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Old 04-05-2011, 01:21 PM
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Originally Posted by Pete View Post
Nice pics Mike. Do you think the village was demolished because it spoilt the view from the hall?

Hodgson states:

The township of Low or Nether Buston, which lies immediately to the south of High Buston, is divided from the parish of Shilbottle by the Tyke burn on the west, and is bounded on the south by the townships of Sturton Grange, Brotherwick, Warkworth, and Birling, and on the east by Birling and the sea. It comprises 896 acres, mostly of fertile barley and turnip soil, with ancient pasture fields, rich in depth and quality of soil surrounding the hamlet of Low Buston and the homestead of Shortridge. In 1891 the township had a population of 96.


The ancient manor house stood in the hamlet of Low Buston (at the extreme south-west corner of the township) on a ridge overhanging a pebbly-bottomed stream, generally known as the Buston or Hounden burn, but of which the real name is the Tyke burn. The site of the village with its gardens sloping to the south, can be very easily traced in the park like field to the east of the house; and in four of the grass fields may be seen broad and curved ridges, which recall the time when these lands were in tillage and ploughed by oxen. No part of the present house is older than the seventeenth century, but it has spacious gardens with lofty plantations of horse-chestnut, oak, elm, and other forest trees.


And later in his text...


Charles Francis Forster, who succeeded to the estate on the death of his father in 1778 (having previously resided at Campvill, near Holystone), was an able but eccentric man, and obtained the sobriquet of General Forster, it is said, from so announcing himself on hailing the porter for admittance to Berwick after the gates were closed at night. He took a prominent part in the contested election of 1774, and his character and exploits are pilloried in various election ballads and lampoons. His collection of Roman altars and antiquities from Rochester, in Redesdale, is now at Alnwick castle. Up to this period the hamlet or `town' of Low Buston retained its ancient site on a tongue of land of which the south side slopes rapidly to the Tylee and Grange burns, and the east end and north side fall into a small unnamed rill and letch. So much of the two long rows of houses and cottages as stood to the east of the mansion house were allowed to go to decay, or were removed, and the village street was diverted to a new public road further to the north. Charles Francis Forster seems to have added the entrance hall (with a good timber staircase) to the house, and also to have formed the drive and to have planted the fine horse-chestnut and other forest trees which adorn the gardens and grounds.



So from all that I get the impression that houses or ruins of houses were on the site 'til late 18c Disappearing as the new hall/manor developed - could we assume that post medieval stone buildings were in the village then and the materials were recycled into the modern hall?

Anyway in medieval times it looks like we had a manor house (in the same position as the modern house/hall?) overlooking rows of houses with the road passing up the centre as the main street. (good for the lord of the manor to keep an eye on the great unwashed )
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