Troughend Township, 1848

TROUGHEND-WARD, a township, in the parish of Elsdon, union of Bellingham, S. division of Coquetdale ward, N. division of Northumberland, 7¼ miles (N.N.E.) from Bellingham; containing 314 inhabitants. This ward is sixteen miles in length, and two and a half in average breadth; and comprises by measurement, 26,010 acres, of which 236 are arable, 96 woodland, and the remainder pasture, principally sheepwalks, on which the purest breed of Cheviot sheep are kept. It comprehends that part of the parish west of the river Rede. The old tower of Troughend, long the seat of the Buttycombe family, and which is mentioned in the records of a very early period, stood a little to the west of the modern mansion, and its foundations, of strong masonry, though overgrown with grass, are still traceable. The present house was built in the last century by EIrington Reed, Esq., who also greatly improved the place by planting, and whose ancestors were settled in the township at a remote date. The common, which contained 2500 acres, was inclosed, agreeably with an act of parliament, in 1769.