The sale of Bursting Belly and other fields
The estate of Newbiggin and Hunstanworth has had a motley list of owners down the centuries; gifted by Norman landowner Robert Corbet to the Medieval almshouse Kepier Hospital in Durham, ‘acquired’ by nobleman William Paget after the dissolution of the monasteries, and bought up by Geordie business magnate John Ord in 1689, the estate had been inherited by Ord’s nephew Robert Capper when the old man died without issue.
The Reverend Daniel Capper, son of Robert and Rector of Huntley in Gloucestershire, employed flamboyant London architect Samuel Sanders Teulon to give Hunstanworth a complete architectural overhaul in 1863 – who knows what the locals must have though of Teulon’s diamond-patterned roofs and fancy Gothic detail at the time.
But just two years after redeveloping the entire estate, the Reverend Daniel Capper was selling up lock, stock and barrel in 1865.
Newbiggin and Hunstanworth “Freehold, Pastoral, and Sporting Estate” was coming under the hammer of Mr Samuel Donkin of Garraway’s in Change Alley, London on Tuesday 1st August “at one o’clock punctually”.
Garraways Coffee House was one of the most prestigious auction houses in London, opening in 1669 and selling property, textiles, spices and salvaged goods.
Garraway’s Coffee House, London.
The sales brochure for Newbiggin and Hunstanworth describes in loving detail the 5,554 acres, with enclosed meadow and pasture lands and “Arable, Turnip, and Barley soils of excellent quality”. There was also timber, thriving young plantations, all “thoroughly fenced off by new Stone Walls… tastefully laid out.” The tenants were part of the sale too, in some ways, and the brochure claims they are “most respectable”.
The mansion house of Newbiggin was the jewel in the estate crown, suitable says the sales brochure for a “Summer residence of a family” – or a “shooting box”, it suggests, without so much as a hint of irony.
Rev Capper had recently ploughed in £30,000 on all manner of new farm buildings, the latest water power machinery, and “Lofty Hay Sheds on Iron Pillars”. All the cottages on the estate had recently been rebuilt “with four rooms each” and the tenants could avail themselves of new facilities such as the school and the reading room nearby.
As if all that weren’t enough to attract a rich landowner who fancied a country retreat, the next paragraph would surely clinch the deal: “The Shooting over the Moors has long been proverbial for extraordinary bags of Grouse; indeed, the whole Estate offers attractions, seldom equalled, to the Capitalist and Sportsman.”
But what about the lady wife? What could possibly tempt a fine woman of good breeding to head north to the desolate wastes of Northumberland and County Durham? Mr Donkin is quick to point out that there are: “Miles of romantic walks… and the beautiful Church of Hunstanworth, just restored, with the picturesque Parsonage, form charming objects at various points of the pleasure grounds…”
And the buyers wouldn’t be completely cut off from the outside world; the estate had its very own goods station and railway line connected to the Stanhope and Weardale Valley Line, ideal for bringing in essentials such as lime for dressing the fields and coal for the mansion’s many fires.
The entire estate’s outgoings were a bargain at just £38 4s 11d – or £38.25p – for the year.
The sales brochure shows in detail the farms, fields and cottages. Almost 150 years on, many of the farms are still going concerns: Boltshope, Hunstanworth, Deeps House, Cross Hill, Wagtail and Whitelees. But some are now derelict or gone completely: Sled Meadow, Ellis Hill, Red Gutter and Priestburn.
Each field – and there are 177 parcels of land outlined on the map – has its own name, often relating to its traditional use – such as “Seed Field”, “Calf Close” and “Horse Pasture” – or to its location: “West Townfield Field” and “School Pasture”.
Some of the fields take the names of the families or people who once farmed there – “Temperley Pasture”, “Jameson’s Field” and “Hutchinson’s Field”.
And then some are just plain bizarre, the original stories behind the names perhaps gone forever: “Lingy Lotment” and “Cold Knuckles” on Cross Hill Farm, “Bee Garth” on Whitelees, and the intriguingly named “Bursting Belly” at Hunstanworth Farm.
Perhaps not surprisingly, with all the brochure’s florid descriptions of scenic walks and picturesque views, there is barely a mention of the Derwent Mines Company, which is renting some 65 acres of land on the edge of the estate. The company is responsible for a lead mining business at the height of its success at the time, employing literally hundreds of miners. The only evidence on the estate plans is a contour-hugging line running through the fields, behind Townfield and down towards Ramshaw: the ‘leat’ or watercourse which collected run-off water from the hills for the lead washing process taking place in the valley.
The rest is history, as they say: the Joiceys of Blenkinsopp Hall – today just off the A69 west of Hexham – were the highest bidders for Newbiggin and Hunstanworth, and it would stay in the Joicey family for more than 80 years.
See full 1865 sales brochure and estate plan by clicking here.
