Hodgson has some of the history of the place:
The rural calm of Acklington park was broken in the year 1775, when a firm of speculators, attracted by the unfailing water-power of the Coquet, acquired a lease of land from the duke of Northumberland with liberty to erect a foundry for the manufacture of tin and iron. By leases granted by John Archbold of Acton and Edward Cook of Brainshaugh, the promoters acquired powers to erect a weir or dam across the Coquet, and to impound its waters against the lands of the grantors. The dam, engineered by Smeaton, was built of ` firm, close stone,' and pounded `the water so high as to cause upwards of 15 feet head and fall at the wheels ' of the works, and formed ` a pound in the river upwards of 2,000 yards long and 60 yards wide.'
Handicapped by distance from market the works, with an unexpired lease of forty-five years, were advertised in 1791 to be sold. They might ` be employed alternately one week in rolling tin and next in rolling half blooms'; there was at Warkworth `a warehouse' and shipping place where at spring tides there is water sufficient for vessels drawing from 8 to 9 feet of water.' Application was to be made to Mr. George Kendal at the premises, Mr. Edward Kendal of Beaufort Forge, near Abergavenny, or to Mr. Jonathan Kendal at Swansea.
The premises were purchased by John Reed, a woollen draper in the Groat Market, Newcastle, who, in the Newcastle papers of 1796, was advertising for weavers for the woollen manufactory at Acklington, and a year later advertised that as he was retiring from the retail trade, wholesale customers should address their letters to his `warehouse, near the White Cross, Newcastle, or to the manufactory at Acklington park.'
Reed disposed of the works in 1828 to David Thompson, a Galashiels manufacturer, a neighbour and correspondent of Sir Walter Scott, and himself a versifier. In his family the manufactory remained, and was carried on till 1884, when it was finally discontinued.
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