Kilham, Northumberland

Kilham
Northumberland
Kilham Valley
Location
Grid reference:	NT880332
Location:	55°35’34"N, 2°11’27"W
Data
Population:	131  (2001)
Post town:	Mindrum
Postcode:	TD12
Dialling code:	01890
Local Government
Council:	Northumberland
Parliamentary constituency:	Berwick-upon-Tweed

Kilham is a hamlet in the north of Northumberland, on the south bank of the Bowmont Water and close up to the bounds of Roxburghshire. Kilham is to be found 8 miles west of Wooler in Northumberland, 12 miles east of Kelso in Roxburghshire and 17 miles southwest of Berwick upon Tweed.

The hamlet is on the northern edge of the Northumberland National Park in Glendale. Kilham consists of a small group of agricultural dwellings and is overlooked by Kilham Hill and the northern limits of the Cheviot Hills.

The parish of Kilham had a population of 131 in 2001, and includes the hamlets of Howtel and Pawston, along with the former upland township of Coldsmouth and Thompson's Walls.

Kilham had a turbulent history in the dark days of war and rieving: standing on the border with Scotland, it suffered from repeated incursions for the north, and was often destroyed and laid waste. The situation was considered serious enough for a report to be made to the Privy Council of England, about a raid in 1597 which had resulted in the death of several villagers. In later, more peaceful times, the area developed into an agricultural backwater, which was gradually opened up by the construction of roads and railways.

Name

The name 'Kilham' first appears in documents in 1177 as Killum, which is usually thought to derive from the Old English Cylnum, meaning "kilns" (dative plural). The name was still spelt Killum as late as the 18th century.

Geography

Kilham stands on the south bank of the Bowmont Water in Glendale, at the mouth of Kilham Burn. The parish is a morrland area of dispersed farmsteads and small hamlets, of which Kilham is the largest.

Kilham Hill

Glendale has a clearly defined valley floor and pronounced raised terraces. The area is relatively well wooded, with both coniferous plantations and broadleaved woodland on the surrounding hills, and areas of alder woodland and pollarded willow along the valley floor. The river forms part of the 'River Tweed Site of Special Scientific Interest', designated in 2001 due to its biological interest, and the 'River Tweed Special Area of Conservation' for the biological interest within the river system.

To the south, the area is dominated by Kilham Hill, 1,109 feet high, and above Longknowe, in the valley of Kilham Burn, is the former township of Coldsmouth and Thompson's Walls, lying in the northern limits of the Cheviot Hills. The geology of the upland area is composed of Devonian igneous rocks, and the landscape is characterised by smooth rolling hills and extensive plateaux of semi-natural acidic grass moor, known locally as white grass. There are areas of heather moorland and, in wetter parts, blanket bog dominated by dwarf shrubs, sedges, sphagnum moss and cotton grass. Coniferous woodland plantations are common on the upper valley slopes, with the remnants of broadleaved woodland, gorse scrub and meadow grassland in the steep sided valleys. The area reaches a height of 1,358 feet at Coldsmouth Hill.

On the opposite side of the dale, to the north, are the hamlets of Howtel and Thornington. Much of this area consists of glacial gravel, and both sand and gravel were extracted at Thornington. Upstream on the Bowmont Water, the former township of Pawston lies to the south west.

Hamlets and farmsteads

• Kilham, the largest hamlet of the parish, on the B6351 snd the Bowmont Water.
• Longknowe, a farmstead on a burn beneath Longknowe Hill, up a dead-end lane from Kilham.
• Pawston, west of Kilham, on ther meadows between the Bowmont Water and Pawston Hill.
• Shotton, at the very edge of the county, just 600 yards or so east of Yetholm Mains (Kirk Yetholm parish) in Roxburghshire. This was once large mediæval hamlet, first recorded in 1296.
• Thornington, on the B6351 north across the Bowmont water from Kilham itself.

Churches

Although an early chapel is believed to have existed in Kilham, the local parish church, dedicated to St Gregory the Great, is at Kirknewton. The site has been used for Christian worship since the 11th century, and the present church dates from the 12th century. It was restored in 1860.

A Scottish Presbyterian chapel, with seating for 350 worshippers, was built at Howtel in 1850, but this is no longer in use.

History

Though remote, history has not left this little corner of the land alone. This parish has a record in its hills of ancient habitation. There are several well preserved Bronze Age settlements and a cairn on Kilham Hill, excavated in 1905, was found to conceal a cist containing burnt bones, thought to date from the period. A bronze rapier blade dating from 1500–1000 BC, found near the Bowmont Water in the 19th century (now in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh). Iron Age hillforts are found Bowmont Hill, Kilham Hill, Pawston Camp, and Wester Hill. An enclosure at Barley Hill, in the north of the parish, is considered to have been a small farmstead, consisting of roundhouses and adjacent stockyards. A well preserved settlement at Longknowe is thought to be Romano-British, although this part of Northumberland lay beyond the Roman frontier.

