Holystone : Township Territory

The core of Holystone Township probably comprised the endowment of land bestowed on the Augustinian nunnery by the religious institution's aristocratic founder, presumably one of the Umfraville barons - lords of Redesdale and upper Coquetdale. The village itself may have developed in the late medieval period when the nunnery, in common with monastic institutions everywhere, gave up farming its lands directly and leased them out to tenants.

The nunnery's endowment probably embraced the full extent of the township of Holystone, as recorded in the 1539 Dissolution survey (see Selected Sources and Surveys 1). This township was not as extensive as the later township, which is described and mapped in volume XV of the County History (NCH XV (1940), 469-72) and which was the result of later amalgamation of several communities for administrative convenience.

In the 1604 survey, the parish of Holystone embraces the discrete settlements ('places') of Wood Hall, Yardhope (North and South), Lanterncleughs (i.e. along Lanternside Cleugh, near the present Campville), Woodhouses (beside the present Holystone Grange) and Harehaugh, as well as Holystone itself (see Selected Sources and Surveys 4). There is no explicit mention of townships in the survey, but each of the 'places' listed probably represents a small but distinct territorial township community.

Picture : Remains of Medieval Settlement At Holystone