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Title: Memorials of old Durham
Author: Henry R. Leighton, - To be updated
Language: English
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MEMORIALS OF THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND
General Editor:
REV. P. H. DITCHFIELD, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S.
MEMORIALS OF OLD DURHAM
[Illustration]
[Illustration: DURHAM CATHEDRAL.
_From the Picture by J. M. W. Turner, R.A._]
MEMORIALS OF OLD
DURHAM
EDITED BY
HENRY R. LEIGHTON, F.R.HIST.S.
WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN & SONS, 44 & 45, RATHBONE PLACE, W.
1910
[_All Rights Reserved_]
TO THE
RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DURHAM, K.G.,
_Lord-Lieutenant of the County Palatine of Durham_,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY
HIS KIND PERMISSION
PREFACE
The Palatinate of Durham possesses special claims to the attention of
students of history. It alone amongst the English counties was for
centuries ruled by Sovereign Bishops possessing their own peers, troops,
mint, and legal courts. In every respect it was a miniature kingdom, in
its constitution like only to the well-known Prince-Bishoprics of the
Continent.
In the past the county has been favoured by a succession of historians,
who have dealt more or less fully with its parochial history. More
recently Dr. Lapsley and the contributors to the "Victoria History" have
minutely examined the various phases of its early constitution. In the
publications of the local archæological societies, the greater mansions
and most of the more interesting churches have been dealt with in
detail.
In view, therefore, of the now considerable accumulated literature upon
the county, it has been a matter of no small difficulty to select
subjects which should be helpful to the scholar as well as interesting
to the general reader.
It has been endeavoured to make this volume serve a twofold purpose.
Firstly, to awaken a greater interest in the past of this most historic
district, and secondly, to serve as an introduction to the greater
histories of the county. Some day, perhaps, we may hope to see an
edition of Surtees’, revised to a recent date, and covering those
portions of the county which he did not live to deal with.
Through the courtesy of the Earl of Durham we are enabled to reproduce
for the first time the portrait of William James, sometime Bishop of
Durham. Lord Strathmore has kindly enabled us to include the very
interesting photograph of Streatlam Castle. Thanks are also due to Mrs.
Greenwell, of Greenwell Ford, for the photograph of Fen Hall. Mr. J.
Tavenor-Perry has supplied the sketches of the cathedral sanctuary
knocker and the dun cow panel, besides the valuable measured drawings of
Finchale Priory. The remaining sketches in pen and ink have been
contributed by Mr. Wilfrid Leighton.
In conclusion, in addition to thanking the contributors of the various
chapters for the care with which they have treated their subjects,
thanks are due to the Rev. William Greenwell and to the Rev. Dr. Gee,
who have both made useful suggestions.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Historical Introduction By the Rev. HENRY GEE,
D.D., F.S.A. 1
Topography of Durham By Miss M. HOPE DODDS 24
Folk-lore of the County of Durham By Mrs. NEWTON W.
APPERLEY 44
The Legends of Durham By Miss FLORENCE N.
COCKBURN 65
Place-names in the Durham Dales By W. MORLEY EGGLESTONE 79
Durham Cathedral By the Rev. WILLIAM
GREENWELL, M.A., etc. 108
Finchale Priory By J. TAVENOR-PERRY 130
Monkwearmouth and Jarrow By the Rev. DOUGLAS S.
BOUTFLOWER, M.A. 146
The Parish Churches of Durham By WILFRID LEIGHTON 162
Monumental Inscriptions By EDWIN DODDS 182
The Castles and Halls of Durham By HENRY R. LEIGHTON 198
Durham Associations of John Wesley By the Rev. T. CYRIL
DALE, B.A. 229
The Old Families of Durham By HENRY R. LEIGHTON 239
Index 257
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Durham Cathedral _Frontispiece_
(_From the picture by J. M. W. Turner, R.A._)
PAGE, OR FACING PAGE
Portrait of William James, Bishop of Durham, 1606-1617 6
(_From the painting at Lambton Castle_)
The Market-Cross at Darlington 25
An Old Tithe-barn at Durham 27
Bishop Pudsey’s Charter to the City of Durham, and
Pope Alexander III.’s Confirmation thereof 30
(_From a copy made by Christopher Fawcett, of Newcastle, originally
issued as one of the Allan Tracts_)
Jack Crawford’s Birth-place, Sunderland 35
The Palace, Bishop Auckland 38
(_From a drawing by W. Daniell, R.A._)
Barnard Castle 40
(_From a drawing by E. Dayes_)
Brancepeth Castle in 1777 42
(_From an old Print_)
The Palace Green, Durham 64
(_From an old Print_)
The Dun Cow Panel, Durham Cathedral 67
Hilton Castle from the North 70
Lambton Castle, 1835 74
(_From the picture by T. Allom_)
The Kepier Hospital 90
The Crypt, Durham Cathedral 112
The Sanctuary Knocker, Durham Cathedral 119
Durham Cathedral: The Western Towers from a window
in the Monks’ Library 120
(_From a drawing by R. W. Billings, 1844_)
Piscina in Choir, Finchale Priory 135
Choir, Finchale Priory 137
The Church from the North-west, Finchale Priory 139
Plan of the Ruins of Finchale Priory 140
Front of the Chapter House, Finchale Priory 141
Crypt under Refectory, Finchale Priory 142
The Prior’s Lodging, Finchale Priory 143
Monkwearmouth Church 146
Old Stone, Monkwearmouth 148
Ornamental Stonework, Monkwearmouth Cathedral 153
Jarrow Church 154
(_From a photograph by G. Hastings_)
Early English Snakes, Monkwearmouth Church 157
Norton Church 172
Boldon Spire 176
Anglo-Saxon Stone at Chester-le-Street 184
Witton Castle in 1779 198
(_From a contemporary print by Bailey_)
Lumley Castle 202
Hilton Castle: West Front 206
Old Tower at Ravensworth Castle 210
The Cross at Ravensworth 212
Streatlam Castle 214
(_From a photograph by E. Yeoman, Barnard Castle_)
Raby Castle in 1783 218
(_From a contemporary Print_)
Gainford Hall 222
The Old Hall at Thorpe Thewles 223
Fen Hall 224
(_From a photograph by Mrs. Greenwell_)
A Corner of Washington Hall 225
The Doorway, West Rainton Hall 227
General John Lambton, 1710-1794 244
(_From the portrait by G. Romney at Lambton Castle_)
Hoppyland Park 248
Portrait of Sir George Bowes 254
(_From the painting at Streatlam Castle_)
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
BY THE REV. HENRY GEE, D.D., F.S.A., MASTER OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,
DURHAM
In the older maps of England, that portion of the country which we call
the county of Durham is generally described as "Episcopatus
Dunelmensis," or the Bishopric of Durham, or simply the Bishopric. A
further glance at the adjacent districts of Northumberland and Yorkshire
shows that there are portions larger or smaller of those counties which
are marked as integral parts of Durham. These members of the Bishopric
are Norhamshire, Islandshire, and Bedlingtonshire in Northumberland,
with the Manors of Northallerton, Howden, and Crayke, and certain lands
adjacent to them in Yorkshire. These portions of the Bishopric were only
cut off from it and merged in their own surrounding counties within the
memory of persons still living. Indeed, the distinction between
Bishopric folk and County folk--that is to say, people of Durham and
people of Northumberland--is not yet quite forgotten, and looks back to
a very interesting piece of English history that has to do with a state
of things in the North of England which has now passed away.
