Rudchester is just to the south of the Roman fort of Vindobala - "White Strength" - the fourth fort on Hadrian's wall, counting from the East. It has been occupied since the 1st century AD. Other Roman remains include a mithraeum south-west of the site, a Roman cistern or "giant's grave", the vallum which runs through the north of the farm and the vicus which has been found in the eastern courtyard at Rudchester.
The name, "Rudchester" has been interpreted as "red camp" - some of the stones excavated from the site of the Roman village around Vindobala in 1924 appeared to be reddened by burning. But it is referred to as "Rutchester" on the maps of John Speed 1611, Horsley 1733 and the Military Way map 1746, "Routchester" on the Armstrong map of 1769, "Rouchester" on the Fryer map of 1820.
The first use of the current spelling of "Rudchester" was on Greenwood's map of 1828 and appears to have been consistently "Rudchester" only since 1924 at the behest of Thomas James.
The population of Europe increased from 35 to 80 million between 1000 and 1347, 90% of whom lived as rural peasants. The cause of the increase is unknown, but may have been contributed to by improving climate, decline of slave holding, lack of invasion and improved agricultural techniques, with an open field system resulting in the Ridge and Furrow pattern seen on the Rudchester fort today.
Ordinel I de Umfraville (Baron of Prudhoe, 1094-1166) granted "Rouchester" to Eilaf son of Roger by charter in around 1160, to be held by him and his heirs by the service of half a knights fee.
His son, Ordinel II (1125-1182) married Alice de Lucy in 1155. Their son, Richard (1163-1226), succeeded his father on his death. Among the witnesses of the charter were Gilbert the constable, Robert de Umfraville, Gilbert's brother and Jordan de Umfraville.
At the beginning of the 13th century, Rudchester was owned by Simon of Rudchester I, the steward of Richard de Umfraville (1195-1226). Simon gave proof of age for building a hall at Rudchester in 1285 as part of litigation. "Assize was held to enquire whether Simon de Rouchester had unjustly disseised the abbot of Holm from his free tenement in Rouchester, namely one acre of land and 3 acres of meadow. Simon in person pleaded that the abbot owned it and put it in his view when the writ was taken out on October 14th, 29th year of the king now reigning. The abbot said that he was not then seised of it, for Simon had disseised him. The jury found for the abbot, who recovered possession and 22s. damages." The Register: Rudchester (Northumberland)
This was the 13th century hall incorporated into the three story pele tower which is thought to have been constructed at around this time, dated by the remaining usped ogee-headed "Caernarfon" window which remains in the main bedroom on the first floor. This would make it an early example as most pele towers were constructed in the boarder areas between the 14th and 17th centuries.
Rudchester passed to Robert of Rudchester IV in 1419. He died without children, and the estate, valued at 6 "marks" (£4 - a "mark" was never a physical amount of money represented by a coin, but was worth 2/3 of a pound, or 13s 4d, and was worth 2 gold nobles), passed to his sister, Margaret, who was married to William Rutherford.
There is a report of Mrs Rutherford and her daughter hiding in a priest hole above the living room fireplace in the late 16th century. We have not been able to verify the existence of a priest hole as the fire bricks at the back of the hearth make it too narrow to climb, but there does appear to be a small ledge about 2m above the hearth...
On 9th December 1653, Rudchester Tower was bought by Gilbert Grouch from the Treason Trustees, but was quickly recovered by Thomas Rutherford II. Rudchester then remained in the Rutherford family until it was sold to Thomas Riddell on 27th February 1667.
Rudchester was next sold to John Rogers in 1685. Rogers took John Addison to court on the subject of the "Manor of Rudchester" in 1695. I do not know the details, and the documents are held but the National Archives, Kew.
John Rogers died in 1708 and was buried in St. Nicholas Church Newcastle (this is now St Nicholas Cathedral, but we have not been able to find his grave), so the property passed to his son, John Rogers. He married Anne, daughter of Sir John Delavale, but later became "a lunatic" and died without children on the 24th June 1755, thus his estate was divided between his three cousins and co-heirs, Edward Montague, Anthony Isaacson, and William Archdeacon. Archdeacon then became the sole owner by deed of exchange in 1769.
Rudchester was sold by Archdeacon to Ayscough Fawkes in 1770 who passed it to his brother Francis on his death soon afterwards.
Francis Fawkes died in 1786, and left Rudchester to his friend Walter Hawkesworth who changed his family name to Fawkes. He died in 1792 and passed Rudchester on to his eldest son Walter Ramsden Hawkesworth, who then took the name Walter Fawkes.
The Fawkes family appears to have been responsible for the major alterations to the manor house and pele tower resulting in its current Georgian gothic windows - similar to those in Prudhoe castle and Brinkburn Priory. Bosanquet (Archaeologia Aeliana Series 4, Volume 6, Pages 130-162) states that a domestic chapel that had been used as a cow shed was pulled down in the late 18th century, but we do not have any details of where this was located.
