The oldest man-made object found in the Parish is
the clay pot or beaker found in 1925 under a burial
mound in the Ellsnook plantation. This was the
grave of one of the "Beaker Folk (named after the
characteristic pots used in their burials) who came to
Britain from central Europe about 2000 B.C.
The next oldest building to the church is a stone
building in the kitchen yard of Rock Hall, which was
the oratory in which Robert de Tuggal obtained
permission in 1359 from the Bishop of Durham to
hold services.
The Manor of Rock, of which the boundaries have
not changed since the early 12th century, formed a
small part of the Barony of Alnwick. In the late 13th
century it was held by William de Rok. Robert de
Tuggal and his family held Rock Hall. Their coat of
arms showing three swine is on the north wall of the
chancel in the church.
In the middle of the 16th century a small band of
Spanish mercenaries under the control of Sir Julian
Romero were quartered at Rock.
After the Swinhoe family came the Lawsons in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth the first, and around the
turn of the century they added a manor house to the
pele tower.
Written records are more abundant from 1600
onwards. We read that Ralph Lawson sold Rock in
1620 to John Salkeld of Hulne Abbey. In 1623 his
son Thomas Salkeld, wishing to settle at Rock, built a
house known as the Midhall, which survived until
1855 when it was pulled down as being unsafe. On
the site was built a schoolhouse, which after some 35
years of service was turned into the Village Hall,
when the pupils were transferred to the new and
enlarged schoolhouse at Rennington. A stone from
the old Midhall was built into the wall of the new
schoolhouse above the entrance door. It carries the
initials TS/AS and the date 1623, commemorating
Thomas and Ann Salkeld.
John Salkeld died on November 10th, 1629 and was
buried in the chancel of the church at Rock. The
property passed to his young grandson, also called
John, who is known to history as Colonel Salkeld
and remembered for the active part he played in the
Civil War on the Royalist side. His monument is
built into the south wall of the chancel with this
inscription:
In 1794 the Estate was sold to Mr. Peter Holford, a
prominent lawyer in London, whose country home
was the fine house ofWestonbirt in Gloucestershire.
His daughter Charlotte in 1796 married Charles
Bosanquet, a rising young Merchant in the City of
London, whose great grandfather had come to
England in 1688 as a Huguenot refugee from the
persecution of Protestants by Louis XTV. The Rock
Estate was his wife's dowry. The marble monument
in Rock Church records his activities:
The central portion of Rock Hall contains the thick
walls of the pele tower built by the Swinhoe family in
the 15th century, which probably replaced an earlier
fortified building, perhaps of timber construction.
On many early maps it is described as "Rock Castle".
About 1600 the Lawson family added a Jacobean
manor house with mullioned windows on the north side of the pele. The low entrance doorway to this manor house can be seen.
After the Proctor family
had sold the property to the Earl of Jersey in 1732 it was lived in by one of the farmers and his family until 1752, when the house was so seriously damaged
by fire that it was abandoned and remained a ruin
until 1820. Charles Bosanquet decided to settle at
Rock Hall. The house was repaired and two
hexagonal wings were added on the south side, John
Dobson being the architect
The Rev. R.W. Bosanquet and his son C.B.P.
Bosanquet lived in the hall until the latter's death in
1905. From 1906 to 1939 the Hall was let to
successive tenants (Sir Riley Lord, Major Cornish
Brown, Mr. Walter Burnett and Miss Helen
Sutherland).
On the outbreak of war in 1939 it was
requisitioned by the War Department, which built
huts in the grounds to house successive units during
their period of training for service overseas. Towards
the end of the war it became a camp to house 250
German prisoners allocated to the district for
agricultural work.
In 1947 it was let on a long lease at
a nominal rent to the Youth Hostels Association.
Rock Hall became one of the principal hostels of the
Northern Region, with accommodation for 80 visitors, and the facilities of a biological field station drew visiting parties of students from schools and colleges.