The History of Tottergill Farm
A booklet has been produced detailing the last 800 years of Tottergill Farm. The "Tottergill Times" is available in limited stock by emailing enquiries@tottergill.co.uk or you can read about it all below.
The Tottergill Times
The Champion Oak
Tottergill Farm presides over Castle Carrock from its perch on the Pennines; seen and seeing for miles around. For those who come from far and wide to holiday in its converted barns, it provides a spectacular retreat, a base for exploration, a vantage point over the Solway Plain, the Lakeland and Scottish hills. Turning in through the farm gate and starting the climb up the hill, visitors pass a tree. It is a Common English oak, the Champion Oak Tree of Cumbria, with the largest girth of any in the county. It may be a relic from the Forest of Geltsdale and has witnessed all that has happened on Tottergill land for possibly 800 years.
The history of Tottergill is the story of the people who have known this tree. For the most part their days were bound up with the seasons, the farming year, village life and the changes that affected all the lands along the border. The hand of history reached even this quiet backwater and left its mark in border raids, power generation, water supply and agricultural improvement.
Life at Tottergill today reflects current farming trends, letting out the fields of grass for grazing and diversifying into tourism to generate income. The old barns and mill have found new uses as holiday homes. The great wooden beams and sandstone walls are now appreciated for their aesthetic value, more than their agricultural purpose. But not so long ago, this was a working farm, where crops were grown and fed to cows and sheep, pigs, chickens and horses; where the weather dictated events, where travel was slow and change even slower.
Tottergill before Tarmac
For much of the last half of the twentieth century, the Milburn family ran the farm along traditional lines, growing crops of turnips, barley and potatoes, with hay for fodder.
Swaledale and Blue Faced Leicester sheep grazed the fellsides, with cows in the lower pastures. White fantail pigeons fluttered from the tower and a large modern farm building was added to bring the farming enterprise up to date. The grouse shooting on the rougher fell land behind the farm was let out to sportsmen. Grouse depend on heather for their food; careful management of the heather by periodic burning and not overgrazing it, would increase their numbers. Gamebirds, ducks, rabbits and hares abounded and were hunted in their turn. The Milburns continued a tradition of providing bed and breakfast accommodation. Visitors enjoyed the nearby walks, along the hillside past the disused limekilns and quarries, or down to the reservoir.
The local landscape was already shaped as you see it today. Journeying further back in time, you can meet their predecessors and discover Tottergill before tarmac, electricity and motor cars: to a time when there was no reservoir in the valley below, when the local railway was thriving; when the limekilns and quarries were in use, when horses were everyday companions and neighbours were relied on for help and support with the farming, and friendship when the day’s work was done. Or even further back to days when this was the most lawless region in the country, when Castle Carrock survived raids by Border Reiver gangs*, mainly by keeping a low profile, hidden by a fold in the land. A time when life was so transitory that few written records were kept. Houses in the borders were regularly burned in raids, cattle were stolen and murders committed. Little is known about this area then, because surviving was more important than writing things down. It is not until the 17th century, at the end of Elizabeth I’s reign, that Tottergill starts to be mentioned in old documents.
The site of the house follows a pattern of farmsteads along the Castle Carrock geological fault where limestone meets more impervious rock. Here, springs came to the surface and made setting up home possible and deposits of coal and easily quarried stone were to be found on the surrounding hillsides. Behind the farms the Geltsdale Forest belonged, until its downfall, to Hexham Abbey and may have been used as a royal hunting forest, for the pursuit of wild pigs and red, roe and fallow deer.
The name Tottergill first appears in records around 1603 and is derived from ‘tod (fox) hill gill’, – the ‘gill’ part having Viking origins and referring to the nearby beck in its ravine. The oak tree was already well established then and may have witnessed the rides of the Reiver gangs, or hunting parties pursuing herds of deer over the fells.
