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A brief history of Longhorsley

Longhorsley village stands on a great sandstone stratum, which runs from the direction of Netherwitton, in the west, to near Eshott in the east. The soil is of a sandy nature and near Linden and Longhorsley it is very fertile. The derivation of the name is believed to refer to the stretch of land lying between Whemleybum and Linden, which being a clearing in a great oak forest, is thought to have been the Horse-ley (horse meadow) of the Saxon era. The addition of the 'long' is rare in the earliest writings and was probably added to differentiate it from Horsley near Ovingham; those writings refer only to Horsley and occasionally North Horsley.

The Manor of Horsley was given in the time of Henry 1 (1100-35) by Gospatrick Earl of Dunbar, to Ranulph de Merley, upon his wedding to the Earls daughter Julian. Julian was the great granddaughter of the Gospatrick who was Earl of Northumberland in the time of William the Conqueror. The manor of Horsley then passed to the heir of Ranulph, Roger de Merley, who having died without male heirs, his estate was divided between his two daughters Mary and Isabel. It was through marriage, of the descendants of Mary that this part of the manor eventually passed into the possession of the Earl of Carlisle.

The Horsley family held lands here from a very early time and the family name is derived from it. The Horsley's also held lands at Farnham in the parish of Alwinton and in 1278 Sir Richard de Horsley appears in a list of names that held land not owned by the king.

The lands passed, on the death of Sir Thomas Horsley in about 1685 via his daughter Mary, having been widowed on the death of her first husband, to the Widdrington family when she later married Edward Widdrington. The Horsley lands then passed to the Riddell family, when Thomas Riddell of Swinburne Castle married the Widdrington heir Elizabeth, the great granddaughter of Sir Thomas Horsley.

There was a great oak forest at Longhorsley much of which was used to supply the tanneries at Morpeth. It is recorded in one document that Cuthbert Horsley was paid £145 for 500 oak trees from Horsley Bricks (Birks) for tanning. At an inquisition on the death of Elizabeth Dacre in 1518, a free forest parcel of the barony of Merley is mentioned. Called Horsley Forest it was recorded that two courts of forest were held yearly when the forest pasturing was amerced at 20 shillings per annum.

The village of Longhorsley was divided into three quarters - Bigges, (Originally Carlisle's) Riddell's, and Freeholders. As the names suggest, C W Bigge of Linden Hall, having purchased his part of the manor from the executors of the Earl of Carlisle, owned Bigges Quarter. The Riddell family, who succeeded to it from the Horsleys via the Widdringtons, owned Riddell's Quarter. Several owners of freehold within the parish, principally the owners of the hamlets of Blackpool, Muckley, West Moor, and Southward Edge and of some small cottages and holdings within the village, were owners of the Freeholders Quarter

The ancient road known as Herman Street runs through the parish, passing View Law Farm before joining the 'Devils Causeway' Roman road north of Birks Farm. The village stood on its greatest length on the road from Netherwitton to Felton and was possibly the only road until the Coldstream road crossed the village from south to north.

The church was rebuilt in 1783, on the same site as the Norman original. The earliest recorded vicar was Robert Dathenorth who was appointed by the archbishop of York on April 3rd 1299. The registers of the church go back to 1668 the first entry records a christening of an Edward Grey on the 7th January 1668.

The early burial register records three rather interesting if unusual deaths. 21st November 1747 Samuel Duff "died by a fellow running a small red-hot iron into his breast at Stanton. 7th January 1748 "Mary daughter of Mat Matthews, a soldier killed at Culloden. 24th April 1807 "Margaret Lawson, servant, 20 years, burnt by an explosion of gunpowder".