The manor and township of Rudchester, with tithes from tenants of £200 per year, were sold at auction on 24th October 1816.
On 3rd December 1818 (or possibly 11th May 1819), Walter Fawkes sold Rudchester including two farmhouses (with William Barkass as tenant until May 1819), outbuildings and cottages for labourers and 640 acres of farmland at auction to William James of Deckham Hall in Gateshead, which he had bought from Thomas Deckham in 1817 for £7100. The James family owned Rudchester for the next 181 years with the property next passing to his son, Thomas James on his death in 1820. Thomas James died in 1883.
In 1841, Rudchester was a tenant farm occupied by John (b 1803) and Thomas Stephenson (b 1806), and his wife Elizabeth (b 1811). They had 6 children, Thomas (b 1832), William (b 1834), Hannah (b 1836), Elizabeth (1838), John (b 1840) and a baby Mary (b 1841). There were 5 other families living in Rudchester at that time: The James family, Isabella (b 1781), John (b 1791), Richard (b 1816) and Betsey (b 1823), the Graham family, Ann (b 1791), and Edward (b 1791), with their children, Edward (b 1829) and Sarah (b 1832), the Proud family, William (b 1816), Jonas (b 1821), Edward (b 1839) and Mary (b 1841), the Dickinson family, Isabella (b 1801) and William (b 1801) with their 6 children, William (b 1826), Henry (b 1829), Ales (b 1831), Catharine (b 1834), Ralph (b 1837), and Joseph (b 1840), and the Armstrong family James (b 1761), Mary (b 1811), Ann (b 1815), Joseph (b 1817) and Ann (1840). Also living here were Mary Emmington (b 1816), Barbara Hambleton (b 1801), Jane Hall (b 1826), Hannah Minto (b 1825), and Ann Murrah (b 1821). It is not clear where they lived, and we can only assume that there were other buildings at the time which have been demolished.
William Whellan & Co. described Rouchester (or Rudchester) in 1855, as a township three miles N.N.E. of Ovingham comprising 614 acres of land. Its population had risen over the preceding 40 years, based on census data:
1801 - 28
1811 - 27
1821 - 31
1831 - 28
1841 - 51
1851 - 48 souls.
In 1855, Thomas James lived in the manor with his land steward Alexander Scott. The population of Rudchester was 48 in 1851 including the farmworkers and their families. In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Rudchester as: "RUDCHESTER, or Rouchester, a township in Ovingham parish, Northumberland; on the Roman wall, 8½ miles W N W of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Acres, 644. Pop., 58. Houses, 11. The Roman station Vindobala was here; is still slightly traceable; and has furnished four altars, a Hercules, bricks, coins, and other relics. A mediæval stronghold also was here, and became the nucleus of a modern farm-house".
The James family tree is difficult to determine from the documents we have, but my current best guess is here: James Family Tree. From the 1905 conveyance, Harry Redesdale James died without children on 16th July 1873, Richard James died without children on 1st
November 1875. John Collinson James died on 27th January 1883 and Thomas James passed Rudchester to his son, Christian H James, on his death on 14th June 1883. Thomas Watson was his bailiff (governor or custodian) and also lived in Rudchester. The boundaries of Ovingham and Heddon-on-the-Wall were altered in 1892, moving the township of Rudchester from Ovingham to the parish of Heddon-on-the-Wall.
Rudchester was advertised for sale by public auction on 29th May 1902 including pastures, arable, woodland, a lake, houses and outbuildings with three cottages on the homestead and two on the farm.
The manor is described as "a comfortable gentleman's residence comprising three reception rooms, four bedrooms and dressing room, two servants' bedrooms, kitchen, scullery and commodious out offices".
The farm was occupied by the bailiff.
The conveyance of 1905 shows that Rudchester was bought by Christian Hugh Septimus James of Rudchester and the Reverend Richard Burdon of Heddon House in the county of Northumberland, Clerk in Holy Orders, for £23,000 (about £2.5M at today's prices).
The land south of the military road went to Christian Hugh Septimus James and the land north of the road went to the Reverend Richard Burdon.
The document includes a long and complex indenture between 11 individuals with interlinking trustee and family relationships.
Christian Hugh Septimus James mortgaged the southern part of the Rudchester estate to John Siddell and others for £10,000 on 11th August 1905.
£1,000 was repaid on 19th July 1922, £3,000 on 29th August 1923, and £3,000 on 11th August 1937. The remaining £3,000 was repaid to Ethelred Ellison after his death on 3rd April 1967.
Rudchester Roman fort (Vindobala), the associated civil settlement and a section of Hadrian's Wall and vallum from the A69 to the March Burn in wall mile 13, were designated a scheduled ancient monument on 12th December 1928 (List Entry 017533) and last amended on 14th July 1997.
