Wooler Church. 



By J. C. Hodgson, M.A., F.S.A. 



Wooler, the principal town in Glendale and the region of the 

 Cheviots, formed the caput of the barony of that name. The 

 earhest notice of the barony of Wooler is in 1212,^ when it was 

 held of the king in chief by Robert de Miischamp, the ruins 

 of whose tower or fortress still remain on the high mound 

 near the church. On the death of Robert de Muschamp II., 

 circa 1249, his barony and other estates descended to his 

 three co-heiresses, viz. his two daughters, Margery, wife of 

 Malise, Earl of Stratherne, and Isabel, wife of William de 

 Huntercomb, and his granddaughter Isabel, wife of Adam 

 de Wiginton, as heiress of her mother, Cecilia, wife of 

 Odinel de Ford. Isabel de Wiginton died without issue, and 

 in 1292 the estates were held, in moieties, by Isabel, wife of 

 William de Huntercomb, and her niece, Margery, otherwise 

 Mary, wife of Nicholas de Graham, the surviving child of 

 Margery, Countess of Stratherne."-^ 



Although no Anglian or pre-Conquest stone has been found, 

 it is in every way probable that a church — possibly of wood — 

 existed at Wooler from very early times. Certain tithes be- 

 longing to the church of this place were acquired before 1116 

 by the prior and convent of Tynemouth, apparently by the 



^ Testa de Nevill, cf. Archceologia ^liana, 2 Series, A''ol. xxv., p. 153. 



- Particulars of these transactions may be found in Mr Edward 

 Bateson's account of the descent of Belford, a member of the barony 

 of Muschamp, in the new History of Northumberland, Vol. i., pp. 378- 

 378, 381. 



