How an ancient map transformed a Northumberland farm

Charlotte and Charlie Bennett have spent four years converting their Northumberland farm back to how it would have looked more than 200 years ago. The results, they said, have been astonishing. The BBC went to have a look.

It was all thanks to the discovery of a long-forgotten map.

The document, found in a Newcastle library, revealed a rich pasture landscape littered with ancient field names, hedgerows and woodland that had long since disappeared.

It showed the Bennetts how their 440-acre Middleton North estate looked in 1805.

"It was the boom moment," Charlie recalls, adding: "I knew this was a time when farming and nature were in a good balance, and by restoring that landscape we could create a living farm that was also good for wildlife."

Middleton North has been in Charlotte's family for a century, passing from her great-grandfather to her great-aunt to her mother to herself.

The couple only moved on to the estate near Morpeth in 2019 and the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic the following year meant they suddenly had a lot more time to focus on their new home.

Charlie's recruitment business stalled, and seven large projects ceased to be.

"I went out on to the farm and thought 'this is what we're going to do'," he says, adding: "I was totally inspired by what was going on in the world to try and make a difference."

He was intrigued that one of their woods was called The Hospital Plantation, which led to the surprising discovery that the land had once been owned by the Greenwich Hospital in London.

That was thanks to the previous owner's execution.

In 1716, James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, was stripped of his lands and beheaded for his part in the failed Jacobite uprising the previous year.

His estate was passed by parliament to the Greenwich Hospital as a way of generating income to provide for the country's large population of retired and injured sailors.

In 1805, cartographers surveyed the hospital's land with the resulting maps eventually deposited at the Lit and Phil, a historic independent library in Newcastle.

"I went to the Lit and Phil and asked one of librarians and she said 'yes I think I can find that for you'," Charlie says.

"She handed me this dusty file and I just couldn't believe it," he continues, adding: "A map from 1805 with all the old field names, hedgerows and field boundaries."

Charlie also wanted to know what species would have been prevalent at the time so he turned to the works of Thomas Bewick, the Northumberland wood-engraver who published illustrated books of wildlife during the same period and was the "David Attenborough of his day".

"What I discovered was that a lot of what was there then is there now, but there are an awful lot of things missing," Charlie says, adding: "So I made a list.

"An example would be cranes and strangely, two years into our project a crane appeared."

In the last four years, the Bennetts have returned all the arable fields, which is about 70% of their land, back to herbal leys - grasslands made up of different grass and legume species which has improved soil fertility and provided food for pollinators such as bees and butterflies.

They have also planted 40 acres of woodland, nearly seven miles of hedgerows and built 14 linked ponds around one section of the farm which, Charlie says, are now "stuffed full of wildlife".

"We've got newts, damselflies, frogs and we had four different species of dragonfly over the summer," he adds.

The project has seen big increases in the numbers of many animal, bird and insect species.

Local wildlife expert George Dodds carried out the 2023 Winter Bird Count where almost 30 different species of birds were identified.

"Probably the most significant increases are skylark numbers, linnets and yellowhammers," George says, adding: "On one snowy winter walk we saw a flock of around 380 yellowhammers which was very nice."

Now Charlie is keen to share the project with others by inviting groups on to the farm and going out into the community to give talks.

They are also working with a charity called the Country Trust which arranges farm visits for children.

"Children are the future," Charlie says, adding: "We've had a lot of children here and many have been from disadvantaged backgrounds.

"The wonderful thing is they come here and they just get it immediately.

"Within five minutes they're racing around, getting muddy, digging up worms.

"I just hope that we plant a seed and some of them think yes I'd like to work in the countryside or on a farm."

The changes at Middleton North have been funded partly from government Countryside Stewardship grants and with the help of charities such as the Woodland Trust and the Northumberland Rivers Trust.

There has also been some private sector investment with Coca-Cola paying for the ponds.

Charlie says he is keen to stress this is not a rewilding project but "common sense farming", with cattle and sheep on the land and crops of hay and silage.

"You could do this a different way and rather than having meadows you could have crops," he says.

"You could still have all the hedges, the ponds and the woods.

"I think it's absolutely essential that we grow our own food but the environment is a crop too and it's vital we look after it."

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