This assessment, prepared by The Archaeological Practice Ltd., has been commissioned by Groundwork to inform an application for a Natural England grant for wetland habitat restoration works along the Thockrington Burn and its tributary watercourses, on land forming part of Newonstead Farm and Quarry Bank Farm, which are situated to the west of Great Bavington in south-central Northumberland. The purpose of the assessment is to inform the applicants regarding landscape history and cultural heritage significance of the site and the likely or potential impacts of the proposed works upon the cultural heritage resource. Several identifiable periods of human activity are represented in the landscape centred on the upper reaches of the Thockrington Burn encompassed by Newonstead and Quarry House Farms. A single isolated trace of earlier prehistoric activity survives in the form of a Bronze Age burnt mound on the east side of Thockrington Burn, apparently formed as a result of heating stones for cooking. Elsewhere, Bronze Age remains only survive as visible features on the highest ground, at Sweethope Crags, which was ignored during later periods of settlement and cultivation. The Iron Age and Romano-British periods are principally represented by the remains of enclosed rectangular or sub-rectangular settlements and farmsteads. Only one of these lies within the wetland restoration area, Catalogue Site 2, long-recognised, very well-preserved and consequently accorded the status and protection of a scheduled monument, but several others are scattered around the area�s immediate periphery. Only very limited traces of associated field systems have been identified, however, though they must once have been very widespread. The settlement pattern in the Middle Ages was largely dominated by the villages of Great Bavington and Thockrington, but there is evidence for subsidiary, dispersed sites consisting of isolated or clustered farmsteads or small hamlets. The exact date and duration of occupation of such sites is uncertain, however, in the absence of excavation. Some may belong to the early post-medieval period. However, the clearest and most widespread evidence for the exploitation of the landscape on either side of the Thockrington Burn during the Middle Ages and the subsequent early modern era is represented by the extensive and complex patterns of ridge and furrow cultivation earthworks which cover so much of the area, as is evident through scrutiny of the LIDAR imagery, which provides the most effective means of analysis. The development of the present network of farms, including Newonstead and Quarry House, can be traced from the later 18th century onwards with the aid of the historic county maps and historical sources. The enclosed field system can only be plotted from the mid-19th century onwards with the appearance of more detailed tithe and Ordnance Survey maps. Those maps suggest there was an almost complete absence of internal field boundaries within the assessment area, which seems to have functioned as two expanses of open grazing separated by the burn from the mid-19th century until the second half of the 20th century. However, examination of the LiDAR imagery shows there is an extensive pattern of additional field boundaries � the remains of collapsed field walls or sod-cast banks for hedges � not shown on the Ordnance Survey, particularly evident in the north-western quadrant of the assessment area. These often tie into the field boundaries shown on the tithe map and 1st edition Ordnance Survey, and may have come into existence at the same time as those boundaries, but had evidently gone out of use by the time the field layout was mapped in detail during the mid-19th century. They may be associated with the smaller post-medieval farmstead sites, reflecting a denser settlement pattern in the study area and its environs.
Johnstone et al. (Wed,) studied this question.