenith of economic prosperity and settlement can be gauged from the Northumberland Lay Subsidy Roll in 1296, which listed fifteen taxpayers in Great Tosson, including the Master of ‘Alliriburn’ (St Leonard’s Hospital) (Fraser 1968, 171, no. 397; Selected Sources and Surveys no. 2).
In contrast only two taxpayers were listed in neighbouring Little Tosson (Fraser 1968, 165, no. 387). It is important to recognise that this did not represent every head of household in either community, let alone every adult inhabitant. Only the wealthier individuals, found on assessment to have sufficient disposable goods to be eligible for the tax, were listed.