There is a good map on the Historic England website.
Rudchester was next sold in 1936 as a manor house containing "...entrance hall, drawing room, old stone fireplace, lounge and dining room, maid's parlour, pantry adjacent, larder, stick and coal houses and heating chamber,
large modern kitchen with Aga cooker, half landing with lavatory. On the first floor, four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a maid's bedroom". The outbuildings were described as two garages, and old harness room, laundry and workshop.
The buildings of Rudchester farm were listed as a byre for 25, hemmel, loose box and store with granary over, byre for 17, hay barn with granary over, seven bay hemmel and sheep dip.
Christian Hugh Septimus James died suddenly on 4th October 1938 at the age of 86. His obituary in his old school magazine, The Dunelmian says
"C. H, S. James was one of six brothers who came to Durham [Durham Cathedral School]. He entered in 1866, and was a member of the XI and XV as well as of First Crew, but was prevented from rowing by illness, his substitute being T. C. Fry, afterwards Dean of Lincoln.
Mr. James was a land agent and had lived at Rudchester for sixty years." He left "all that mansion house of Rudchester with its outbuildings, gardens and grounds and the several plantations and closes of land containing together two hundred and nine acres or thereabouts situate partly in the township of
Rudchester and partly in the township of Houghton and Close House in the parish of Ovingham" to Christian Wilfred James.
The manor house was listed 2* on 27th August 1952.
Christian Wilfred James died on 24th March 1955, and Rudchester, containing 279.870 acres, passed to Tom James on 24th January 1958.
Tom James sold 2.42 acres of woodland to the north and the 3 acre field to the south of Quarry House to Peter Geoffrey and Flossie Lilian Hodgkinson of Quarry House on 4th April 1967 for £1,750 and two smaller areas to the south
(0.34 and 0.32 acres) on 17th July 1967. He sold Blakeley Cottage and 2 acres of land (now just to the south of the A69) to William Angus Kennedy on 6th May 1971 for £3,500. 17.82 acres of land were compulsorily purchased from
Squadron Leader Tom James to build the A69 on 1st June 1976 for £28,335. He sold Rudchester Farm and 253.38 acres to John Campbell and June Stobo on 26th March 1979 for £145,000. Arthur Heywood Charlesworth and John Rowland Davies
sold what appears to be the current Rudchester Barn to Tom James on 4th March 1983 for £1,000. Tree preservation orders were placed on the land to the west of the road and a woodland preservation order on the disused quarry
site to the east on 13th October 1983. Tom James sold some land at Houghton Moor to Edwin Bell on 15th October 1984 for £400. He gave "the stables" (currently Rudchester Barn and the adjacent half of Stable Cottage) to his son,
Adam Christian James on 2nd February 1986 and Stable cottage to his daughter Julia Elizabeth Miranda James on 24th December 1986. He then gave the remaining parts of Rudchester Manor to Adam Christian James on 13th July 1989.
Hadrian's wall was inscribed as a world heritage site in 1987 with extension as "frontiers of the Roman Empire" in Germany in 2005.
Adam Christian Quentin James sold the Bothy to Michael Anthony and Susan McClellan on 9th September 1992.
He sold the portion of Stable Cottage adjacent to the Barn to Oliver Kolawolw Ojikutu on 14th April 1998.
Mr T James sold the remaining parts of Rudchester to Mark and Margaret Watson in 1999.
Our current list of Rudchester ownerships is:
- unknown - Ordinel I de Umfraville (1094-1166)
- 1160 - Eilaf son of Roger
- unknown - Ordinel II (1125-1182)
- unknown - Richard Ordinel (1163-1226)
- unknown - Simon of Rudchester
- unknown - Unknown
- 1419 - Robert of Rudchester IV
- unknown - Margaret of Rudchester (Robert's sister)
- 09/12/1653 - Gilbert Grouch
- unknown - Thomas Rutherford
- 27/02/1667 - Thomas Riddell
- 1685 - John Rogers
- 1708 - John Rogers (son)
- 1769 - Willaim Archdeacon
- 1770 - Ayscough Fawkes
- unknown - Francis Fawkes
- 1786 - Walter Hawskworth
- 1792 - Walter Ramsden Hawkesworth
- 30/12/1818 - William John James
- 1820 - Thomas James
- 14/06/1883 - Christian Hugh Septimus James
- 04/10/1938 - Christian Wilfrid James
- 24/01/1955 - Tom James
- 13/07/1989 - Adam Christian Quentin James
- 1999 - Mark & Margaret Watson
- 21/06/2001 - Rudchester Manor - current
- 28/09/2012 - Rudchester Farm - current
- 08/11/2024 - Rudchester Bothy - current
