Tenantry Column: A Tenants’ Memorial to the Duke of Northumberland
Site at a Glance
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- British
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Monument
On this page6 sections
History
The Tenantry Column is an 1816 monument in the Doric order, a classical architectural style, south of Alnwick town centre in the United Kingdom. Tenants of Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland, raised it to thank him for reducing their rents during the post-Napoleonic depression, the economic downturn that followed the wars between France and shifting European coalitions, which ended in 1815.
Rents and the tenants’ tribute
During the agricultural boom of the Napoleonic Wars, Percy had doubled or tripled the tenants’ rents. After the war, he reduced them by a reported 25 percent. A local tale that he raised rents again after seeing that his tenants could afford the monument is false.
Percy had also raised and financed the 1,500-strong Percy Tenantry Volunteers. This local force belonged to the British Volunteer Corps, a body of locally raised units organized for defense, and was intended to protect northeast England against a possible French invasion.
Foundation and completion
The foundation stone was laid on 1 July 1816 before a large crowd. A band and flag bearers accompanied the ceremony, attended by the principal tenants, two clergymen, and the Newcastle architect David Stephenson, who carried a ceremonial silver trowel. The 21 oldest tenants laid the stone; it was then blessed and sprinkled with corn, wine, and oil.
The column was unfinished when Percy died on 10 July 1817. It was completed afterward and presented to his son, Hugh Percy, 3rd Duke of Northumberland. The monument is also known as the Farmer’s Folly. It received listed-building protection in 1952 and was raised to Grade I, the highest category, in 1977.
Remains
Column and crown
The 83-foot (25-metre) Doric column is built from stone taken from a nearby estate on Percy family land. At its summit, a Percy family lion, shown walking and facing south, stands on a foliage-decorated drum topped by an iron balcony. The lion’s tail extends horizontally and is said to point toward Scotland, although the reason for this is unknown.
Platform, inscriptions, and foundation
A circular granite platform, 90 feet (27 metres) in circumference, surrounds the column’s base and is reached by stairs. Four more lions stand on black marble plinths around it, each facing Alnwick. The western panel at the base dedicates the monument to Hugh, Duke of Northumberland, from a “grateful and united tenantry,” and gives the date 1816. Two other panels bear the Percy motto, “Hope in God,” while the fourth contains the entrance to the internal staircase. A cavity in the foundations holds the Percy Tenantry Volunteers’ regimental roll, written on vellum and sealed in a glass tube.
