Nether Witton Parish, 1848

WITTON, NETHER (St. Giles), a parish, in the union, and W. division of the ward, of Morpeth, N. division of Northumberland, 7¾ miles (W.N.W.) from Morpeth; containing, with the townships of Coatyards, Ewesley, Healey with Comb-Hill, Nunnykirk, Ritton-Coltpark, and Ritton-Whitehouse, 464 inhabitants, of whom 295 are in Nether Witton township. The manor anciently belonged to Gospatrick, Earl of Durham, who gave it in marriage with his only daughter, Julian, to Ranulph de Merlay, from whom it passed to Roger de Somerville, Lord of Wichenor, in the county of Stafford. In the 14th century, it became the property of Roger de Thornton, who built the ancient baronial tower, and, dying in 1429, was succeeded by his son, whose daughter and heiress conveyed it by marriage to George, Lord Lumley, of Lumley Castle. The estate subsequently became again the property of the Thornton family, of whom James left two daughters, who, as co-heiresses, conveyed it by marriage to the Trevelyans and the Withams, whose descendants are at present its proprietors. The surface is pleasingly varied, and the scenery enriched with extensive tracts of woodland abounding in stately oak and larch trees. The manorhouse, a handsome mansion of white freestone, erected in the 17th century, is beautifully situated in tastefullyembellished grounds; it is said to have been visited by Cromwell in the summer of 1651, and to have been the hiding-place of Lord Lovat, after his flight from the field of Culloden.

The village, which was anciently a market-town, stands in a fertile vale, and consists chiefly of detached cottages with gardens neatly laid out; it is intersected by the river Font, over which a substantial bridge of stone was erected in 1837. Upon the village cross is the date 1698, which is most probably the time when the present village was built. A large cotton manufactory was erected here by the late Walter Trevelyan, Esq., in 1786, but the speculation did not succeed, and the works were soon abandoned. It was subsequently let for a woollen manufactory, which prospered for a few years, but afterwards declined; part of the building is still occupied in the manufacture of flannel, and the spinning of yarn by machinery driven by water. The living, from a remote period, was a stipendiary curacy under the vicar of Hartburn; but on the demise of a late vicar in 1833, it was erected into a separate incumbency, and endowed with £400 from Queen Anne's Bounty, to meet a gift of £70 per annum from the vicar. The church, of which the nave was rebuilt a few years since, is a neat plain structure; in the 14th century it contained a chantry in honour of St. Nicholas, also a chantry dedicated to St. Giles, which was granted by Edward VI. to the school of Morpeth. A parsonage-house was built in 1834.