Visitors who come to the city of Durham to-day and look on cathedral and
castle have some vague idea of a time when the Bishop of Durham had "the
power of life and death," as it is popularly called; but what this
means, and what the peculiar constitution of the neighbourhood was, they
do not, as a rule, understand. It may be worth while to try and get a
clearer view of the Bishopric of Durham, and more especially of the
main portion between Tyne and Tees, which forms the modern county. We
to-day are so much accustomed to a strong central Government controlling
the whole of England, that we find it hard to think of a time when
certain districts had a large independence, and were ruled by a local
Earl or by Bishop, rather than by the King in the capital. Yet there
were such times both in England and upon the Continent. The district so
ruled is known as a franchise or liberty, and the history of its
independence, won, maintained, or lost, generally forms an attractive
subject of study, with many exciting episodes in it. The assertion is
certainly true of Durham; and although it is not possible to go into
detail within the space of an introductory article like this, it may be
possible to explain what the Bishopric was, and how it came to get its
distinctive characteristics and its later modification.
The franchise of the Bishop of Durham may be most aptly understood if we
try to regard all the members of it mentioned above as a little kingdom,
of which Durham City was the capital. The Bishop of Durham was virtually
the King of this little realm, and ruled it, not only as its spiritual
head, but as its temporal head. As its spiritual head, he was in the
position of any ordinary Bishop, and possessed exactly the same powers
as other prelates. As its temporal head, he had a power which they
generally did not possess. Dr. Freeman has explained his position in the
following words: "The prelate of Durham became one and the more
important of the only two English prelates whose worldly franchises
invested them with some faint shadow of the sovereign powers enjoyed by
the princely Churchmen of the Empire. The Bishop of Ely in his island,
the Bishop of Durham in his hill-fortress, possessed powers which no
other English ecclesiastic was allowed to share.... The external aspect
of the city of itself suggests its peculiar character. Durham alone
among English cities, with its highest point crowned, not only by the
cathedral, but by the vast castle of the Prince-Bishop, recalls to mind
those cities of the Empire--Lausanne, or Chur, or Sitten--where the
priest, who bore alike the sword and the pastoral staff, looked down
from his fortified height on a flock which he had to guard no less
against worldly than against ghostly foes."[1] And this sovereignty was
no nominal thing, for the Bishop came to have most of the institutions
that we connect with the thought of a kingdom. He had his own courts of
law, his own officers of state, his own assemblies, his own system of
finance, his own coinage, and, to some extent, he had his own troops and
his own ships. As we understand all this, we shall appreciate the
significance of the lofty throne erected by Bishop Hatfield in Durham
Cathedral. It was placed there in the flourishing days of the Bishop’s
power, and is not merely the seat of a Bishop, but the throne of a King.
So too, hard by, in the Bishop’s castle, as the chronicler tells us,
there were two seats of royalty within the hall, one at either end. No
doubt it was before the Bishop, sitting as Prince in one of these, that
the great tenants of his franchise--the Barons of the Bishopric, as they
were actually called--did homage in respect of their lands. Perhaps,
when he sat in the other from time to time as Bishop, his clergy and
others recognized his spiritual authority, or submitted themselves to
his "godly admonitions."
The county of Durham has been marked out by nature, more or less
distinctly, as separate from the neighbouring counties. The Tees on the
south, and the Tyne on the north, with the Derwent running from the
western fells to the Tyne, sufficiently differentiate it. In what
follows we will keep mainly to the district represented by the modern
county, leaving out of view the members outside to which reference has
been made. Its history, until modern times, is largely ecclesiastical,
owing to its peculiar constitution, in which the Bishop plays so
important a part. It had, indeed, virtually no history until the Church
became the great civilizer in Northumbria. Its prehistoric remains are
few, if interesting. Its occupation by Brigantes, a Celtic tribe, is a
large fact with no details. In the days when Romans made the North of
Britain their own, there is still no history beyond the evidence of
Roman roads, with camps at Binchester, Lanchester, and Ebchester.
Certainly no Roman Christian remains have been found as yet; but when in
the seventh century Christianity came to the Anglian invaders who
settled in these parts after the departure of the Romans, the history of
the English people was born within the confines of the modern county.
Bede, the first of English scholars and writers, compiled his history in
the monastery of Jarrow. He tells us all we know of the earliest Durham
Christians--of Benedict Biscop and of Hilda, who, with himself, are the
first three historic personages in the district. In one pregnant
sentence he tells us how churches were built in different places, how
the people flocked together to hear the Word, and how landed possessions
were given by royal munificence to found monasteries. These monasteries
became the centres of religion, civilization, and learning all over
Northumbria; and, in particular, the monasteries of Jarrow and
Wearmouth, twin foundations of Benedict Biscop, were the commencement of
everything best worth having between Tyne and Tees.
