Kilham : Dispersed Settlement

The Tankerville estate map reveals there was already a farmstead higher up the valley at Longknowes, where it marks by three buildings, at the beginning of the 18th Century.

There is no evidence for the existence of this farmstead during the medieval period, but does serve to does emphasise that the nucleated village did not constitute the only settlement in the township. There were also a number of farmsteads or small hamlets. The clearest evidence is provided by the grant, recorded in the Kirkham Cartulary, of two tofts and twelve bovates of land by Henry Manners and his wife to Kirkham Priory in the early 13th Century (Bod. Lib. MS Fairfax 7 fo. 85; NCH XI (1922), 163-4; Dixon 1985, II, 371).

One of these tofts was said to lie on the south side of the Bowmont Water at the western end of the vill between the river and the road to Scotland, which would place it at Langhamhaugh. No settlement is shown there on the 18th Century maps.

The second toft lay hard by the road from Kirknewton to Carham and was very likely situated at the modern hamlet of Thornington, beside the current B6352, as suggested in the County History (NCH XI (1922), 163).  Identifying the 'road from Kirknewton to Carham' with the course of the B6352 on the north side of the Bowmont, makes sense as that road must be different from 'the road to Scotland', which evidently lay on the south side of the river and can only be represented by the present Kilham-Langham-Paston road.