West Thornton (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Hartburn.
In the historic county of Northumberland.
Modern Authority of Northumberland.
1974 county of Northumberland.
Medieval County of Northumberland.

OS Map Grid Reference: NZ098867
Latitude 55.17390° Longitude -1.84768°

West Thornton has been described as a probable Pele Tower.

There are no visible remains.

Description

NZ 097866: Deserted Medieval Village at Thornton West (MVRG 1963).
Once a considerable village with a chapel, but now reduced to one farm and two cottages (Hodgson 1827).
An area of much disturbed ground with traces of depopulation centred NZ 098867 are the only visible remains (F1 DS 02-OCT-68).
There is little doubt that one of the buildings in West Thornton was a tower, and it was probably where the farmhouse now stands. It had a barmkin, which Hodgson saw in the early 19th century, and it was built about 1338, by, or for, Brother Leonard (Dodds 1999). (PastScape)

West Thorhton, a village, consisting of one farm-house and two cottages, stands on a high ridge, and has rich hanging lands before it sloping towards the Hart, and fronting the south. Formerly it had a chapel in it; and extensive grass grown lines of houses: remains of strong masonry in the stack-yard walls, and great quantities of hewn stone in the fences about it, prove that it was once a considerable village. A field to the east of it has had a strong wall around it. The older of the two cottages has no hewn stones in it; and has plainly been built before the chapel and old manorial house, with its accompaniments of barmkin and park walls, began to be pulled down. Though Gale and Warburton have assigned a Roman origin to this place, I have not been able to find the slightest proof in favour of their conjecture. No Roman antiquities that I could hear of have been found in it, and the hewn stones in the fences about it have nothing Roman in their character. The whole township contains 897 acres, and at present belongs to Messrs Trevelyan and Witham, who inherited it from the Thorntons of Netherwitton. (Hodgson 1827)

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 20942.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) N10446.

Books
- Dodds, John F., 1999, Bastions and Belligerents (Newcastle upon Tyne: Keepdate Publishing) p. 253
  Beresford, M. and Hurst, J.G., (eds), 1989, Deserted Medieval Villages (Gloucester) p. 200
  Graham, Frank, 1976, The Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Frank Graham) p. 349
  Long, B., 1967, Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) p. 171
  Hodgson, J., 1827, History of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) Part 2 Vol. 1 p. 311 online copy
Periodical Articles
- 1963, Medieval Village Research Group annual report Vol. 11 App C No 139

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