Alnham, Northumberland

Today Alnham comprises a historic church, a vicarage incorporating an equally historic tower house, plus three farms, now partially disused, and a string of small cottages along the road heading southeast towards Scrainwood. As such it can be paralleled by many of the villages of North Northumberland.

However it was once a more populous settlement laid out around and within a village green. That we can say this with such certainty is a result of Alnham having the most extensive and informative historic map coverage of any of the villages included in this study.

The sequence of maps and plans, most of which are preserved in the Duke of Northumberland's archives, includes a comprehensive set of 18th-early 19th century examples and begins with a very large and finely illustrated map of the entire township produced in 1619, which allows us to reconstruct the form of the medieval village with some confidence.

This information is supplemented by a series of detailed descriptive surveys from the mid 16th century onwards, again preserved in the Duke's archives at Alnwick Castle.

Together this provides a clear evidence of just how radically the village settlement pattern in the northern part of the county has been altered since the medieval period.