Dark Ages and Middle Ages

In 651 King Oswine granted 12 named tunas, or townships, including Shotton, and perhaps Thornington, along with a large tract of land beside the Bowmont Water, to St Cuthbert. The Northumbrian royal site of Yeavering is just to the east of here.

Edge of the national park

By the 13th century, Kilham formed one of the constituent manors of the barony of Wark on Tweed. The barony had been established by King Henry I, and granted to Walter L'espec, one of his principal agents of government in the north. The lord of the manor was Michael of Kilham, although he did not possess the whole township, part being held by Kirkham Priory in Yorkshire, which had been founded by the barons of Wark. In 1269 it was recorded that the priory had 1,000 sheep feeding on the "great moor" of Kilham. Land at Shotton and Coldsmouth was held by Kelso Abbey in Roxburghshire. The manorial lordship passed through various hands to the Greys of Chillingham Castle, who eventually consolidated ownership of the whole township, in the 17th century acquiring the former Kirkham Priory holdings, which had earlier been sold by the crown after the dissolution of the monasteries.

Until modern times, Kilham, Coldsmouth and Thompson's Walls, Howtel and Pawston were four of 15 townships in the ancient parish of Kirknewton, one of the largest parishes in England.

Early modern period

In 1513 the bloody Battle of Flodden Field was fought a few miles to the north of Kilham.

A bastle, or fortified farmhouse, was built at the north end of the village in the late 16th or early 17th centuries.

Until the accession end of King James I in 1603, Kilham had suffered repeated incursions from Scotland, for the most part from the lawless border reivers. Every valuation of the village's lands in the 15th century revealed a state of waste and destruction. In 1541 the lack of any defensive structure was criticised by Sir Robert Bowes and Sir Ralph Ellerker, the Border Commissioners, who strongly urged that a tower be built in the village:

Most part Gray of Chillingham's inheritance. No fortresse, desolate therefore by warre. Pytye, being a good plot. The towneshippe of Kylham conteyneth xxvi husband lands nowe well penyshed and hathe in yt nether tower, barmekyn nor other fortresse whiche ys great petye for yt woulde susteyne many able men for defence of those borders yf yt had a tower and barmekyn buylded in yt where nowe yt lyeth waste in ev'ry warre and then yt is a great tyme after (before) yt can be replenished againe and the most parte thereof ys the inherytaunce of the said Mr Graye of Chyllingham.

They also reported on the tower at Howtel, which had been "rased and casten downe" during an invasion in 1497. Howtel Tower is mentioned again by Sir Henry Hadston, who in 1584 reported to Queen Elizabeth I that it was one of a number of towers needing repair. Sir Robert Carey, Lord Warden of the Marches, in 1597 reported to the Privy Council of England:

On the 14th instant, at night, four Scotsmen broke up a poor man’s door at Kilham on this march, taking his cattle. The town followed, rescued the goods, sore hurt three of the Scots, and brought them back prisoners. The fourth Scot raised his country meanwhile, and at daybreak 40 horse and foot attacked Kilham, but being resisted by the town, who behaved themselves very honestly, they were driven off and two more were taken prisoners. Whereon the Scots raised Tyvidale (Teviotdale), being near at hand, and to the number of 160 horse and foot came back by seven in the morning, and not only rescued all the prisoners but slew a man, left seven for dead and hurt very sore a great many others.

On the accession of King James VI of Scotland as James I of England, George Hume was appointed warden of the marches on both sides of thr frontier and the reivers were at last put down with ruthless efficiency, leaving Kilham at peace for the first time in centuries.

Later years

A map dated 1712 shows two rows of dwellings and toft enclosures in the village. A total of 19 buildings are shown, plus a watermill to the north beside the Bowmont Water, and three buildings to the south west at Longknowe. The village appears to extend slightly further along the lane to Longknowe than the current hamlet. Although not shown on the map, the ruins of an earlier chapel are believed to have existed in Chapel Field, on the hillside to the south east of the village.

Longknowe

By the latter part of the 19th century Kilham consisted of a large farm with farmhouse and two rows of cottages for the farm's workforce. There was, in addition, a smithy and a post office. To the south, Thompson's Walls was by 1800 an estate with a farm complex laid out around a square courtyard. Hemp and flax were grown, and a small mill is shown on maps from the 1860s onwards.

