Wolf Hill farmstead (Wolf-Law)

The farmstead of Wolf Hill is marked on the Fryer survey of 1820, the Tithe Award of 1840 and Ordnance Survey first edition of 1865. Gone by Ordnance Survey second edition of 1898. The site is mentioned in medieval documents as Wolf-Law. Holywell formed an outlying member of the Bywell barony. During the thirteenth century a number of holdings were granted to the Benedectine nunnery of St. Bartholomew at Newcastle, and it is interesting to note that surveys of this period contain field names, such as Wolf-Law, which survived into the late nineteenth century. After being divided between a number of landholders, the lands of Holywell were leased to Thomas Bates of Morpeth (Queen's surveyor for the county) in 1553, after they were confiscated from the Marquis of Northampton for his support of Lady Jane Grey. The lands continued to be held by the Bates family until recent times (except for a short period in 1570 when Thomas Bates was arrested and put in the tower for his part in the rebellion of the Northern Earls). On 26 April 1707 Nicholas Fenwick sold land to William Grey. The Greys became the major landholder in Backworth. In 1822 the Duke of Northumberland purchased land from the Grey family including Wolf Hill Farm.