WDYTYA? Magazine contributor Gail Dixon has been astonished to trace her Northumbrian farming forebears back to the 16th century
READER STORY A reader shares their discoveries
Growing up in Redesdale, one of life’s great pleasures was riding my horse Molly over the sunlit hillsides. The valley is in the idyllic Northumberland National Park, and 10 miles south of the border with Scotland.
It’s hard to imagine that a few centuries earlier, Redesdale was one of the most violent places in England. This was due to cut-throat marauders known as ‘reivers’ who terrorised the Borders from the 13th century until the 1600s.
Our farm was near the hamlet of Rochester, where the site of a Roman fort called Bremenium was excavated. I knew a little of our ancestry – the Dixons had farmed in Redesdale for at least a century, and we had connections with the nearby village of Elsdon.
As a child, I used to play in Elsdon on the grassy banks of the Mote Hills, which were the remains of a medieval motte and bailey castle. I gave little thought to any ancestors who may have lived there.
My parents were Mary Kathleen Newton, a neurosurgery nurse from Tyneside, and Peter Dixon, who was born and raised in Rochester. They met at a ball, and married in 1965.
Dad was a farmer all his life, and a keen sportsman. He played centre forward for Elsdon’s football team, and had a cabinet that was full of trophies.
I remember my grandad Leonard Dixon as a silent man, shrouded in puffs of pipe smoke. He was born in Rochester in 1890, and managed to reach the grand age of 86.
BRAVE DECISION
Leonard fought during the First World War in the Royal Field Artillery, volunteering in 1914 even though he was exempt from service as a farmer. He was also a horse whisperer, and would have comforted animals enduring the horrors of the Western Front.
Leonard married the wonderfully named Hannah Ochiltrie Hunter, who was Redesdale’s district nurse. Grandma Hannah loved fancy dress, and I have one of her Victorian crinolines, which fitted me when I was 10.
Like most Dixons, Leonard preferred talk of farming, horses and dogs. However, if asked about the ancestors he would say, “They’re all in the churchyard in Elsdon.” He also recalled that at one time there were four farms in the family. What had become of this formidable estate?
In adulthood, I was always fascinated by genealogy but univer
