Where innovation is truly second nature

Feb 11 2008 by Tony Henderson, The Journal

Tony Henderson on a churchyard which has delivered up yet another tale - this time of brothers who made their mark on the land.

IF farming brothers Matthew and George Culley could return from their 18th Century Northumbrian lives, it is likely that a surprising amount of the county would still be recognisable to them.

But they would probably feel a mix of astonishment and bemusement at one feature of a landscape with which they would have been very familiar.

At Fowberry Tower, near Chatton in Northumberland, which came into Culley ownership, the livestock breeding brothers would today encounter not sheep but rather more exotic South American grazers.

For the acres surrounding the Fowberry country house are home to 60 alpacas, which are kept for their cashmere-like fleece.

In Northumberland, County Durham and Yorkshire there are around 1,500 alpacas, but they still have sufficient novelty impact to cause most visitors to stand and stare.

Perhaps not for much longer.

Fowberry is home to Jenny and Graham MacHarg, who is chairman of the British Alpaca Society.

He predicts that in 20 years, up to 10,000 alpacas could be dotted around the region’s fields.

Such an innovation would intrigue the Culleys, who were at the forefront of the agricultural revolution which transformed farming in the 18th Century.

And yet again, the story is linked to the Cheviot Hills Church of St Gregory the Great in the village of Kirknewton.

Over the last two weeks, we have examined the remarkable lives of the great 19th Century reformer Josephine Butler and Lord Nelson’s close friend, the adventurer Alexander Davison, who are both buried in the tiny churchyard.

The remote spot also accommodates the burial plot of the Culley family, whose connections with this part of Northumberland began in 1767, when Matthew and George arrived in the county.

There is a plaque in the church at Kirknewton to Matthew and his wife Elizabeth.

The brothers were the eighth and ninth children of farmer Matthew Culley, from Denton in County Durham.

They had made a childhood pact to farm together, and their chance came at a time when agriculture was on the cusp of great change. It had to, because the population was growing. In 1700 there were six million people in England and Scotland, By 1750 there were a million more, and the 1801 census recorded 10.5m.

Farming production was boosted by improved crops, rotation systems in which turnips starred, new livestock breeds, sowing seed in drills instead of by broadcast, and better equipment.

The Culleys were at the heart of these advances. They leased a farm at Fenton in Glendale, and over the next 25 years extended their empire to include another nine.

They bought an estate at Akeld and Humbleton near Wooler, and in 1801 Easington Grange near Belford.

The brothers tried new methods, such as flooding meadows over winter to encourage early growth of grass, and produced wheat, oats, barley and peas, and sold turnip seed.

But they were also top breeders and managers of livestock. When they came to Northumberland, the sheep breeds were the Cheviot, and Blackface and also Mugs, which have now vanished.

The Culleys bred the Border Leicester which matured earlier and had a greater ratio of meat to bone, which meant a quicker return for the farmer on his outlay.

Even Thomas Bewick engraved what he called the Culley sheep, which spread to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South America.

The brothers’ flocks increased from just over 1,000 in 1767 to 4,400 in 1794.

Their vigour and thirst for farming improvements saw them financially reap what they had sowed and in 1801 they registered a profit of £9,000.

Matthew, who married and had five children, died in 1804, and his son went on to live at Coupland Castle, near Wooler.

George, who wed three times - two of his wives died - had two children, lived until 1813.

He bought Fowberry Tower from Sir Francis Blake and it became the home of his son, also called Matthew Culley to whom there is a plaque in Holy Cross church at Chatton.

There is a touching passage from George, written after he paid a visit to Fowberry in 1810.

He wrote: “Whenever I am Fowberry, I am struck with astonishment when I reflect on our beginning in Northumberland 43 years ago. To think of my son inhabiting a Palace, although his father in less than 50 years since worked harder than any servant we now have and even drove a coal cart.”