Netherwitton Forum

Coat-Yards was operated primarily as a single, pastoral livestock farm in the 1700s, though it was administratively classified as its own tiny, independent township.The historical details of the land during that century reveal how it functioned:1. Landscape and Scale The area spanned just 235 acres. Historical geographical surveys describe the territory as a bleak, un-sheltered plain completely devoid of wood. Because the land was wide-open, exposed, and lacked timber, it was entirely unsuited for crop farming. Instead, the property was used almost exclusively for rough hill grazing (primarily sheep and hardier cattle).2. Status as a "Township" vs. a Farm In 18th-century Northumberland, a "township" did not imply a village or a town. It was simply a legal, fiscal division of land used for tax collection. In the case of Coat-Yards, the entire 235-acre township essentially consisted of one solitary, remote farm holding.3. Population and Tenancy Historical census records from the turn of the century (1801) show the entire township had a population of only 20 inhabitants. These residents were the head farmer, his family, and a small handful of live-in farm labourers and shepherds. Rather than being owned by the people who lived there, the farm was a tenanted land holding. Throughout the 1700s, ownership shifted between prominent local landowning families—specifically the Fenwicks, Robinsons, and Turners—who leased the farm out to tenant farmers.Today, the historic landscape remains largely unchanged in its utility, functioning as the modern Coat Yards Farm under the wider administrative umbrella of the Netherwitton Village.