Transcripts of miscellaneous documents in various separate deposits in the care of Northumberland Archives.
NRO 324 Blackett-Ord (of Whitfield) papers:
W1/28 contains witness depositions taken in 1757 in the course of an arbitration over the boundary between Whitfield and Hexham manors in the West Allen valley, from which extracts are included as transcripts here. They contain statements from a number of old local residents mentioning farming, boundary ridings and the lead carriage.
W3/18/1 and W3/19 contain letters from and to John Ord (1658-1721), an influential and wealthy Newcastle lawyer, mining agent and landowner who undertook legal and financial work for William Blackett II and III and their agents, particularly John Wilkinson, a Newcastle coal merchant in his own right. Ord’s grandson later bought the Whitfield estate, which accounts for the presence of Ord’s papers (which are numerous) in this collection.
L 28/24 is from the Creevey papers, and contains a single letter from Diana Beaumont to a Mrs Wentworth from 1825.
NRO 3444/131 is a small collection of miscellaneous boundary riding papers, evidently strays from the Greenwich Hospital papers, the vast majority of which are in the ADM series at the National Archives.
NRO 452 Lord Crewe Estates papers
E/2/3/2 contains four letters relating to lead mining including at the very distinctive Burntshieldhaugh hush on the Devil’s Water.
E/3/7 contains some boundary riding papers from 1771 and 1793 relating to Bulbeck Common and Blanchland, and a copy of the Muggleswick boundary as stated in 1649
NRO 673/2 is a photocopy of Joseph Richmond’s letter book kept between 1728-34 in his capacity as Sir Walter Blackett’s chief agent. The original must have lain at Blackett’s home, Wallington Hall for many years for it was given by Sir George Otto Trevelyan of Wallington to the British Museum in 1866, and it is held today as part of the British Library’s manuscript collection (BL Add MS 27,420). The copy at Woodhorn does not include the first page of the original manuscript, but that first page is included in the transcript available from this page.
NRO 753 Grey family (later of Backworth) archives:
Box 1/Bundle J includes a bound notebook that contains over 250 copy letters of Newcastle merchant Ralph Grey (1628-76) and his widow Margaret between 1673 and 1679 and miscellaneous scribbles and part accounts of other family members up until around 1700. The bundle also includes a few court papers from the 1680s left by Margaret Grey which shed light on the family’s lead business and partnership with the Briggs family.
Box 2/Bundle 10, includes a lease of Red Lead Mill, a short distance away from Dukesfield, whcih was held by Margaret Grey.
NRO ZAL Allgood papers:
56/1-2 contains a series of detailed accounts for the Allgood’s ore carriage (mostly from Nentdale), smelting at Allen Mill, and lead carriage (mostly in three stages to Blaydon) between 1765-70. They contain the names of many carriers and smelters who worked for Allgood between these years. The accounts are available to download as a spreadsheet from this page, but are not otherwise included in the database. A single loose letter relating to Allen Mill in 1765 is available in the database.
57/12 contains papers kept by George Allgood, a London based attorney who did work for William Blackett III in the 1720s, working alongside John Ord (see above). A few of the letters are transcribed here; the original set of documents includes some very rough workings of accounts and traders letter-headed receipts.
NRO ZBK C/1/B/1 is a report from 1805 by James Cockshutt and Charles Bowns, Yorkshire agents of Col and Mrs Beaumont, giving recommendations for the management of their lead mines. It presumably ended up in the Blackett of Wylam papers as the then chief agent in Newcastle was Christopher Blackett. It is also included as Appendix 2 in C.J.Hunt’s The Lead Miners of the Northern Pennines (1970).
NRO ZCO Cookson papers
VII/1 is a detailed account of a boundary riding of the manor of Bulbeck in 1746.
VIII/1 contains 6 miscellaneous letters related to the Vane family’s part interest in the Stella Grand Lease colliery.
NRO ZMD 167/6/71 is a copy of a handbill produced by Henry Liddell in the course of his 1826 general election contest with T W Beaumont.
NRO ZPA 7 is a single letter from Newcastle lawyer John Ord to a London lawyer regarding Ord’s interest in taking a lead mining lease at Hunstanworth
NRO ZRI 21/11 is an agreement between four lessees of a Weardale mine from Sir William Blackett in 1694.
NRO ZWN/A/1 contains various legal documents related to the Blackett estate. The extracts given here are the will of Lady Julia Blackett of 1722, the loan agreement between Thomas Guy and Sir William Blackett of 1723, and the marriage settlement between Walter Calverley and Elizabeth Ord of 1729.
