244 An Account of Lesbury Parish, by Geo. Tate, F.G.S. 



1663 were, Mrs Katharine Goodrington, Mrs Mary Moore, and 

 Mr Thomas Bynion. In 1667, William Archbould was the chief 

 owner; and in 1672, his successor, Jerrard Archbould, held 

 twenty -four burgages in Alnmouth.* But in 1682, Alexander 

 Browne, of Twizell, in the county of Durham, purchased this 

 property for £1000, which was held by his family till 1732. 



This Alexander Browne, ancestor of Major Browne, of Lesbury 

 House, first settled at Ewart, in Northumberland, in 1670. He 

 must have been wealthy, for besides acquiring his Alnmouth pro- 

 perty he, in 1695, bought Shawdon, and in 1700, Doxford from 

 John Procter. His son, William, who succeeded to these estates, 

 was also owner of Bolton, Woodhouse, and Crawley ; and in 

 1712, bought the Branton estate from Edward Collingwood, of 

 Alnwick, and others, for the sum of £2600. By his will made in 

 1702, besides bequests to his grand children, he gave to his eldest 

 son, Thomas, his estate in Alnmouth and Seaton House, with the 

 tithe there ; to Alexander, his second son, his estate at Doxford, 

 with the tithe there, he paying thereout £300 to each of his 

 brothers William, Nicholas, and Thomas ; and to his son Nicholas, 

 of Ewart, his estate in Bolton and the manor of Shawdon, Wood- 

 house, and Crawley ; and to Joseph, his estate in Branton. 



He lived in Alnmouth. Horsley, the antiquary, says, in 1729 

 — "that no house of note is built here except that of Thomas 

 Brown, Esq., who is the proprietor of most of the ground that 

 belonged to or is adjacent to the town." But in 1731 and 1732, 

 Thomas Brown sold his property in Alnmouth to Edward Gallon, 

 of Alnmouth, and it continued in the possession of his family till 

 the death of — Gallon, an imbecile, when it was sold by order of 

 Chancery, and the proceeds divided among her heirs. The whole 

 was bought by the Duke of Northumberland. 



To the township of Alnmouth belonged a common — the Folk- 

 land of Saxon times — over which the inhabitants had pasturage 

 for their cattle and other rights and privileges. One part of this 

 common, containing about 100 acres, called the inner or Aln- 

 mouth common, adjoins the town on the south and the sea on the 

 east. Another tract of common, a mile further northward, and 

 adjoining the sea on the east, was in the parish of Longhoughton, 

 and was formerly called Longhoughton common, and contained 

 520 acres ; and over this, from time immemorial, the resident 

 * For these and others, see Dickson's Chapters on Alnmouth, p. 17. 



