During the Civil War, Cromwell quartered a large force in the grounds of the stately Netherwitton Hall for one night, and later awarded a sum of £95-5s-6d.

After Culloden in 1746 Lord Lovat, a Jacobite leader, for a long while lay concealed in a "Priest's Hole" in an upper room of the Hall.

Roger Thornton, a great merchant-prince of Newcastle at the beginning of the 15th century, was a native of Netherwitton and built a castle by the river, but no trace of it remains.

The causeway is a Roman road which starts at Port Gate on Hadrian's Wall, north of Corbridge, and extends 55 miles (89 km) northwards across Northumberland to the mouth of the River Tweed at Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The present house, which was built in about 1685, to a design by architect Robert Trollope has an impressive three-storey, seven-bayed frontage with balustrade and unusual irregular window pediments.