The road through Thornington

The road from Wooler through Kirknewton and Kilham to Roxburghshire was converted into a turnpike by the early 19th century. In 1812 the Ford and Lowick Turnpike Trust took over responsibility for the road from Milfield through Flodden, Howtel, Kilham, Langham and Shotton to the county boundary, and in 1834 the deviation through Thornington was included. With reduced income from tolls due to competition from the new railways, the turnpike trusts were gradually wound up in the late 19th century, and responsibility for highways taken over by Northumberland County Council after its creation in 1889.

From the 1860s onwards, various schemes were promoted to build a railway line, either through Glendale or over the Milfield Plain. In 1881 the Central Northumberland Railway was proposed, linking Newcastle upon Tyne with Ponteland, Rothbury, Wooler and Kelso, but the plan foundered as the North Eastern Railway built a branch line between Alnwick, Wooler and Cornhill on Tweed; a single-track line which opened on 5 September 1887, running from Wooler through Kirknewton and Kilham to Mindrum, before turning north to Cornhill on Tweed. There was no station at Kilham, but sidings were built to handle goods traffic.

In 1923 and, just 43 years after the line opened, passenger trains were withdrawn in 1930, as passenger numbers had declined due to competition from buses. A goods and parcels service continued, but on 12 August 1948 torrential rain caused severe flooding, damaging the bridge over the Bowmont Water between Mindrum and Kilham. For a while the line operated as two separate lines with termini at Mindrum and Kirknewton, but further flooding in October 1949 destroyed the bridge at Ilderton. Rather than rebuild the bridge British Railways, which had taken over the line the previous year, repaired the bridge at Mindrum, restoring services from the north through to Wooler. Goods services were withdrawn from Kilham sidings in 1953, and the remaining northern part of the line to Wooler finally closed on 29 March 1965.

Thomas Henry Scott, a police constable from Pawston, was murdered in 1880, while attempting to arrest two poachers at Hethpool. He had been blugeoned and beaten.

Farming

The adoption of new agricultural techniques and improvements to the area's transport infrastructure resulted in greater prosperity for Kilham's farming community in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Howtel Common was inclosed in 1779.

Female bondagers, or outworkers, were employed to work in the fields up to the end of the 19th century: the system was recorded in the neighbouring Scottish counties as early as 1656, and subsequently spread into Glendale. Agricultural labourers, known as hinds, were required to provide a female, often a relative or a girl living with the hind's family, who would be on call as a day labourer whenever required. The bondager's work was regarded as paying the rent of the hind's cottage.

Farming at Kilham during most of the 20th century concentrated on rearing pedigree Aberdeen Angus cattle. However, mechanisation and the decline in farming incomes resulted in the farm ceasing to function as an independent unit. In 1988 the Kilham estate was divided into three separate farms: Kilham, Longknowe and Thompson's Walls. Longknowe Farm now specialises in breeding and rearing sheep and suckler cows, while Kilham Farm is leased to a neighbouring farmer at Thornington, and some of the buildings have been converted into workshops.

Economy

Agriculture has been an important part of Kilham's life for centuries. As early as the 13th century sheep farming had been developed on the moorland, and in 1269 it was recorded that Kirkham Priory had 1,000 sheep on the "great moor" of Kilham. Shepherds often lived in shielings, temporary summer settlements high in the hills. Hemp and flax were grown, and Aberdeen Angus cattle reared.

In the 19th century, the upland areas were increasingly used for shooting gamebirds. The great landowners would hold large organised shooting parties for their friends, employing local farm workers as beaters. Arable farming was more important in the north of the parish, and was aided by increased mechanisation and improved transport links. Andesite was quarried for use as a building material, and sand and gravel extracted.

Sport

Fellwalking is a popular pastime in the Cheviot Hills, and Coldsmouth Hill is a favoured destination, with excellent views in all directions, and two large burial cairns on its summit. It is most easily climbed from Halterburn by Kirk Yetholm. St Cuthbert's Way, a 62-mile long-distance trail, passes to the south of the hill on its route from Melrose to Holy Island. Kilham Hill can be ascended from the Kilham Valley or the Kirknewton road east of Kilham.

The Northumbria Hang Gliding and Paragliding Club organises both hang gliding and paragliding at Coldsmouth Hill, which works in an easterly or west north westerly wind, and Longknowe, which works best in a west north westerly wind.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Kilham, Northumberland)

• A Vision of Britain Through Time
• {{brithist|51074&strquery=kilhamnorthumberland#s23 British History Online]
• British Listed Buildings
• Information on Kilham, Northumberland  from GENUKI
• Geograph
• Northumberland National Park Authority