Throckley, Hallowell Wood

HER Number:
15502

District:
Newcastle

Site Name:
Throckley, Hallowell Wood

Place:
Throckley

Map Sheet:
NZ16NW

Class:
Agriculture and Subsistence

Site Type: Broad:
Managed Woodland

Site Type: Specific:
Wood

General Period:
Medieval

Specific Period:

Form of Evidence:
Documentary Evidence

Description:
An agreement of 1250 mentions the 'woode of Hallewell' (SH J/vii/4a). In 1291 eighty acres of wood were held in common (SS vol. cxvii, 304, 314). In 1293 Robert of Throckley declared that tenants were accustomed to taking timber when he was caught cutting oaks in the wood of Helley without the permission of the forester (SS vol. cxvii, 276). A document held by the Public Record Office relates to the woodreve or woodward of the Radcliffe's manor of Throckley. The name Hallowell could potentially relate to a holy well perhaps connected with the lepers of Newcastle who held land in Throckley in 1379 (SS vol. xlvi, ii, 55-6). The same Hallowell Wood is shown on the plan of the manor of Newburn dated 1620, occupying 40 acres. A further 32 acres is listed as 'Hallowell Wood ascending and descending'. The name Throckley could derive from the act of woodland clearance, ley or leah meaning a clearing. Hallowell Wood would have been planted with native trees such as ash, maple, hazel, lime, elm, birch, alder, sallow, oak and hawthorn. Woods had names because they were valuable property. The boundaries of the wood were probably defined by a bank and ditch with a hedge or fence to prevent encroachment and keep out livestock which would eat young shoots. Today the Wood is gone. It is not shown on any plans after 1620.

Easting:
1464

Northing:
6655

Grid Reference:
NZ14646655

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
A Plan of the manor of Newburn, 1620, Alnwick Castle Archives, Class O, div. xvii, No. 1; Agreement between Ada de Balliol and Robert of Throckley, 1250, reproduced in a boundary dispute of 1586, Syon House Archives, London, J/vii/4a; Surtees Society, 1909, Vol. CXVII, The Percy Chartulary, pp 276, 304 and 314; MH Dodds, 1930, A History of Northumberland, XIII, p 160; Dudley Roger Esq (Attorney-General) on behalf of His Majesty, informant v Ralph Redhead. Execution (by the defendant) of the offices of bailiff and woodreve or woodward of the manors or reputed manors or messuages etc. of … Trockley otherwise Throckley… being formerly the estate of the late Earl of derwentwater, and after of his late son Jon Radcliffe Esq., Public Record Office, E 134/12Geo2/East15; Surtees Society, 1864, vol. XLVI, The Priory of Hexham, its chronicles, endowments and annals, ii, pp 55-6; AE Smailes, 1960, North England, p 97; O Rackham, 1986, The history of the countryside - the classic history of Britain's landscape, flora and fauna, pp 64, 82, 86; Jennifer Morrison, 2007, Newburn Manor - an analysis of a changing medieval, post-medieval and early modern landscape in Newcastle upon Tyne, unpublished MA thesis, University of Durham