Baron Bolbec

Associated with establishing the White Monks in County Durham - at what became known, therefore, as Blanchland, the Norman Baron Bolbec was then gifted land further north around Wallington and is thought to have established the first defensive house - a mote and bailey castle - at Wallington.

Sir John Fenwick

Sir John Fenwick married into the Strother family who owned Wallington in the reign of Henry IV.  John Fenwicks were a force border family. Wallington in 1475 from the Strother family, headed a clan that regularly launched raids across the border - known as a great thief.

Sir John Fenwick

The Sir John Fenwick born in 1579 added greatly to the Wallington Estate - in large part through border raids into Scotland. He was also a member of parliament, sitting in the Short Parliament of 1623-4, and every succeeding Parliament until the Civil War.

Sir John Fenwick

Sir John Fenwick (?1645-96/7 - 3rd Baronet) was a favourite in the court of Charles II, being an advisor for his stable’s. It is said he produced the first thorough bred racehorse - for which he levelled the lower reaches of the estate below the house - known as the Gallop. He became a major-general . As a Jacobite he plotted against William III, and his fortunes fell with James II, having sold Wallington to Sir William Blackett, who was MP for Newcastle and who had voted for Fenwick’s execution for treason. he was beheaded in the Tower in 1697.

Sir William Blackett II

In 1689 Sir Walter Blackett (1657-1705) - son of the wealthy merchant Sir William Blackett (1620-1680) - bought Wallington from John Fenwick in 1688. He pulled down the Fenwicks house and a defensive battle tower - leaving only the basement level - and built up a square shooting lodge of fours attached ranges around an empty yard.

Sir William Blackett III

A young inheritor of Wallington Sir William (1689-1728) was known as quite a rascal, throwing ‘rollicking’ parties, and mismanaging the estate and much else. Though elected major of Newcastle in  1717, he was later accused of bribery and menaces, and died in 1728.

Sir Walter Calverley Blackett

In order to inherit Wallington, Sir Walter Calverly Blackett (1707-77) was required to marry Elizabeth, the illegitimate daughter of the late ‘rollicking’ Sir William Blackett III. Sir Walter remodelled Wallington into a mansion in the Palladian style, assisted by Daniel Garrett. He transformed the estate, draining fells and moors, and building bridges. It was said that Sir Walter ‘kept many thousand hands in motion’.

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926)

Scholar, (she one of the first female students at Oxford), alpinist, explorer, diplomat, political advisor, archaeologist, writer. She was a key player in the creation of modern day Iraq. She spent her final years in Bagdad, where, as Honorary Director of Antiquities of Iraq, she founded the National Museum of Iraq to protect the nations’ archaeological treasures.

Hugh Bell (Sir) (father) (Grandfather)

Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1716-1783) Landscape garden designer for aristocratic clients, Brown grew up in Kirkharle near Wallington and is credited with landscaping the grounds there. He acquired is nick name from pointing out country estates’ ‘capabilities’ for improvement. He developed a style of landscape gardening which looked natural, creating views with serpentine lakes, follies and trees. These were landscapes which would take a hundred years to mature, so that the commissioners of the work would not be able to enjoy the fruits of their investment, or the gardeners the fruits of their labour. We, however, can.

George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876-1962) (Sir, OM, CBE, FRS, FBA)

Cambridge Professor, eminent Historian, President of the YHA (1930-1950), Chairman of the Estates Committee of the National Trust, (he donated Robin Ghyll in Langdale, the English Lake District to the National Trust), sitter in 12 portraits in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, London. There is a plaque, written in Latin, honouring him, in Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge. Husband of Janet Trevelyan.

Janet Trevelyan (1879-1956) (née Janet Penrose Ward)

Writer, social campaigner, fundraiser, author of her mother’s biography (writer and social campaigner, Mary Augusta Ward), and several books on Italy, Honorary Secretary of British Institute of Florence, Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for her work promoting children’s welfare. Wife of George Macaulay Trevelyan.

Charles Edward Trevelyan (1907-1886) (Sir, 1st Baronet, KBC)

English civil servant and colonial administrator of Ireland and Madras, India. A student of Malthus at the East India Company College, he rigidly applied his teacher’s population theory and prevalent racism and laissez-faire economics in his highly controversial management of the Great Irish Famine. His policies are thought to have contributed to the estimated 1 million deaths from starvation or disease between 1845-1849. A further estimated 1 million emigrated from Ireland as a result of the Famine. He drew a part of his wealth form a slave plantation in Grenada.

Charles Phillips Trevelyan (1870-1958) (Sir, 3rd Baronet of Wallington) Pacifist

Mary (Molly) Trevelyan (1881-1968) (Lady), OBE, (née Bell)

Political hostess, voluntary worker, diarist, on the founding committee of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England. Wife of Charles Trevelyan and half-sister to Gertrude Bell.

The Beavers

A family of four Eurasian beavers were released at Wallington in July 2023 on a tributary of the Hart Burn near Donkin RIgg, in the heart of the estate. Their release was part of efforts to renew and restore nature and the hope was that they would help create a wildlife-rich wetland landscape. One adolescent Beaver, subsequently named Steve, escaped from the enclosure twice and was brought back. Eventually he was removed to another beaver project in Wales and has since had kits.