Kilham is a hamlet and civil parish in the English county of Northumberland, located west of Wooler, east of Kelso, south west of Berwick-upon-Tweed and north west of Morpeth. It lies on the northern edge of the Northumberland National Park in Bowmont Valley Northumberland. The hamlet, which consists of a small group of agricultural dwellings, is overlooked by Kilham Hill and the northern limits of the Cheviot Hills. The parish had a population of 131 in 2001, and includes the hamlets of Howtel and Pawston, along with the former upland township of Coldsmouth and Thompson's Walls. falling to less than 100 at the 2011 Census. Details are now included in the parish of Branxton
Situated on the border with Scotland, Kilham had a turbulent history. It suffered from repeated Scottish incursions, and was often destroyed and laid waste. The situation was considered serious enough for a report to be made to the Privy Council of England, about a raid in 1597 which had resulted in the death of several villagers. In later, more peaceful times, the area developed into an agricultural backwater, which was gradually opened up by the construction of roads and railways.
Toponymy Kilham first appears in documents in 1177 as Killum, which is usually thought to derive from the Old English Cylnum, indicating the presence of kilns. The name was still spelt Killum as late as the 18th century.
History Several well preserved Bronze Age settlements exist in the area around Kilham, and a cairn on Kilham Hill, excavated in 1905, was found to conceal a cist containing burnt bones, thought to date from the period. A bronze rapier blade dating from 1500 to 1000 BC, found near the Bowmont Water in the 19th century, and now in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, provides further evidence of Bronze Age activity in the parish.
Iron Age hillforts are found throughout the Cheviot Hills, and the parish contains examples at Bowmont Hill, Kilham Hill, Pawston Camp, and Wester Hill. Such hillforts were not necessarily defensible, and the small interior area of most suggests they were not permanent settlements. Although some may have served as defended farmsteads, others are likely to have been animal enclosures, market places or places of worship. An enclosure at Barley Hill, in the north of the parish, is considered to have been a small farmstead, consisting of roundhouses and adjacent stockyards.
Towards the end of the first millennium BC, all of the remaining upland forest in the area had been cleared, and increasing numbers of settlements or homesteads were established on the high moorland. Some of these appear to have been built within the ramparts of earlier hillforts, which had been abandoned for some time. A well-preserved settlement at Longknowe is thought to be Romano-British, although this part of Northumberland lay beyond the Roman frontier for much of the period of occupation. Small enclosed homesteads such as this are likely to have continued in use for several centuries, and were probably only abandoned as the population moved to lower lying hamlets during the Early Medieval period.
In 651 King Oswine granted 12 named vills, or townships, including Shotton, and perhaps Thornington, along with a large tract of land beside the Bowmont Water, to Saint Cuthbert. The villagers would have been required to hand over the major proportion of any surplus produce and labour from these communities to the church.
By the 13th century, Kilham formed one of the constituent manors of the barony of Wark on Tweed. The barony had been established by King Henry I, and granted to Walter L'espec, one of his principal agents of government in Northern England. The lord of the manor was Michael of Kilham, although he did not possess the whole township, part being held by Kirkham Priory in North Yorkshire, which had been founded by the barons of Wark. In 1269 it was recorded that the priory had 1,000 sheep feeding on the "great moor" of Kilham. Land at Shotton and Coldsmouth was held by Kelso Abbey in the Scottish Borders. The manorial lordship passed through various hands to the Greys of Chillingham Castle, who eventually consolidated ownership of the whole township, in the 17th century acquiring the former Kirkham Priory holdings, which had earlier been sold by the crown after the dissolution of the Monasteries.
A bastle, or fortified farmhouse, was built at the north end of the village in the late 16th or early 17th centuries. Right up to the end of the 16th century, Kilham had suffered repeated Scottish incursions. Every valuation of the village's lands in the 15th century revealed a state of waste and destruction. In 1541 the lack of any defensive structure was criticised by Sir Robert Bowes and Sir Ralph Ellerker, the Border Commissioners, who strongly urged that a tower be built in the village. They also reported on the tower at Howtel, which had been "rased and casten downe" during an invasion in 1497. Howtel Tower is mentioned again by Sir Henry Hadston, who in 1584 reported to Queen Elizabeth I that it was one of a number of towers needing repair. Sir Robert Carey, Lord Warden of the Marches, in 1597 reported to the Privy Council of England:
A map dated 1712 shows two rows of dwellings and toft enclosures in the village. A total of 19 buildings are shown, plus a watermill to the north beside the Bowmont Water, and three buildings to the south west at Longknowe. The village appears to extend slightly further along the lane to Longknowe than the current hamlet. Although not shown on the map, the ruins of an earlier chapel are believed to have existed in Chapel Field, on the hillside to the south east of the village.
