A LETTER from America sparked a fresh round of historical research that has concluded one of Tynedale’s favourite hostelries is a good 150 years older than originally thought.

When United States Air Force veteran Major Mark Hedgepeth emailed Corbridge’s Angel Inn last autumn, he didn’t foresee the new era in trans-Atlantic relations that would develop.

But a special dinner party at the old coaching inn last week peeled back the centuries and cemented the Californian’s connection with the place his ancestors called home.

It was Mark’s life-long passion for history and the genealogy of his own family that led to the discovery that his forebear, one William Hudespethe, had gained ownership of the holding that could be ‘identified with probability’ as the Angel in 1569.

That came as something of a surprise to the current owner, Semore Kurdi, and managing director Kevin Laing, who until then had set great store by the sundial mounted above the front door and the year 1726 engraved upon it.

After mulling it over, Kevin challenged Corbridge historian David Waugh to excavate the full story of the Angel and then invited the Hedgepeth family to travel to Britain for the dinner, to be held in their honour.

Mark was delighted. Standing in the heart of the ancient hostelry where his ancestor once stood, he said: “We’re taught in the military to think about things in threes - past, present and future.

“When I was 15, I did a high school project on family history and after 35 years, my passion for the subject has done nothing but grow.

“The past led me to reach out in the present, via the internet, to find the Angel website and then David Waugh, who has taught us so much more about the history our family had a part in.

“The future is my son, who is old enough this trip to understand the importance of that and of carrying the same love of history forward.”

Mark presented Kevin with a copy of the book within which he’d found the vital information about William Hudespethe – volume 10 of Craster’s A History of Northumberland, published in 1914.

David Waugh confirmed its importance to his research, too, as he regaled the dinner party guests with the fruits of his labour.

By the early 13th century, he said, around 100,000 cattle, sheep, pigs and horses were being herded to Corbridge for the annual Stagshaw Fair.

Most of the traffic would have had to cross the River Tyne and once a bridge had been built at Corbridge, in 1236, it was likely a hostelry followed soon afterwards. The obvious place to put one was at the top of the bank, where the Angel now stands.

Thanks to its pivotal position, within a few decades Corbridge was the largest and wealthiest settlement in Northumberland after Newcastle.

David said: “Craster’s A History of Northumberland describes how, in 1569, John Swinburne had to forfeit his lands after his involvement in the failed Rising of the North.

“One holding went to William Hudespethe, who lived at a nearby farm called The Hole, now renamed Orchard Vale. He in turn granted it to Lionel Winship, a tenant of Aydon Castle.

“Craster claimed that this holding ‘can be identified with probability as the Angel Inn’, presumably because it was Winship’s grandson and great-grandson who created the two oldest remaining parts of the present day building and whose family seem to have owned it for 200 years.”

It was the grandson, another Lionel, who was the owner when the present day bridge at Corbridge was built in 1674.

“The new bridge must have enhanced the demand for an inn to provide food, drink, accommodation and stables for the travellers and their horses,” said David.

“The Georgian additions, which can be attributed to Winship’s great-grandson, Edward, included the sundial over the front door of the western porch. Above it are the letters EWA, which commemorate Edward Winship and his wife, Anne, and the year 1726.”

After the failed Jacobite Uprising of 1745, the Military Road from Newcastle to Carlisle was built to allow for the faster movement of troops.

As a result, between the completion of the road in 1752 and the coming of the railway in 1835, Corbridge and the Angel Inn provided the mid-way resting post for the mail coach.

Just one of the many ways in which villagers benefited was recorded by Robert Forster in 1881 in his book, History of Corbridge.

He wrote: ‘One newspaper was received once a week in the village by Mr Winship, owner and occupier of the Angel Inn, who was accustomed to entertain the people assembled at The Coigns by reading aloud the news.’

There were two families who, between them, owned the Angel for much of the 19th century. Margaret Blandford was the innkeeper in 1826 and the census of both 1841 and 1851 show that it was her son, Thomas, who succeeded her.

He and his wife, Mary, had five children living with them, along with two servants, a stable hand and a niece called Margaret Lubbock.

Twenty years later, the census reveals Margaret and her husband, John Hall, were in charge of the Angel and the parents of seven children. It is believed the Halls sold the pub to Scottish and Newcastle Breweries in 1897.

It came back into private hands at the turn of the new Millennium, when Alan O’Kane bought it from the brewery company. Businessman John Gibson bought it in 2005 and then six years later, sold it on to Semore Kurdi.

After the meal that was as convivial as any ever enjoyed during nigh-on 450 years of hospitality at the Angel, Kevin invited Mark and Semore’s wife, Toni, who herself happens to be American, to unveil the framed display he had commissioned to mark the occasion.

There was a sense that new friendships had been made.