Blanchland Timeline

1165 Walter de Bolbec gifts land for a monastery

1327 Edward III stays at Blanchland

1536-9 Dissolution of the Monasteries

1620s Ownership by the Forsters of Bamburgh

1699 Marriage of Nathaniel Lord Crewe and Dorothy Forster

1704 Sale of Forster estate to Nathaniel Lord Crewe

1715 Jacobite Rising

1721 Death of Lord Crewe; Charity is endowed with the Forster estates

1730s Repair of the village

1747 John Wesley preaches in the village and describes it and the Abbey as "little more than a heap of ruins"

1752 The Trustees repair Blanchland Abbey

1815 Further church repairs by the Trustees

1800s Lead mining and agricultural activity

1855 Trustees build Blachland School (it closes in 1981)

1930 WH Auden stays at the Lord Crewe Arms

1990s Village is used for filming of Jude the Obscure and Catherine Cookson's Gamblling Man and A Dinner of Herbs

2004 White Monk Tearooms open in the old school building

2012 The Lord Crewe Arms closes for refurbishment