A stone farmhouse stood in a cobbled courtyard, with sandstone steps leading up to the bedrooms, this was replaced by the current house in the next century. Some of the stone was recycled around the farm. Another dwelling stood in the field to the south east, possibly home to the succession of farm labourers recorded here.
* Border Reivers – lawless bands of local families i.e. the Armstrongs, who feuded along the Scotish/English border
A Very Fortunate Man
On the 23rd November 1665, the Manor of Castle Carrock was sold by Sir John Ballantyne and his wife, Dame Anne, to Charles Howard, Earl of Carlisle. So began a connection between Tottergill and the descendants of the Earl, which was to last until 1937. The farm was freehold, but within the boundaries of the manor and subject to manorial law. It figures from time to time in the Howard family records, for instance each time a lord of the manor died the incumbent of Tottergill had to pay a ‘fine’ or ‘heritot’* to the estate. As the 17th century drew to a close, the farm was owned by the Hodgson family, who were there for another 200 years.
Henry Hodgson of Tottergill was a very fortunate man. At the time of his death in 1677 he owned a bed with two sheets, a bolster and cover cloths. He bequeathed them to his daughter Jennet. At a time when many slept on piles of straw, ownership of a bed and linen was of some significance. Henry also owned a ‘brass and iron pott’, unbleached cloth, ropes and baskets, wood faggots and wood, corn and hay, two oxen, four kine (cows) and three calves, a horse with apparel, 6 lambs, geese and poultry. His son Thomas got a cupboard, ark* and table and the rest went to his wife Dorothy, along with sundry debts!
From the inventory to Henry’s will you get a brief glimpse of life at Tottergill three hundred years ago. He is listed in records as a thatcher and coalminer - activities which would supplement what he could make from the land. At home he worked on the farm with his horse to grow crops and keep animals for meat, eggs, feathers and wool. He gathered wood for fuel and Dorothy cooked in the ‘pott’, over an open fire. Valuing the few items of furniture that he owned, he passed them on to serve the next generation of the family. Henry Hodgson, of ‘good and perfect memory’ was not an educated man and was only able to make his mark, at the end of his will, as were his neighbours, called in to do an inventory of his goods, as was the local custom. Life on the farm would have been hard, especially in winter, when no fresh food was available and their diet would have depended on foods which could be safely stored, smoked or preserved.
When he looked out from Tottergill over the valley below he would have seen a pattern of long, narrow fields along the valley bottom, with ‘common’ grazing areas on the rougher land, a legacy from medieval times. Castle Carrock was smaller – the surge of new building in 19th century prosperity was still in the future. Water came from local streams – Carlisle was too small to need the reservoir yet. The railway hadn’t arrived and all travel was on foot or by horse, on unmade and muddy roads. Using power generated by a hillside spring, the farm had its own mill, complete with sluice, millrace and wheel.
This meant that grain could be ground at home and a difficult journey down to the mill on the river Gelt was avoided.
There were other Hodgsons also living on the farm. Anthony Hodgson died around the same time as Henry. Parish records list him as ‘yeoman’, so he was likely the elder brother. Down in the village below there were many others of the same name.
* heriot – payment of the best live beast on the farm to the lord of the manor on the death of the tenant
* ark – chest or box
Yeomen, Wives and Workers
The oak tree in the front meadow was already in its prime. With its branches cut back or ‘pollarded’ well above the ground, cattle were unable to eat the new growth and the timber could be used on the farm. This process was common, it could be repeated about every 15 years and may have continued for centuries. In 1706 the lord of the manor commissioned a survey of all his oak trees. Oaks had many uses, especially in the construction of wooden battleships, so it was important to know how many there were.
Tottergill prospered over the next 150 years and by the time Thomas Hodgson, ‘yeoman’, died in 1827 the estate was valued at around £300. In the surrounding area the quarries, coalmines and limekilns were busy. The tracks on the hillsides behind the farm were used by the workers in their daily journeys. Lime, made by burning limestone and coal in the farm’s limekiln, would have been used to improve the fertility of the land, part of the wave of agricultural improvements, which had swept through the country. Proximity to these deposits would have increased the value of the farm at that time.
