The Loraines of Kirkharle: The Decline and Resurgence of a Northumbrian Upper Gentry Family
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THE LORAINE FAMILY was one of great antiquity in central Northumberland. Tradition maintains that they were of Norman blood and had arrived in Northern England under the protection of Walcher (d. 1070), the first Norman Bishop of Durham. The first proven record of landownership dates to 1425 when Edward Loraine married the younger of two co-heiresses of the Del Strother family and gained possession of the estate and tower of Kirkharle.1 The holding was somewhat dispersed, the main part consisting of Kirkharle itself,2 which lay some 20 miles north-west of Newcastle upon Tyne; the vill of Trewick at nearby Bolam;3 and a smaller estate at Offerton, 40 miles to the south in County Durham.4 The estate comprised about 2,000 acres in all. The family established itself amongst the Northumbrian gentry and followed a steady path towards stability and moderate aggrandisement, largely by means of marriage within the local peer group. During the sixteenth century the family position appeared to have been enhanced as a result of the monastic dissolutions, Robert Loraine (1523-1581) gaining the advowson of the church of Kirkharle from Blanchland Abbey, and the lands of Coneygarth and Alnham from Alnwick Abbey.5 The fortunes of the family began to rise further during the seventeenth century in the lifetime of Thomas Loraine (1638-1718). The Loraines had always enjoyed good relations and strong family ties with their near neighbours, the Fenwick family of Wallington Hall. Sir William Fenwick became Thomas's guardian when he succeeded to his father's estate at the age of eleven in 1649. Thomas later married Fenwick's daughter.6 The family was still at this time inhabiting Kirkharle Tower, presumably a small fortalice to judge from its Hearth Tax return of 1663.7 Nevertheless, house size in this instance cannot have been an accurate indicator of wealth, as in 1664 Thomas
[1] D. Spring. The English Landed Estate in the Age of Coal and Iron: 1830–1880 , 1951, The Journal of Economic History.