By the latter part of the 19th century Kilham consisted of a large farm with farmhouse and two rows of cottages for the farm's workforce. There was, in addition, a smithy and a post office. To the south, Thompson's Walls was by 1800 an estate with a farm complex laid out around a square courtyard. Hemp and flax were grown, and a small mill is shown on maps from the 1860s onwards. The adoption of new agricultural techniques and improvements to the area's transport infrastructure resulted in greater prosperity for Kilham's farming community in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Enclosure of common land was intended to increase efficiency, bring more land under the plough, and reduce the high prices of agricultural production, and Howtel Common was enclosed in 1779. Female bondagers, or outworkers, were employed to work in the fields up to the end of the 19th century. The system was recorded in the Scottish Borders as early as 1656, and subsequently spread into Glendale. Agricultural labourers, known as hinds, were required to provide a female, often a relative or a girl living with the hind's family, who would be on call as a day labourer whenever required. The bondager's work was regarded as paying the rent of the hind's cottage.
Thomas Henry Scott, a police constable from Pawston, was murdered in 1880, while attempting to arrest two poachers at Hethpool. He had been bludgeoned and beaten.
The Alnwick and Cornhill Railway, owned by the North Eastern Railway, opened in 1887, providing a rail link to Wooler and Cornhill on Tweed. There was no station at Kilham, the nearest being at Mindrum and Kirknewton, but sidings were built to handle goods traffic. Passenger services were withdrawn in 1930, with a goods and parcels service continuing until 1965. Kilham sidings closed in 1953.
Farming at Kilham during most of the 20th century concentrated on rearing pedigree Aberdeen Angus cattle. However, mechanisation and the decline in farming incomes resulted in the farm ceasing to function as an independent unit. In 1988 the Kilham estate was divided into three separate farms: Kilham, Longknowe and Thompson's Walls. Longknowe Farm now specialises in breeding and rearing sheep and suckler cows, while Kilham Farm is leased to a neighbouring farmer at Thornington, and some of the buildings have been converted into workshops.
Geography Kilham stands on the south bank of the Bowmont Water in Glendale, at the mouth of Kilham Burn. Settlement is limited to dispersed farmsteads and small hamlets, of which Kilham is the largest. Glendale has a clearly defined valley floor and pronounced raised terraces. The area is relatively well wooded, with both coniferous plantations and broadleaved woodland on the surrounding hills, and areas of alder woodland and pollarded willow along the valley floor. The river forms part of the River Tweed Site of Special Scientific Interest, designated in 2001 due to its biological interest, and the River Tweed Special Area of Conservation, designated under the European Habitats Directive for the biological interest within the river system.
To the south, the area is dominated by Kilham Hill, high, and above Longknowe, in the valley of Kilham Burn, is the former township of Coldsmouth and Thompson's Walls, lying in the northern limits of the Cheviot Hills. The geology of the upland area is composed of Devonian igneous rocks, and the landscape is characterised by smooth rolling hills and extensive plateaux of semi-natural acidic grass moor, known locally as white grass. There are areas of heather moorland and, in wetter parts, blanket bog dominated by dwarf shrubs, sedges, sphagnum moss and cotton grass. Coniferous woodland plantations are common on the upper valley slopes, with the remnants of broadleaved woodland, gorse scrub and meadow grassland in the steep sided valleys. The area reaches a height of at Coldsmouth Hill.
On the opposite side of the dale, to the north, are the hamlets of Howtel and Thornington. Much of this area consists of glacial gravel, and both sand and gravel were extracted at Thornington. Upstream on the Bowmont Water, the former township of Pawston lies to the south west.
Northumberland is the coldest county in England, with mean summer temperatures in the northern lowlands 0.5 °C below those found to the south. Kilham is sheltered from the prevailing winds, which are from the south west, but there are cold winds from the east in winter. The growing season is between April and November. The low mean temperature and high rainfall result in water-logging of fine textured soils, and leaching of nutrients from soils with a coarser texture. The nearest weather station for which comprehensive records are published is at Boulmer, located south east of Kilham, on the North Sea coast.
Governance
Kilham, Coldsmouth and Thompson's Walls, Howtel and Pawston were four of 15 townships in the ancient parish of Kirknewton, one of the largest parishes in England. Following the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, parishes were grouped into unions: Glendale Poor Law Union was created in 1837. Under the Public Health Act 1848 the area of the poor law union became Glendale Rural Sanitary District, which from 1889 formed a second tier of local government under Northumberland County Council. The four townships became civil parishes in their own right, separate from Kirknewton but within the sanitary district, in 1866, and under the Local Government Act 1894 became part of Glendale Rural District. Coldsmouth and Thompson's Walls, Howtel and Pawston were amalgamated into Kilham in 1955. Glendale Rural District was abolished in 1974, and became part of the newly created Borough of Berwick upon Tweed, which was in turn abolished as a result of the Northumberland (Structural Change) Order 2008, under which Northumberland became a unitary authority in 2009.
Kilham now forms part of Wooler electoral division of Northumberland County Council, represented by Anthony Murray of the Conservative Party, who was elected to the new council on its creation in 2008. The parish does not have a parish council.