Bingfield

Bingfield is a village in Northumberland, in England. It is situated to the north of Corbridge, off the A68 road.

Ancient area history

Bingfield lies close to the ancient course of Hadrian's Wall constructed in 122 AD. The extent of Hadrian's Wall is 117 kilometres, spanning the width of Britain; the wall incorporated Agricola's Ditch and was constructed chiefly of stone in the eastern reaches [ [http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=18177 C.Michael Hogan (2007) "Hadrian's Wall", ed. Andy Burnham, The Megalithic Portal] ] such as near Chollerford Bridge. The wall was designed chiefly to prevent raids by small Pictish bands or unwanted immigration from the north, not as a fighting line for a major invasion. [Stephen Johnson (2004) "Hadrian's Wall", Sterling Publishing Company, Inc, 128 pages, ISBN 0713488409]

Modern history of Bingfield

Bingfield likely developed from a farming community in the early 19th century, since most of the buildings date to that era. There were probably four farms: the present farm at the bottom of the road (now owned by the Whites and Sistersons); the Scott's farm, located about half a mile from Bingfield Combe Cottage, which massive farmhouse was accompanied by several barn houses, now converted into houses. There is a smaller farm fifty yards opposite from the original farmhouse at the bottom of our hill, who was also owned by the Scotts and Bingfield east quarter. There was also a church in Bingfield which dates to the late 18th/early 19th century as well as a school. As there is no church in Hallington (the next village along) their population would also have used this church and school. It is not clear when the school closed, but Nicholas White, the owner of the farm on our land (now aged around 80) went there and Keith Scott (owner of the Scott’s farm, who has moved away now and is also in his eighties). Before my family lived in the house, one end of the barn had been converted into a cottage to house the shepherd. This was a very small cottage, only the size of our kitchen now. A woman who looked after the playgroup, used to live in our house in the 1960s and went to Bingfield School; her father was the shepherd.

Bingfield remained largely unchanged from the mid 19th century until after the Second World War. The change began with mechanisation. It is not clear when the school closed down but there was a school closing programme in the late 1960s as my mother’s village school in Horsley (a larger village around 10 miles away was shut at this time and children were sent to a neighboring village school). In the 1960s many farmers in England fell on hard times. It was then that the Whites, who owned the smaller farm at the bottom of Bingham hill sold of half their farm to Cuthbert Sisterson. The Suddes (a local family run farm around two miles away) had to sell their farm house, but the son (Michael) has managed to buy it back in recent times. In modern times, from the late 1970s onwards there was a period of farmers' selling off redundant farm buildings to be converted into houses.

Going further back in time, Bingfield was an ancient settlement. There are the remains of an ancient medieval village in the field in front of the church. The vicar stated that this village was destroyed (burned) by the Scottish people. Apparently there were some excavations done when Roc Oil wished to drill for oil.

History of Bingfield Combe Cottage and two neighbouring houses

Bingfield Combe Cottage was originally built as a cart shed for Bingfield farm (which is the farm where about one mile away, at the bottom of the hill). The cottage was built to store carts and farm machinery such as plows. There are now two separately owned farms separated by about 50 yards; however, this holding used to be a single large farm (approximately 1000 acres). As far as is known the cottage was constructed in about 1830. The stone was probably sourced from the quarry along the ridge, although there are reports that claim that actual stones were stolen from Hadrian's Wall, which runs less than three miles away from Bingfield. The farm at the bottom of Bingfeld hill has most recently been owned by the Whites, and until recently the farm 500 yards from this, was owned by the Sistersons. There were three buildings up here. As well as our house the other two buildings were used to support the farm. The next door house, then a barn was for stabling horses/cattle and the house behind ours was the gin gan; this was a massive room for grinding corn. A horse was hooked up to a gear system which operated grinding stones powered by the horse walking round the room. It can be deduced that these buildings were built up here (remote from the farm ) to save the farmer from having to transport equipment up and down the hill in days before mechanization (tractors). Bingfield farmhouse was the building that would have been built originally and our house, then a barn would have been built in the years after that.

ee also

*Chollerton
*Matfen

References