Houxty is a
large-ish residence which sits on the west bank of the River North Tyne about a
mile upstream from Wark. Its supreme claim to fame is that it was the home of
well-known naturalist Abel Chapman for the last 30+ years of his life. Chapman,
well-educated and widely travelled, was one of those great conundrums of his
age: both a keen game hunter and an enthusiastic protector of the natural
world.
Chapman was
born in Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland, in 1851, into a fairly well-to-do family
with a long and strong interest in the very areas in which Abel was to excel.
He spent his early years learning field-craft in the wilds of Northumberland,
where he quickly developed a love of the outdoors. He attended Rugby School,
then went into his father’s brewery business (Lambton’s) which enabled him to
begin his overseas travels. As the years passed, he journeyed ever more widely,
to take in hunting trips to, most notably and initially, Scandinavia and Spain.
He co-wrote a book entitled Wild Norway
concerning the former, and helped create a nature reserve in the latter – as
well as (in Spain) discovering Europe's major breeding ground for the flamingo
and saving the Spanish Ibex from extinction. Two books on his Spanish
adventures followed.
After the
family business was sold in 1897, he moved to Houxty in the North Tyne valley
where he set about creating his own little nature reserve around his new home.
When he moved in in 1898 it was a dilapidated sheep farm, but Chapman loved the
spot on account of it being the haunt of blackcock. He rebuilt the house and
laid out and managed the gardens, plantations and moorland thereabouts to
attract wildlife which he could then study – a set-up which brought many other
naturalists to his little estate, as well as a troop of boy scouts who visited
him as part of the very first Baden-Powell scouting camp in 1908 who were
staying a few miles away (see here).
Chapman later
developed an interest in South Africa, his experiences there leading him to
help form the early incarnation of their still-existing Kruger National Park.
He continued to travel abroad, paradoxically both hunting and preserving
wherever he went, wrote many works on his subject matter, and eventually died
at Houxty in 1929, aged 77. His last words were “Take care of Dash,” his
favourite spaniel.
During his
hunting days Chapman amassed many wildlife specimens, which now lie scattered
across natural history collections in London, Newcastle and his native
Sunderland.
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