Medieval village, moated site, & open field system, Ogle, Northumberland.

Location: NZ 1379 7908

K2P:
Ogle DMV: N10925
Ogle Castle: N10923

Scheduled Monument: 1017737

 The remains of the deserted medieval village of Ogle occupy c. 4ha of a field under permanent pasture to the N of the present village. They comprise a part of the street visible as a hollow way, 0.9m deep with, to the N of the street, four house platforms and a series of tofts. The house platforms, up to 0.5m high vary from 13m by 7m, the latter apparently sub-divided into four sections. Only one or two stones are visible. N and W of the tofts, bounded by banks up to 0.7m high, is well preserved broad rig cultivation. Immediately to the S of the modern village are further, somewhat amorphous earthworks which also appear to be medieval village earthworks from AP examination, with broad rig extending S from them. It seems likely therefore that much of the original village is buried under the present settlement.

South Middleton, Northumberland.

South Middleton medieval village and open field system.

Location: NZ 0548 8402

K2P: N10588

Scheduled Monument: 1017738

"The village was first recorded in documents dating to the 13th century when it is known that the manor of South Middleton was part of the Lordship of Bolbec. The manor passed to the Fenwick family in 1609, by which time the population of the village had fallen. Subsequent documents record a continual fall in the population and by 1762 the village was totally deserted.

The medieval plan of the village is a type well known in this part of Northumberland in which two parallel lines of houses face onto a broad rectangular village green with narrow crofts or garden areas to the rear."

Coldwell, Kirkwhelpington, Northumberland.

Location: NZ 0006 8734

K2P: N10397

Scheduled Monument: 1011106

An exceptionally well preserved and outstanding example of a small typical Jobey-type Romano-British 'native' homestead. There are several other rectilinear enclosures in the area much reduced by the plough where you see only shadows of the enclosing ditch and sometimes a hint of something internal.

These homesteads were being constructed and used by non-Roman natives throughout the period of the Roman occupation. Their origins lie in settlement forms developed before the arrival of the Romans.

"The monument includes the remains of a farmstead of Romano-British date situated on a slight ridge between two streams. The farmstead is sub-rectangular in shape with rounded corners and measures a maximum of 40m east-west by 33m north-south within a well preserved V-shaped ditch 2m wide. Within the ditch there is a prominent bank 2.5m broad and 0.6m above the interior and 1.6m above the bottom of the ditch. Outside the ditch there is a counter-scarp bank of similar proportions. There are entrances 4m wide in the centre of the east and west sides carried across the ditch on causeways. Within the enclosure, in the south-east corner, there are the foundations of a large circular round-house 9.5m in diameter with walls 0.3m high."

The Stell, Rothley Crags, Northumberland.
Iron Age multivallate hillfort.

Location: NZ 0421 8850

Atlas of Hillforts: EN2696

Keys to the Past: N10396 

National Trust Heritage Record: 13001 / MNA153576

Location: NZ 0891 8243 

According to the OS Name Book (c.1860) for Edlingham Parish Sheet 31 Plan 6:
"Originally a substantial stone building now almost in ruins this house sometimes is called Boltonmoor Castle but the name last known by is adopted on examination trace."

Although described here as a house it is now considered to be a folly, erected by the nearby estate (K2P ref: N20729). Follies possess no real function; they were often built to imitate the past with false battlements acting as eyecatchers for the wealthy landowners. The ruin is a Grade II Listed Building protected by law: 1041960.

The nearby 'Camp' is described by the surveyors as:
"The remains of an Ancient Camp with a triple rampire in a bad State of preservation from information received on the ground there is no doubt but it has been the works of the Ancient Britains."

'Jenny with the Lantern' is a local Northumberland name for Will o' the Wisp, the most common name given to the mysterious lights (possibly caused by marsh gas) that were said to lead travellers from the well-trodden paths into treacherous marshes (Geograph: 1085895).

A slightly different explanation is provided by another contibutor (Geograph: 1209313) quoting Pevsner's Northumberland:
"ruins of an C18 eyecatcher .... it took the form of [a] tall screen wall with the coping stepping down on short runs, enclosing a shepherd's cottage. .... Jenny was the shepherd's wife who showed a lantern to guide her husband back across the marshy moortops from the inn at Eglingham."

Lidar imagery is great for studying archaeology but a shift from greyscale to multi-colour often provides unexpected, more abstract, beauty as well. This post is a small celebration of that.

Lordenshaw (or Lordenshaws) hillfort, near Rothbury, Northumberland.

The monument includes the remains of a small multivallate hillfort of Iron Age date, part of an associated field system and cairnfield, a cross dyke, a round-cairn cemetery and at least 50 cup and ring marked rocks of Bronze Age date, two farmsteads of Romano-British date, a section of the medieval deer-park pale, part of a field system of medieval and post-medieval date, and a lead prospecting pit.The monument is situated on Garleigh Moor in the Simonside Hills, Northumberland, UK.

Location: NZ 0548 9922

Scheduled Monument: Scheduled Monument: 1017196

Keys to the Past: N10736

The area surrounding Lordenshaw hillfort was surveyed by Peter Topping for the Royal Commission in 1993.
Topping, P. (1993). Lordenshaws Hillfort and its environs. Archaeologia Aeliana Series 5. Vol 21, pp. 15-27.

Oswald, A., Frodsham, P., Pearson, T., Ainsworth, S. (2007). Hillforts: Prehistoric Strongholds of Northumberland National Park. English Heritage.

Lordenshaw hillfort - 3D lidar landscape on Sketchfab