The Gatehouse website record for Brier Dene

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as; Brierdean; Brierdene; Bryerden

In the civil parish of Whitley Bay. In the historic county of Northumberland (Modern Authority of North Tyneside, 1974 county of Tyne and Wear).

Site of a fortified manor house at Briar Dene. Gilbert de Middleton, a member of the notorious Mitford Gang, built a fortified manor house at Briar Dene in 1315 or 1316. Shortly after 1613 a new farmhouse was built and the manor house abandoned. An C18 colliery plan shows an unidentified house a few yards from the farm which may have been the manor house. This is on the north bank of the Briardene Burn where a field road connecting Monkseaton to Hartley crosses it. The SiteLines website writes "The Northumberland County History appears to say that the 1318 survey of the Middleton lands in Hartley "contains...the earliest known mention of Brereden, a manor-house or fortified dwelling, built, in all probability, by the Middletons, of which all trace has vanished, though the name survives in that of Brierdean farm. Brereden may be assumed to have occupied a site near the present homestead where the dene is crossed by a field-road leading from Monkseaton to Hartley". "The last mention of the old hall, or, more probably, the earliest reference to the farm which superseded it, is to be found in Sir Ralph Delaval's estate book, under the date of 1613, where it is termed "Bryerden house"."

The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is NZ33557404

Sources of information, references and further reading

This site's English Heritage (PastScape) Defra or Monument number is 1387767
This site's County Historic Environment Record (formerly Sites and Monuments Record) number is 775 'grey' literature, such as watching brief reports, held by H.E.R.s is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded in this website.

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