Place:Lowick, Northumberland, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Lowick from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"LOWICK, a village and a parish in Glendale [registration] district, Northumberland. The village stands 4 miles WSW of Beal [railway] station, and 7 NW of Belford; is a long and straggling place, of late years greatly improved; and has a post office under Beal, Northumberland. The parish contains also the villages of Barmoor, Bowsden, and Holburn, and the hamlet of Laverick Law. Acres: 12,526. Real property: £13,192; of which £1,090 are in mines, and £1,600 in quarries. Population: 1,946. Houses: 385. The property is divided among a few. Barmoor Castle is a chief residence. Coal-mining, stone-quarrying, lime-burning, and the making of bricks and drainpipes are carried on. Numerous interesting fossils have been found in the limestone; and a collection of them has been deposited in the Woodwardian museum in Cambridge. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Durham. Value: £300. Patrons: the Dean and Chapter of Durham. The church was rebuilt towards the end of last century; and has a good E window, and a memorial window to the Gregson family. There are chapels for Presbyterians, Primitive Methodists, and Roman Catholics, a national school, and charities £4."

Lowick was originally a chapelry of the ancient parish of Holy Island, Northumberland. It became a separate ancient parish and then a civil parish in 1866. In 1955 it was reduced in size when over 3500 acres were transferred to Bowsden, a civil parish created from one of the villages in Lowick parish.

Although being in the ancient parish of Holy Islend, Lowick was in Glendale Ward and in the Glendale Rural District. When the greater part of the parish was transferred to Bowsden in 1955, the remainder of Lowick became part of the Norham and Islandshires Rural District and then part of Berwick upon Tweed District from 1974 until 2009 when Northumberland became a unitary authority.

Research Tips

• Northumberland Archives previously known as Northumberland Collections Service and Northumberland County Record Office. Now based within Woodhorn Museum in Ashington and providing free access to numerous records for local and family historians alike.

Full postal address: Museum and Northumberland Archives, Queen Elizabeth II Country Park, Ashington, Northumberland, NE63 9YF; Phone: 01670 624455

There is a branch office in Berwick upon Tweed.

• Northumberland and Durham FHS covers both Northumberland and County Durham. The Family History Society have a research centre in Percy House in central Newcastle upon Tyne (full address on website), open Monday to Friday from 10 am to 4 pm. Browse the website to see what else the society can provide.
• Further information from GENUKI
• Ordnance Survey map of Northumberland 1832 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time. This map includes the boundaries of the various Wards (or "hundreds") in existence at that time.
• Ordnance Survey map of Northumberland 1900 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Ordnance Survey map of Northumberland 1944 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time
• English Jurisdictions 1851, a parish finding aid provided by FamilySearch, particularly helpful in large towns and cities.
• Unfortunately, there is no Victoria County History for Northumberland.