Thus religion, art, and literature, were born in Durham. In the last
years of the eighth century a terrible calamity fell upon the wider
province, of which Durham was only a part, when the Danes raided
Lindisfarne, where had been the starting-point of the Northumbrian
Church. When the mother was thus spoiled and laid desolate, the
daughters trembled for their safety, but they were left for awhile, not
unassailed, yet not destroyed. In those days of disturbed peace further
gifts of land were made to the Church, and in these we trace large
slices of Durham handed over in the ninth century to the monks of
Lindisfarne by those who had the power to give. And here we must notice
that the great treasure of the monastery at Lindisfarne was the body of
St. Cuthbert, the great Northumbrian saint, to whom the endowments named
were most solemnly dedicated. They formed the nucleus of the
Bishopric--the beginnings of the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert, which is
only another name for the Bishopric. Repeated invasion of the Danes at
last drove the monks out of Lindisfarne, and destroyed the Durham
monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth. The Lindisfarne monks left their
island, and bore away for safety’s sake the body of St. Cuthbert, and
after various wanderings brought it back to rest within the fortified
enclosure of Chester-le-Street, and so within the confines of Durham.
Here the Danish conquerors confirmed previous gifts, and added others to
them, until the lands of St. Cuthbert increased very widely, whilst
Chester-le-Street became a centre of pilgrimage.
For 113 years Chester-le-Street was the Christian metropolis of the
North, until the final fury of the Danes began to fall upon Northumbria.
In 995 another exodus began, and the clergy bore off the body to Ripon,
returning a few months later when the tempest seemed to have abated.
Many legends cluster round this return, but in any case the fact is
clear that the Bishop and his company took up their abode, not at
Chester-le-Street, but on the rocky peninsula of Dun-holm, or Durham,
which the River Wear nearly encircled. In this way the seat of
ecclesiastical authority was changed for the second time, and Durham
City now became the centre of the still-expanding Bishopric. Great
prestige gathered round the Saxon cathedral in which the shrine of the
saint was placed, for Kings and Princes vied with one another in doing
honour to it. So Canute, walking to the spot with bare feet, gave fresh
donations of Durham land and confirmed what others had bestowed.
But again dark days fell upon the North. To say nothing of Scottish
encroachments upon the Bishopric, which were sustained in the eleventh
century, the worst blow fell when the Norman Conquest took place. In no
part of England was a more determined patriotism opposed to William than
in Durham. Submission was nominal, and desperate efforts were made to
keep Northumbria as a separate kingdom by placing Edgar Atheling upon an
English throne in York. When the Conqueror made a Norman called Cumin
his Viceroy in these parts, the men of Durham rose and murdered him
within their city. It was an act that William never forgave and never
forgot. He wrought such a deed of vengeance that the whole of the
smiling district from York to Durham was turned into a wilderness. When
he came to die he is represented to have said of this ruthless episode:
"I fell on the English of the Northern counties like a ravening lion. I
commanded their houses and corn, with all their tools and furniture, to
be burnt without distinction, and large herds of cattle and beasts of
burden to be butchered wherever they were found. It was thus I took
revenge on multitudes of both sexes, by subjecting them to the calamity
of a cruel famine; and by so doing, alas! became the barbarous murderer
of many thousands, both young and old, of that fine race of people."
William placed foreigners in most positions of importance. To the See of
Durham he appointed Walcher from Lorraine, and the new prelate came from
his consecration at Winchester, escorted across the belt of depopulated,
ravaged land, until he reached Durham. North of the Wear the Patrimony
of St. Cuthbert was as yet largely untouched, but the men of Durham had
no love for the foreigner, and no wish to regard him as their lord.
Fortunately for him the Earl of Northumbria stood his friend, and built
for him in 1072 the Norman castle overlooking
[Illustration: Portrait and Signature]
the Wear, which was destined to be the Bishop’s fortress for seven and a
half centuries. Within that castle Walcher was safe, and, helped by the
Earl, he ruled his recalcitrant flock, not always wisely, but with all
his power, until an insurrection which he strove to quell cost him his
life. He died, however, not as mere Bishop of Durham, but as Earl of
Northumbria as well, for when Waltheof the Earl died, William appointed
Walcher in his place. Thus in the hands of the first Bishop after the
Conquest was held the double authority of Bishop and of Earl. Whatever
may have been the powers of the prelate in the Bishopric until this
time, it is certain that from this point he claims a double authority
within the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert. As for Walcher, stern example was
made of what resistance to the Bishop’s lawful authority would mean,
when William laid waste the land that had escaped ten years before, and
extended his ravages north of the Wear and towards the Tyne.
Just before the eleventh century expired, an event of considerable
importance took place when Bishop Carileph began the great cathedral
which still crowns the height above the Wear at Durham. About the same
time an understanding was reached between the Earl of Northumbria and
the Bishop, by which all the rights and the independence of the
Bishopric seem to have been recognized and confirmed, so that
henceforward the Bishop was the undisputed lord of the lands of St.
Cuthbert.[2] When in 1104 the cathedral was sufficiently advanced to
receive the body of the saint within its eastern apse, a great ceremony
took place, which served to carry the prestige of Durham beyond anything
it had yet reached. Henceforward the stream of pilgrims which had
steadily flowed to the shrine, whether at Lindisfarne, or
Chester-le-Street, or Durham, swelled in volume until the
attractiveness of Durham exceeded that of any place of pilgrimage in
England. Only when the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury drew to it so
large a share of patronage from the end of the twelfth century did a
serious rival manifest itself. Carileph had divided the territory of St.
Cuthbert, reserving part for the Bishop, and part for the Benedictine
monks whom he placed in the new cathedral. Thus the Bishop had his
estates henceforward, and the monks had theirs. At first the portion
belonging to the monastery seems to have been disappointingly poor, a
fact very probably due to recent ravages whose brand was not yet
effaced. By degrees, however, the lands of prior and convent improved,
and the gifts of pilgrims made the monks prosperous.