Other great changes were afoot, the railways were coming, revolutionising transport and taking coal to the new industrial centres. Coal heavers and pitmen lived in the village below and soon workers on the local railway would join them. Industry was bringing prosperity to Castle Carrock and a wave of new building began, using a hard ‘white’ local sandstone in preference to the traditional softer ‘red’ variety.
Tottergill had been home not only to generations of Hodgsons, but records also show a succession of others who lived and worked on the farm - Joshua Dixon, husbandman, William Beeton, labourer, and Thomas Wilson, a poor man. Their wives - Marys, Elizabeths, Tabithas and Rachels are mentioned too. The Hodgson women lost their infants to early deaths in the same way as the workers’ wives. The farm by now, although still owned by Thomas Hodgson, was tenanted out of the family and when Thomas died in 1848 he left no sons. An imposing and poignant memorial tablet in Castle Carrock church is dedicated to the memory of Thomas, his wife Mary and daughter Mary Jane, upon whose death the farm passed to her surviving sister, Ann.
At this time married women were unable to own property in their own right, so a trust was formed to hold the farm, some 260 acres, for Ann, who was married to William Watson. The Watsons were a force to be reckoned with in Castle Carrock. They were the chief landowners and benefactors in the village and many local buildings are attributable to them.
The new range of imposing farm buildings at Tottergill reflected the growing affluence of the times. Constructed of regular squared sandstone with crow stepped gables, they included a tall central tower with dovecote openings, stables, cartsheds and pigstyes, even a built-in hen coop. At the back, the high, double doorway enabled direct access for carts bringing hay into the loft. The buildings were for mixed farming, keeping animals and growing a variety of crops to feed them. This was practised throughout the area and was to continue for another century, but the view from the farm was changing for ever.
Hymns for Navvies
A Bill had been promoted in parliament in 1898 for a new water scheme in Geltsdale, which would collect water from the river Gelt and its springs and bring it to a new reservoir in the adjacent valley at Castle Carrock. Here the rock was suitable and the reservoir could be watertight. The water would be stored and filtered and provide a reliable and safe supply for a growing Carlisle, which had previously relied on springs.
The site of the new reservoir was on Tottergill land. Six fields were lost and new land a short distance away was purchased to make up the farm’s acreage. The whole area was transformed as an army of navvies* (many were Irish), moved into a temporary camp around the site while the construction work continued. A huge shed was built to house cement and a gunpowder store where the powder for blasting was kept separately. A railway was built and a pulley system with a donkey engine* ran up to the quarry on the hillside. It is still possible to see the cut in the quarry where the pulley was housed.
For those looking down from the farm the view was transformed, as a swathe of green fields became a vast excavation filled with construction work.
Village life also underwent an upheaval as the local population increased fivefold and twelve pubs catered for them. John Edward Shipman, who was headmaster of the school and organist at the church, took a piano up to the navvies’ huts so that they could have a Sunday service. He also helped those who were illiterate with letters that came from home. Once the reservoir was completed, the navvies all moved on to build another one somewhere else.
When the reservoir opened in 1906 it was a masterpiece of engineering - ornate yet functional. It was operated by a staff of seven men, today it is fully automatic with just one visiting manager. Its value now is not only as a water supply but also as a protected environment for wildlife and plants and an important scenic resource for local leisure and tourism.
Many trees have now grown up around the waterside and changed the view from Tottergill again. They are a valuable habitat for the red squirrel which is still found locally.
* navvy – labourer employed to excavate railways, canals and roads
* donkey engine – stationary engine that operated the pulley system
Halcyon Days on the Hill
Up at the farm, Dick and Laura Watson were now the tenants and villager Joe Brown still remembers going there to help with the threshing once a fortnight. The water mill drove the threshing machine, which separated the oats from the stalks. The spring that came down the hillside and worked the water wheel never dried up, but kept the sluice full of water. In the 1950’s a skull was found at the base of this wheel and the police had to investigate, but foul play was not suspected.
