Whitfield, Northumberland

Historical Description

Whitfield, a parish in Northumberland, on the river Alien, 2½ miles WSW of Staward station on the N.E.R., and 12 WSW of Hexham. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Langley-on-Tyne (R.S.O.) Acreage, 12,383 of land and 96 of water; population, 310. There is a parish council consisting of five members. The manor belonged anciently to the Whitfields, and, with Whitfield Hall, belongs now to the Blackett Ord family. The tract along the river is good and picturesque, but the rest of the surface is high, moorish, and waste. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Newcastle-on-Tyne; net value, £259 with residence. The church was built in 1860, is in the Early English style and cruciform, has a central tower and spire 130 feet high, and contains a chancel screen of carved oak, presented in 1887, and a beautifully carved reredos, erected in 1890 by the family of the late Mrs Blackett Ord, who built the church. The old church is used as a mortuary chapel. A reading-room was opened in 1887, and there are a police station and a small charity.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Whitfield from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Whitfield)

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Northumberland is available to browse.

Maps

Online maps of Whitfield are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers related to Northumberland online:

• Morpeth Herald
• Berwickshire News and General Advertiser
• The Berwick Advertiser
• Alnwick Mercury
• Illustrated Berwick Journal