The Bishop who presided when the body of St. Cuthbert was translated in
1104 was Ralph Flambard. He was not the character to allow the prestige
of the Bishopric to decline. Under him the resources of the county were
ably administered, and the organization of his dominions was carefully
developed. By degrees the traces of the Norman harrying were
obliterated. How fair a country Durham was in the early twelfth century
we may discover from the poetry of a monk from the monastery who was
called Lawrence, and wrote a description of events and localities
connected with Durham. He speaks of its scenery, its excellent products,
its fine breed of horses, its open-air amusements, to say nothing of
indoor revels at Christmas. The twelfth century, with sparse population,
open moor and plain, and increasing prosperity, is far away from the
noise of anvil and forge, the smoke of endless coke ovens, the squalor
of congested towns, as they exist in the county to-day. But the scene
changed too soon. After the accession of Stephen in 1135 fierce dynastic
feuds broke out, and the Scots joined in the anarchy of the time,
attempting to annex the territory of St. Cuthbert to the Lowlands of
Scotland. Durham suffered severely in the conflict, and a mock-bishop,
supported by the Scots, actually held Durham Castle and City against
the lawful prelate. At length more quiet days came, and in the reign of
Henry II. Bishop Pudsey, the King’s own cousin, succeeded in resisting
the centralizing efforts of the monarch, and although he had to bow to
the imperious Henry on more than one occasion, he carried on in the main
the liberties and rights of the Bishopric. A little later he was enabled
to round off the Bishopric lands when he bought the wapentake of
Sadberge from King Richard, the only important part of the county which
had never yet been included in the territory of St. Cuthbert. From this
time the Earl of Northumbria disappears, and at last there is no rival
whatsoever to powers which had been steadily growing. The Bishopric is
now complete in head and members, and the Bishop is virtual sovereign of
it, whilst the King is supreme outside. At this stage we may freely call
the Bishop’s dominions the Palatinate of Durham--a name which continues
to be usual until the power so described is, in 1836, annexed to the
Crown. The word "Palatinate" is a conventional legal title which the
lawyers brought into fashion to describe a great franchise with its
independent jurisdiction.[3]
We are able to get a very much clearer notion of the Palatinate in
Pudsey’s days, when the hitherto scanty materials of Durham history
begin to swell. We have some of his buildings before us yet--St.
Cuthbert’s, Darlington, the Galilee of the cathedral, the rich doorway
in the castle; we have seal and charters and writs of his episcopate;
and, in short, are able to trace in outline the way in which Pudsey
developed the Bishopric on the analogy of a little kingdom, with
institutions and officers of its own. Moreover, some notion is gained in
the famous Boldon Book[4] of the episcopal lands and how they were
held. There we get a Domesday, as it were, of the Bishop’s holdings, to
which those who desire to study the intricate methods of medieval land
tenure on the Bishop’s property must be referred. A little later on we
find somewhat similar information about the lands of the monastery, so
that, as the centuries wear on, a fairly detailed picture is gained of
the conditions of life in the medieval Bishopric. Thus we see the lands
divided up into a large number of manors, which vary largely in
character, for some are pastoral, others agricultural, others moor-land,
or forest, and others still are connected with townships like Gateshead
or Sunderland. The Bishop’s or Prior’s steward makes a circuit at
different times, visiting all the units in some special locality, and
looking to his lettings or his rents. The holdings vary very much in
size and in tenure, and the tenants likewise differ in status and in
service. There are villeins who are not free, and are bound to render
certain dues of personal service, mowing, or reaping, or ploughing, or
sowing, for so many days, and receiving perhaps doles of food, a
cottage, and some land, but no money wage. There are farmers who take a
manor or farm on condition of rendering so much agricultural produce to
the lord. There are cottiers who work so many days in the week, and have
to give so many eggs, or so many fowls for the table, in return for the
little home that they occupy. In Durham itself certain houses were let
to tenants, who had to defend the North Gate, or help act as garrison,
or render herbs and other necessaries for the Bishop’s kitchen. The
conditions of service among the villeins were often onerous, and a tone
of deep discontent is marked in the medieval villages of Durham. In time
of war external service might be demanded of the men, and a rally to
join the Bishopric troops was no unfamiliar incident of life in those
days. If it extended beyond the bounds proper of the territory of St.
Cuthbert, pay was claimed, though it was not always given. Small
quarrels and differences were probably adjusted by steward or bailiff,
but more serious cases came before justices of the peace specially
appointed, whilst murder and other grave offences were reserved for
judges whom the Bishop appointed to sit at various centres, of which
Durham was the chief. And this power of appointing judges to try
criminals and to convict or acquit them is what is meant by the popular
and inexact phrase, "the power of life and death." The Bishop’s revenue
was managed by special officers of his own appointment, who got returns
from the local bailiffs, and then recorded them at Durham, where a
special audit was held. A special set of buildings were erected near
Durham Castle, with various adjacent offices, for the management and
arrangement of all the mass of business--financial, judicial, and
administrative--which was entailed by the Bishopric.
In this way the conditions of life, and the administration of the
Palatinate, followed roughly the general order of the kingdom outside,
and the Bishopric was, as has already been said, virtually a little
kingdom ruled by a Bishop instead of a King. The Bishops who followed
Pudsey maintained and developed his organization, but not without
strife. The thirteenth century, in particular, presents a long record of
obstinate struggle between the Bishop and those who tried to limit his
power or to gain concessions which he was unwilling to make. Indeed, the
struggle between the King and the people, which is the great feature of
English history in that century, finds a close parallel on a small scale
in Durham. At one time it is a long feud between the Bishop and the
Monastery over their respective lands, a feud which was at last ended by
an agreement between the contending parties. At another time the Bishop
is trying to curb the independence of the Barons of the Bishopric, who
held large estates for which they were supposed to yield homage, or to
perform some kind of service. In this way Nevilles and Balliols, two of
the great Bishopric families, held out against the crusading Bishop Bek,
and in the end they had to give way. And once more there was strife on
more than one occasion with the King, who now and then attempted to
restrain the exuberant independence of the Bishop of Durham; and here,
in the main, the Bishop was successful in asserting his rights and
powers as inalienable.
Over this scene of complex organization and activity dark shadows came
in the fourteenth century. The Scots, who had been quiescent for some
time, fell upon the Bishopric with great ferocity during the reigns of
the first three Edwards, and the years were seldom free from the record
of invasion or pillage. It had come to be regarded as a prime duty of
the Bishop to repress all northern incursions, and, as a contemporary
document puts it, to serve as a wall of brass against the Scots. He had
his fortified castles, Norham in Norhamshire, Durham in its own county,
and Northallerton in Yorkshire. These three lay on one of the chief
routes by which the invaders entered England, and were kept in
threatening times well defended and provisioned. In 1312 Bruce pushed
his forces right through Northumberland, and advanced into the heart of
the Bishopric, delivering a blow against Durham itself, which must have
been severe. Two years later in Scotland the troops of England were
beaten at Bannockburn, and the humiliation of Edward II. was only
effaced some years later by Edward III. in the victories of Halidon
Hill, and more particularly of Neville’s Cross in 1346. The latter
battle was the great glory of the men of Durham until it was forgotten
in the greater prestige of Flodden nearly 200 years later. The tomb of
Ralph Neville, badly battered by Scots in later days, still stands in
Durham Cathedral as a local memorial of Neville’s Cross, in which he led
the Bishopric troops.
