Prehistoric period
North Charlton Moor north west of the village. In the 1830’s 4 cists were found under a cairn each 107 cms in length.
8th January 1824 at a farm in North Charlton a cist found on the east side of the road was 183cm long, 61 cm wide and 76 cm deep containing a stone placed as a pillow with a skull resting on it and a bronze knife dagger laying across the chest of the skeleton.
The knife was sent to the owner of the estate, John Cay (1790-1865) he was the son of Robert Hodshon Cay (1758-1810) born at Charlton Hall who was Judge Admiral of Scotland. John Cay lived in Edinburgh and was a pioneer of early photography. John Cay’s sister Frances was the mother of James Clerk Maxwell - Mathematician and Scientist.
Medieval
The village of North Charlton was established west of the main road. The settlement was part of the barony of Alnwick and was held by the Lords of the barony of Ditchburn. One of them, Ralph, who lived in the middle of the 12th century, gave 50 acres of land to the chapel of St Giles. The chapel once stood on the mound behind the cottages to the north of the village which is called Castle Close Plantation. The Chapel had fallen into disrepair by the 14th Century. The centre of the village was marked by the market cross still visible in the field. The ridge and furrow field cultivation of the medieval period is still visible around the village and is the reason the Village has been designated a scheduled monument. There is no evidence why the small, but thriving, medieval village should have effectively disappeared.
Charlton Burn flows to the north of the village and was the site of a Mill for centuries. Earliest Records of the Mill in the village date from 1294 when the owner Roger Fitz Roger gave his mills at North Charlton to William de Vesci with the right the force the tenants to use the mill. From the 1850’s the Mill was run by the Hindhaugh family who went on the become flour merchants in Newcastle. The Mill was in use until the 1920’s.
Victorian
The busiest period in life of the village was during the reign of Queen Victoria. The 1861 Census records show that North Charlton, in addition to the Farmer who employed 21 labourers, there was the Miller, a Blacksmith, a Tailor, a Shoemaker, a grocer and 2 Masons. As the village was on the Great North Road there was also a Coaching Inn, The Spread Eagle, which was a noted stop on the road to Edinburgh.
The farm cottages were built in 1868 to house farmworkers and the squirrel on Drey Cottage is the crest of the Baker Cresswell family who owned the estate at the time. A report of the Alnwick Rural Sanitary Authority in 1871 described them as having been erected ‘without a shadow of an attempt at pretty or picturesque’ but added that ‘the plan and arrangements the very perfection of sanitary condition’.
The road to Brownieside was the original North Road, the A1 having been moved to the east in the 1970’s. Before the road was moved it was the local bus route and in 1947 Lady Hilda Runciman, wife the local landowner had a wooden bus shelter built by har farm joiner and erected on what was the east side of the road. The original wooden bus shelter is still in place and reputedly the oldest surviving wooden shelter on the A1.
The Reading Rooms was built as a community resource to be used for reading local newspapers. The in 1930’s it was regularly used for dances and whist drives and during WW2 was a base for the local Home Guard.
To the south of North Charlton by the A1 stands Pattersons Cottage, a grade 2 listed building and the birthplace of Sir James Brown Patterson, prime Minister of Victoria, Australia in 1833.