Flatworth manor

In 1158 Henry II ordered the lord of Hadston to donate Flatworth to Tynemouth Priory. In 1292 Flatworth was listed as one of the 10 manors of the priory, and - though no original document is cited by the Northumberland County History in support of this - "a manorial hall, grange and mill" were declared to form "the nucleus of Flatworth demesne". Flatworth was never a village, and lay in the township of Chirton. Between 1377 and 1538 the land of West Chirton was annexed to Flatworth which, in 1655, contained 466 acres of pasture and 404 acres of meadow and arable land. After the Dissolution "the Grange of Flatworth" was leased to Sir Thomas Hilton. In 1756 the demesnes were divided up into 9 farms. The Northumberland County History assumes the site of the manor was that of the mill, and that the mill extant in 1907 was the medieval one, south of Howdon Road, east of Coble Dean under the railway lines north of Albert Edward Dock. Wrathmell, however, equates it with Low Flatworth and cites a manuscript in the Northumberland Estates archive at Alnwick in support.