The joy caused by these successes was soon dimmed when the terrors of
the Black Death overwhelmed the district. Perhaps no part of England
suffered much more severely. The pestilence rolled up towards the North
in the year 1349, and at last made its dreaded appearance in the
south-east of the county. From this point it spread with frightful
rapidity, carrying off all orders and conditions of men, for none
escaped. Sometimes a whole household perished, and here and there an
entire village was obliterated. "No tenants came from West Thickley,
because they are all dead," is the steward’s entry at one manorial court
or halmote, as the local word is. In the winter that followed there was
no sowing, and when the spring came men had not the heart to go to work
on the fields, for the plague was renewed with increasing virulence, and
everything was thrown out of gear. Villeins had run away from sheer
terror; even madness was not unheard of; and whilst there was little to
eat famine and misery stalked unchecked.[5] The Bishop’s lands and the
Prior’s lands were going out of cultivation, for it was impossible to
find labourers, or to bind them down in the old way. Grotesque attempts
were made to keep up the former conditions of service, until by degrees
stewards and bailiffs found out that they were face to face with the
greatest economic difficulty which had ever appeared in the Bishopric.
The Black Death practically brought to an end the rigid system of land
tenure which had been kept up so long, for it gave the death-blow to
serfdom, and the old services in kind, of which mention has been made.
Discontent had long lurked in the manors of Durham, but from this time
it became active and aggressive, until it pushed the peasants out to
assert themselves and to seek for more congenial conditions of life.
Elsewhere the transition was effected by bloodshed; in the territories
of St. Cuthbert it came more peacefully, but to the accompaniment of
much mutual mistrust and variance.
It is possibly in connection with all this covert rebellion on the part
of the masses that Cardinal Langley built or finished the great gaol in
the North Gate in Durham. This large building running up to the castle
keep on one side, and down towards the river on the other, spanned
Saddler Street for four centuries, until it was taken down in 1820. It
was often filled with criminals who were imprisoned here for various
offences in its gloomy dungeons. There was another gaol at Sadberge, but
it does not seem clear what relation this bore to the more important
building in Durham. But the fifteenth century brought its own special
anxieties. In the dynastic troubles which led to the Wars of the Roses,
the Palatinate was generally Lancastrian in sympathy. Henry VI. (only
one of many English Kings who visited Durham) came to the shrine of St.
Cuthbert at a time when his dominions had been cut short upon the
Continent, and were still further menaced by the Scots. In the bitter
days that followed, when he was driven from his throne, he took refuge
in the Bishopric, whilst his brave wife went to the Continent to seek
for troops to enable him to regain the crown. Even rectories were
fortified in those days, for men had to take one side or the other, and
to defend their property against bands of marauders. Of religious
trouble and dispute, Durham had no large share at that particular time,
though elsewhere the ferment caused by the Lollard Movement was
producing much unrest. The Bishopric was too much under the control of
the Church to allow much freedom of thought. Yet there were isolated
instances of Lollard sympathy, exceptions to prove the rule, which were
instantly repressed by ecclesiastical authority.
Dynastic trouble did not end when Henry VII. and his wife, Elizabeth,
united the Red and White Roses. The Bishopric men, indeed, had no desire
to rise against the strong government which the King set up in England;
but they were caught in the tide of rebellion which was set going by
Simnel and Warbeck. It was to stem this tide that Henry placed Richard
Fox as Bishop of Durham in 1494. This prelate, the King’s tried friend,
fortified afresh the castles of the see, and placed garrisons in them
to check the advance of Warbeck through the northern counties.
Fortunately, the invasion followed another line to the Battle of Stoke,
and the men of Durham were spared the anxiety of decision. But Fox,
keeping vigilant guard in his fortresses, was instrumental in concluding
that alliance which was destined eventually to unite the English and the
Scots as one nation. Henry’s young daughter, Margaret, was affianced to
James IV. of Scotland, and in 1503 passed right through the Bishopric on
her way to her northern home. Nowhere in all the long progress did the
Princess receive a warmer welcome than in Durham, from the moment she
entered the Bishopric at the Tees to the moment she crossed Tyne Bridge
from Gateshead into Newcastle. A mighty banquet was given in her honour
in Durham Castle, to which all the nobles and important personages of
the district were invited. Little Margaret’s great-grandson was James
VI. of Scotland and I. of England; and in his days border feuds passed
away for ever. And yet at the moment of the banquet that consummation
was a long way off. Ten years later the Scots invaded England at a time
of grave national anxiety, when the King and his troops were warring in
France. But the Bishopric musters turned out. Bishop Ruthall rushed up
to Durham, and his men at Flodden contributed not a little to the great
English success as they bore the banner of St. Cuthbert into the battle.
The century that had so recently dawned was destined to witness great
changes in the Bishopric. Henry VIII. laid ruthless hands upon the power
of the Church, and the monarch who extorted the submission of the clergy
was not likely to allow the great power and independence of the Bishop
of Durham to pass unchecked. Accordingly, in 1536, he cut short the
judiciary authority of the prelate. This, as we have seen, was one of
the most characteristic privileges of the Bishop, and neither Henry II.
nor Edward I. had interfered with it. From this date the King was the
authority who appointed the judges; and although in practice the old
forms and methods were largely followed, the sanction was royal, and not
episcopal. And next year, when the Council of the North was set up for
the purposes of defence, execution of justice, and finance, in the
northern counties, a still further blow was aimed at the Bishop’s power,
for this court could, if it willed, supersede the Palatinate machinery.
