History of the holiday cottage buildings
Hilltop was a Farmer-Miners steading dating from c1750. The original building was a small cottage with byre attached,
later it was extended with the addition of another cottage and barn.
Hilltop was mainly occupied by the Graham family who worked in the local lead mines and reared a few animals
and lots of children. With upto 12 children and possibly a lodger or two, it must have been very snug.
When times were hard in the mines some of the men emigrated to the new world. One of these men was Joseph
Graham who emigrated to America in 1852. Joseph was born and brought up at Hilltop and copies of letters to and
from Joseph and his brother Thomas can be seen at the Weardale Museum.
Thomas Graham widowed with 8 children and no work sailed on the 'Margaret Galbraith' to New Zealand in 1878.
Hilltop was left derelict for many years until in 2005 the present owners embarked upon extensive rebuilding
and restoration resulting in the building standing today.
On the Location page, the Google map view shows the original condition of the barn prior to its purchase in 2005,
with the eastern barn having a rusty tin roof, and the western barn being nothing more than a couple of stone walls.
Since its purchase, the building has been transformed into a comfortable and cosy 3 bedroom house. The western barn has
been rebuilt and now houses the owner's kitchen on the group floor and a large bedroom with en-suite shower room on the
first floor. The ground floor of the two old lead miners cottages now forms two comfortable reception rooms. The first
of these is the central dining/sitting room which has decorative slate flooring and a solid-fuel Aga. The second
reception room is a comfortable and spacious lounge with polished limestone flooring and an original inglenook fireplace
with logburner. Upstairs, there is the master bedroom with en-suite shower room and a further bedroom and family
bathroom. The lean-to section to the north side of the property has been divided into a dedicated utility room for all
the "off-grid" utility equipment (invertor, batteries, battery charger, boiler, water filtration, etc) and also a
separate bootroom/cloakroom leading to a downstairs WC.
The self-catering holiday cottage was originally a cowshed which was mostly timber-framed and clad with corrugated iron
panels. The single stone wall on the south side of the cottage is all that remains of the original barn, and the remainder
of the walls have been rebuilt using local stone recovered from on site.
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