Doreen Watson was born at Tottergill. In 1934 aged just 13, she kept a daily diary which tells how she worked and played in those carefree days, when much was expected of country children, but when they also enjoyed a degree of freedom and responsibility denied the children of today.
The abundance of local produce is apparent from her accounts of helping with jam making from gooseberries, raspberries, crab apples, plums, strawberries and rhubarb, …’149 lbs in 1934’. She took orders for chestnuts - 9th October …’got 112 chestnuts for Margaret Thompson’..; collected the eggs daily and then helped her mother to sell them with their home-made butter in Brampton market.
With Jess, her much loved pony, she travelled about the farm, sometimes in a little cart, delivering picnic lunches to the harvest fields or leading hay back to the barn for stacking, sometimes riding over the fells to check on the sheep, or going down to the blacksmith’s in the village.
As she helped on the farm, rolling fleeces, raking hay and chopping sticks, she recorded the wild animals that she saw – 14th April ‘…saw 18 toads on the waterworks…’…25th April ‘…took a young white owl to school …’, 14th July ‘ … cut half of bottom meadow, found a nest of 6 rabbits.’, 9th September ‘… saw a fox…’,
Doreen’s mother Laura, had all the duties of a farmer’s wife and was also a postmistress down in the village and had helped with the reading and writing of letters for the navvies working on the reservoir in the fields below. She ran a bed and breakfast business and provided farm holidays for families, maintaining a tradition of hospitality, which continues today.
Despite the fact that daily life was hard and demanding and the financial rewards meagre at best, in later years the family was to remember these times as ‘halcyon days on the hill’.
A Fiddler in the Oak
In 1937 the links between Tottergill and the Right Honourable Joscelyn L’Estrange, Earl of Carlisle, Lord of the Manor of Castle Carrock finally ended, with all rents, fines, reliefs, heriots and fees duly discharged. The Trust of members of the Watson family and their relatives, the Murdochs, still owned the farm, but the following year Dick and Laura moved on to Town Foot Farm in Castle Carrock village. New tenants arrived at Tottergill - Herbert and Eleanor Forster with their four daughters and a son.
The traditional cycle of the farming year continued, but the coming of war meant that farming picked up a bit after the lean years of the thirties. The grain was now threshed with a tractor-driven thresher and when the Galloway cattle had been milked by hand the milk was put in three churns and taken to Garth Foot for collection by a wagon from the Border Dairy in Carlisle. German prisoners of war worked on the farm. Eleanor kept hens and when the pigs were killed the sides of bacon went down into the cool cellar below the house. There were still white pigeons in the tower and barn owls in the buildings.
Rose Forster remembers a happy and carefree childhood, playing in the now disused watermill, collecting primroses and bluebells in the woods, walking to school in the village and helping on the farm with their four Clydesdale horses.
The family kept sheep on the fells as far as the river Gelt, on land rented from the Church Commissioners. In the 1950’s when they lost this land it was time for them too, to move on and the Trust sold the farm to the Milburns who worked here for forty years.
The oak tree grew on through all the changes. Now venerable and mature it has developed large burrs around its trunk. While its branches were pollarded, its root system continued to develop and is now bigger in proportion to the crown. This has helped to prolong the tree’s life. With a girth of 24 feet 9 inches, (7.6m), its exact age can only be guessed at.
It has played a full part in the story of Tottergill. It has provided kindling wood and maybe charcoal, sheltered children from the rain, given homes to countless thousands of insects, birds and animals, watched over courting couples, hosted village barbeques in its shade and witnessed the daily struggle to earn a living on the farm. Perhaps its strangest role of all was as a perch for Willie Watson (brother of Dick), who used to sit amongst its branches and play his fiddle!
If you would like to know more, please email us at enquiries@tottergill.co.uk and we will send you a booklet.
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