As a matter of fact, its first President was Tunstall, Bishop of Durham,
who prevented such degradation of the Palatinate for the present. Yet
one thing of large importance was carried out under the Council’s
authority, when the great Abbey of Durham was dissolved in 1539. The
monastery had stood unassailed for 450 years, but Henry set going the
process of destruction which ended in the total suppression of every
religious house in the land. It had been a wealthy foundation, a kindly
landlord, an influence for good in the district, with its library, and
its schools, and its varied means of usefulness. Yet every good object
that it had served was eventually carried on. Prior and convent became
Dean and Canons; monastic lands were now capitular estates; its chief
school and library were maintained with greater efficiency; its solemn
offices soon became the familiar vernacular service of the Church of
England. Otherwise there was little monastic destruction in the county
of Durham, for the great monastery had brooked no rivals; and a friary
or two with a single nunnery were scarcely rivals. The dependent cells
of Jarrow, Wearmouth, Finchale, however, shared in the fall of Durham
Abbey.
Three or four years before the surrender of the monastery the people of
Durham had taken part in the Pilgrimage of Grace--that exciting
demonstration in which popular resentment against the fall of the
smaller houses was exhibited. When Durham Abbey fell, there was no
repetition of that rising, for severe punishment had been meted out in
1537; whilst in 1540 pestilence was desolating the district, and the
gloom in consequence was depressing. But there was no sympathy with the
changes which soon began to hurry on, and Durham was probably more
opposed to the Reformation than any other district. Under Edward VI. the
Bishopric became the object of the ambitious designs of
Northumberland--one of the noblemen whom the rapid religious and
political revolution of the time placed in power. He cast a longing eye
on the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert; and in building up the fortunes of his
upstart family (he was a Dudley, not a Percy, for the true
Northumberland title was at the moment suspended) he probably intended
to lay hands upon the whole Bishopric, and to arrogate for himself the
Palatinate jurisdiction. He succeeded in getting the Bishop thrown into
prison on false charges of treason, and then forced a Bill through
Parliament which abolished the power of the Palatinate, and created two
sees--one at Durham, the other at Newcastle. There can be little doubt
that he intended to secure the Palatinate power for himself, and to rule
in Durham as Duke of Northumberland; whilst his son, Guildford Dudley,
recently married to Lady Jane Grey, was to be Prince Consort, and to
share the throne of England. This most daring scheme fell to the ground
when Mary came to the throne, and the recent legislation was at once
abolished, and things went back to the conditions obtaining before the
reign of Edward.
Under Elizabeth the Bishopric underwent a process of reconstruction in
various ways. It was not a pleasant process. Socially the old system of
land-tenure, which had been breaking up since the Black Death, was
abolished, and a new method of leaseholds was evolved after much
friction between the tenants on the one side, and the Dean and Chapter,
or the Bishop, on the other. The power of the Bishop was now further
attenuated, for the Queen laid hands upon large estates which were the
undoubted possession of the see, with a history of many centuries’
attachment to the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert. The settlement of religion
carried out in the early years of the Queen’s reign was largely
unpalatable in Durham. Certainly the majority of the clergy acquiesced,
but the acquiescence was largely external. So the people at large
tolerated the changes that were wrought in churches and services, when
the English liturgy took the place of the Latin offices restored by
Mary, and when altars were broken down, and the church furniture in
general was destroyed. The great Bishopric families--Nevilles, Lumleys,
and others--scarcely concealed their dislike of the new régime in Church
and in State, and after some years of endurance, they rose at last in
1569. Feeling sure of wide sympathy in Northumberland and Durham, the
Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland gathered retainers together, and
restored the old order in Durham Cathedral, whilst the people of Durham,
lowly kneeling, were absolved from the guilt of schism. But inferior
leadership caused the rising to collapse outside the Bishopric, and when
the Queen’s army marched through Durham it swept the undisciplined
forces of the Earls across the Tyne to be dissipated in the rigours of a
cold Northumbrian winter. But, although the rebellion came to nothing,
passive resistance was maintained. As the reign proceeded, this quieter
condition was roused into greater activity by the seminary priests and
the Jesuit missionaries who came into the country from institutions
abroad, which sent over into England, and not least into Durham, a long
succession of these emissaries. They went up and down the district,
welcomed and protected by friends who received their ministrations, but
not seldom hunted down by the vigilance of the Ecclesiastical
Commission, which increased the stringency of its measures as the
century drew to its close.
The last years of the great Queen witnessed a rather distressing
condition of things in the county. Pestilence was a frequent visitor in
times that were insanitary, and the transition to happier conditions in
religion and in society was not complete. The villages were frequently
unpopulated, and tillage was decayed, whilst the starving families
wandered into the neighbouring towns in search of food. Probably the
depressing state of affairs was worse in the Bishopric than in other
parts of England, for it received a special aggravation in the Scottish
inroads, which were renewed towards the end of the reign before their
final extinction at the accession of James. When the Elizabethan Poor
Law began its work, the county of Durham benefited by its operation, for
regular collectors for the poor were appointed, and sometimes rates were
levied, in place of the very uncertain alms of the "poor man’s box" in
the church, to which parishioners were asked to contribute under the
Injunctions of Elizabeth.
The Stuarts showed more regard for the Palatinate of Durham than did the
Tudors. No Tudor sovereign, it seems, entered the county, but James I.,
Charles I., and James II. when Duke of York, paid ceremonious visits to
Durham, and in general upheld the prestige of the see, though they never
completely restored its independence. One of the most interesting
episodes of the seventeenth century is the religious revolution carried
out during the first forty years. Bishop Neile is credited with
introducing to Durham a series of prebendaries who altered the aspect of
the cathedral and produced great changes in the services. These
"innovations" caused much comment, and although Charles in 1633 paid a
special visit, and by his presence and countenance sanctioned what had
been done, frequent remonstrance was made. The long reign of Elizabethan
Churchmanship had accustomed the people to one uniform type of worship
and ornament, and they were not prepared for the alterations now made in
ritual and in the appearance of the churches. When the Scots entered
England in 1640, by way of remonstrance against the King’s policy in
Church and State, the Bishopric was not altogether unsympathetic; but
when the armed demonstration proved to be an armed occupation extending
over a year in duration, the royalism of Durham re-asserted itself. At
the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 it was warmly royalist. A second
Scottish occupation after Marston Moor in 1644 kept this spirit in
check, whilst the Long Parliament virtually superseded the Palatinate
and governed the district by committees. Bishop, prebendaries, and other
high ecclesiastics had fled when the Scots entered Durham in 1640.
