Catalogue

The manor was at first held by the Bowes family from the Nevilles, but after the attainders which followed the Northern Rising of 1569, James I granted the manors of Hilton and Bradbury to Thomas Emerson at a rent of £550 p.a. in 1606. After passing through the hands of two other families, it came into the possession of the Hiltons. Abraham Hilton (died 1718) was Lord of the Manor of Hilton. He succeeded to the Hilton estate on the death of his father in 1685. It was sold by Abraham Hilton (1731 - 1789) to the Earl of Darlington (Vane family) for £1,040 in 1789.

The manor was first held with the lordship of Barnard Castle by the Baliols. Its history follows the same course as that of Barnard Castle and like other estates forfeited by the Earl of Westmorland in 1569, it has come into the hands of the Barons Barnard (Vane family)

The manor is first mentioned as being the lordship of Meldred, a grandson of Uchtred, Earl of Northumberland. His successor, Robert Fitz-Meldred married Isabel, sister and heiress of Henry de Neville (died 1227) and his son, Geoffrey. assumed the Neville surname.

The manor remained in the possession of the Nevilles until the Northern Rising of 1569, after which it was seized by the Crown and was vested there until 1613 when it was granted (with the lordship of Barnard Castle) by James I to the Earl of Somerset. It quickly reverted to the Crown, however, when Somerset was attainted and the manor was settled on trustees for the maintenance of Charles, Prince of Wales (later Charles I). Sir Henry Vane the elder subsequently purchased the lordship and it has descended from him in a direct line through the Dukes of Cleveland to the Barons Barnard (Vane family).

Items D/Bo/A 703-722 were contained in a bundle marked 'Sundry Documents relative courts, markets, exchanges, wayleaves etc. to be placed in a book by themselves for my son', with a note of William Watson (1860) stating that the endorsement was written by the 1st Earl of Darlington.

Stewards' papers

The manor of Cotherstone was originally the property of the Huddleston family of Millom Castle (Cumberland). In 1741, however, it was purchased by George Bowes from William Huddleston and it has remained a manor of the Strathmore (Bowes) family from that date.

The history of the manor is marked by a series of disputes between the lord and the customary tenants concerning the steward's fees in the manor court. The tenants claimed that they were only bound to pay 1s. for admission to a copyhold tenement and 3s.4d. for a copy of the admission, except in the case of a new tenant where the charge for an admission was increased to 1s.4d. Litigation concerning the dispute continued intermittently for a period of almost 300 years until the matter was resolved in favour of the tenants by a judgment in the Court of Appeal in 1898.

The records deposited in the Museum relate almost exclusively to various legal actions, the majority in the Court of Chancery, and the few court rolls which survive were produced as exhibitions in the Chancery case of 1653 (D/Bo/D 801).

The three deeds D/Bo/A 797-799 and the later transcripts and translations were found in a contemporary leather-covered box where they had been kept because of their importance in determining manorial custom. This arrangement has been maintained.