Parliament now seized upon the lands of Bishop and Chapter, and sold
them or let them as opportunity offered. Thus for several years the old
ecclesiastical constitution of Durham was destroyed, and in the parish
churches, carefully cleared in 1644 from all "monuments of idolatry," a
Presbyterian system was set up. It was not, however, fully carried out,
and all manner of ministers were in possession when the Protectorate was
set up in 1653. The cathedral services had long been silenced, and in
1650 Cromwell used the buildings as a convenient accommodation for the
Scottish prisoners captured at Dunbar. On the petition of the people of
the county, the Protector undertook to establish a college in Durham and
to devote the cathedral and castle buildings to that purpose. Resentment
and discontent smouldered during these years of tyranny. Indeed, more
than one Royalist rising had to be repressed. When, at the beginning of
1660, there was talk of restoring the King, no voice of dissent was
heard in the county.
Exuberant loyalty greeted the Restoration. Cosin was made Bishop. He was
one of the group of influential men appointed by Neile forty years
before, and now for twelve years he repaired the breaches of the city
and diocese, and carried out the principles which he had formed in
earlier life. The Palatinate jurisdiction was revived, with perhaps
greater lustre than it had exhibited for a century past. In these days
of royalist triumph Nonconformist and Puritan scarcely ventured at first
to show their heads, but in Durham they were only biding their time.
They found opportunity to promote a formidable rising, which was known
as the Derwentdale Plot, aiming at some kind of overthrow of the
restored Church and Crown. It was badly managed, and speedily collapsed;
but Anabaptists, Quakers, and other parties managed to maintain their
existence despite strenuous measures, and more particularly despite the
vigorous working of the Conventicle Acts which were intended to crush
Nonconformity.
Generally speaking, the county of Durham accepted the Revolution in
1688, though here and there some reluctance was manifested, and
notwithstanding the efforts of Bishop Crewe and Dean Granville to
promote allegiance to King James. Jacobitism, indeed, was spasmodic in
the Bishopric, and it does not appear that in 1715 or in 1745 very wide
sympathy was exhibited in the district when elsewhere the excitement was
considerable. The eighteenth century witnessed two events of the
greatest importance in Durham history. In the first place, after a
period of long stagnation, industrial development caught the whole
district and entirely changed its character. The coal trade had been
prosecuted continuously since the thirteenth century at least, and the
mines had proved a considerable source of revenue to the owners. Lead
was an ancient industry, and the salt-pans of the county have a
connected history, ranging over many centuries. These and other
operations had increased in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
more particularly when a great development of shipping at Sunderland and
at Hartlepool took place after the Restoration. A large export trade by
sea spread rapidly. In the early part of the eighteenth century 175,000
tons of coal was the annual output on the Wear, and the history of the
collier convoys at that time is a large chapter in the general history
of North Country shipping. All this meant a considerable increase of
prosperity, and by degrees the county which had been thinly populated,
for the most part, became a hive of industry, in which rapid fortunes
were made. The mines and the shipyards attracted labour from other parts
of England, and the population of the county, returned as 58,860 in the
early days of Elizabeth, amounted to 149,384 in 1801, a figure which has
been multiplied by ten in the last hundred years. The Bishop and the
Dean and Chapter largely shared in the vast increase of wealth which the
working of coal-mines in particular produced. It cannot, however, be
said with truth that the Church authorities neglected the cause of
charity. A list of the benefactions directly due to the various Bishops,
and also to Dean and Chapter, shows how much they did in various ways
for the cause of education as well as for the spiritual well-being of
the people. Indeed, subscription lists of the early nineteenth century,
which still survive, prove that the clergy gave the chief proportion of
what was given when some public call was made. It must not be forgotten
that Durham University and Durham School were the direct foundations of
the Church within the Bishopric.
The other important event to which allusion has been made was the
appearance of the Wesleyan Movement in Durham. Bishop Butler wrote his
famous work, the _Analogy_, in the western parts of the county, and
published it in 1736. It may be doubted whether its local effect was
considerable. Within a few years John Wesley passed and repassed through
the county, and established his societies in Durham, Sunderland,
Darlington, and elsewhere. They prospered exceedingly, and left a
permanent impression upon the district, and this was deepened and
extended when a fresh wave of Methodism travelled over the North of
England early in the nineteenth century in connection with the spread of
Primitive Methodism. There can be no manner of doubt that the Methodist
Movement deeply stirred and influenced some classes of the increasing
population which the Church left untouched.
The real dividing-line between Old Durham and the present day is to be
found in the series of changes which took place in the reign of William
IV. The spirit of reform was operating in various directions, and it was
not likely that Durham could escape. The increasing wealth of the Church
and the still independent powers of the Bishop attracted the attention
of the party of change. The Dean and Chapter rose to their opportunity,
and founded the University of Durham. The newly formed Ecclesiastical
Commission reduced the large staff of the cathedral, and reduced the
stipends of those who were left. The Bishop was henceforth to be no
longer a great landowner, managing his own revenues and estates, but a
prelate, like any other, drawing a fixed stipend. His officers went, and
the Palatinate jurisdiction which Dudley had coveted was finally annexed
to the Crown. Thus to-day George V. is, within the confines of the
Bishopric, Earl Palatine of Durham.
TOPOGRAPHY OF DURHAM
BY MISS M. HOPE DODDS
_Hist. Tripos, Cantab._
_The Great North Road._
The Great North Road crosses the Tees by Croft Bridge, on which the
boundary between Yorkshire and Durham is marked by a stone dated 1627.
This road is the "Darnton Trod," along which criminals from the South
sought refuge all through the Middle Ages. Once across the Tees the
fugitive was safe, for the King’s writ did not run in the Bishopric.
Moreover, this was the road to the great sanctuary of St. Cuthbert at
Durham, where a man was safe from the vengeance of his enemies; and so
it happened that Darlington became a great resort of evil-doers, and in
1311 Bishop Kellaw issued a proclamation threatening with the terrors of
excommunication all those who molested merchants going to and returning
from Darlington market. The ill-name of the neighbourhood was not lost
after the Bishop had been deprived of his own writs in 1536. The little
inn of Baydale was the resort of the gentlemen of the road in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the rendezvous of Catton’s gang,
the haunt of Barwick and of Sir William Browne, all noted highwaymen of
the North.
The first hamlet in Durham through which the road passes is Oxneyfield,
where, in the fields by the wayside, may be seen the Hell Kettles, four
dark, still pools, formed by the natural sinking of the soil over the
salt measures in the north bank of the Tees. There is a tradition that
an Eastern diver, a black man, plunged into one of the pools, and
reappeared in the Skerne, having discovered a subterranean connection
between the two waters. The Black Man in North Country legends is
usually the devil, and this story may be connected with the belief that
the Hell Kettles sometimes grow boiling hot, and that the devil "seethes
the souls of sinful men and women in them," at which times the spirits
may be heard to cry and yell about the pools.
[Illustration: THE MARKET-CROSS AT DARLINGTON.]
Passing by this haunted place the road leads on to Darlington, a borough
full of historical relics, from the Bulmer Stone in Northgate to the
first locomotive at Bank Top Station. The Bulmer Stone is a large
boulder of Shap granite, which was borne down to its present
resting-place on a glacier in the Ice Age. Lying in the midst of the
level, marshy plains of the Skerne, it formed a landmark for the men of
the Bronze Age, and was perhaps the origin of the town. An Anglian
burial-ground, probably pre-Christian, was discovered in the town in
1876. After the conversion of the North a church was built, and two
Saxon crosses from it are preserved in the present Church of St.
Cuthbert. The history of this beautiful building does not come within
the scope of the present section. To the west of the church lies the
market-place, where in 1217 Stephen de Cantuaria purchased half a pound
of pepper at the fair on the Feast of All Saints, which he rendered to
Roger Fitzacris as service for this land in Milneflach and elsewhere.
From the market-cross in 1312 was read the Bishop’s order that a
tournament which had been proclaimed at Darlington should not be held,
as it was forbidden by the laws of the land. That market-cross is not
standing now, but its successor may be seen in the modern covered
market, a plain column surmounted by a ball, which was erected in 1727
by Dame Dorothy Brown, the last descendant of the family of Barnes,
whose members had held the office of bailiff of Darlington for over a
hundred years. The old toll-booth, in which the bailiffs held their
courts, was pulled down in 1806 and replaced by the present Town Hall.
Ever since 1197, Darlington enjoyed the title of borough, and yet it
possesses no early charters and had no corporate government; it was not
visited by the municipal commissioners in 1833, and was only
incorporated in 1868. Until its incorporation the Bishop of Durham
appointed a bailiff, who held the old manorial court of the borough.
Darlington enjoys the distinction of having retained its bailiff until
the middle of the nineteenth century, whereas in the other Durham towns
the Bishop had ceased to appoint bailiffs by the end of the seventeenth
century. The fame of Darlington rests on the fact that the first
passenger railway-line in England was laid between Darlington and
Stockton by George Stephenson, who was supported by the capital and
influence of Edward Pease of Darlington; the line was opened in 1825.
This is surely glory enough for any town!
[Illustration: AN OLD TITHE-BARN AT DURHAM.]
Great Aycliffe, lying five miles north of Darlington on the highroad,
was once one of the lesser forests of the Bishopric. About four miles
north of Aycliffe the road crosses a little stream by the hamlet of
Rushyford. This was a desolate spot in 1317, when on September 1 Lewis
Beaumont, Bishop-elect of Durham, and the Cardinals Gaucelin John and
Luke Fieschi, with a numerous train of attendants, travelled towards
Durham, Beaumont to be consecrated in the cathedral, the Cardinals to
negotiate a truce between England and Scotland. They had been warned at
Darlington that the road was beset, and this warning, which they
disregarded, proved only too true, for as they crossed the gloomy little
burn at Rushyford, they were set upon by the notorious freebooter, Sir
Gilbert Middleton, and his men. The Cardinals and their servants were
stripped of their goods and allowed to continue their journey, but the
borderers carried off the Bishop-elect to their fortress of Mitford
Castle, and there held him to ransom, until the Prior and Convent of
Durham by great sacrifices succeeded in redeeming him.
The next place of importance on the road is Ferryhill, a large modern
village six and a half miles south of Durham. Few traces of the past
survive here, except the fragment of an old stone cross, Cleve’s Cross,
which is traditionally held to commemorate the slaying of a great wild
boar, which ravaged Durham once upon a time, by a certain valiant Roger
de Ferry, whose family long dwelt in the neighbourhood in great honour.
About a mile to the south-east of Ferryhill is Mainsforth, the estate of
Robert Surtees, the historian of Durham.
Midway between Ferryhill and Durham the highroad crosses the River Wear
by Sunderland Bridge, and passes through the suburbs into the city of
Durham.
A bird’s-eye view of the city of Durham even at the present day is
surprisingly beautiful. In the Middle Ages it would have served as a
model for one of those fascinating little Jerusalems or Bethlehems,
walled, towered, and pinnacled, which the old Italian masters loved to
perch on the craggy hills in the background of some sacred picture. The
river sweeps round three sides of the crag, which is crowned by the
cathedral and the castle, and the narrow neck of land on the fourth side
was defended by a moat. The Prior’s borough of Elvet and the merchants’
quarter of Framwellgate lay on the opposite bank of the river, and were
connected with the citadel itself by their bridges.
The monastic chroniclers of the see were chiefly interested in the
doings of the Bishop in his castle and the Prior in his cathedral, and
the occasional interventions of the Lord King in the quarrels of these
august persons; they tell comparatively little of the life and affairs
of the burgesses themselves, the descendants of the men from between
Coquet and Tees, who obeyed the summons of Earl Ucthred in 995, and
hastened to Durham to raise a shrine worthy of St. Cuthbert, who cleared
the thick forest on the crag of Durham, divided the land by lot, and
became the Haliwerfolc, the people of the Saint. Twice during the
eleventh century they were besieged by the Scots, and each time the
enemy was routed. The heads of the slaughtered Scots were exposed in the
market-place, where the great fair of Durham was held on September 4,
the Feast of the Translation of St. Cuthbert. There was also a fair on
the saint’s other festival, March 20; but the September fair was the
more important. The laws of the special peace of St. Cuthbert, which was
proclaimed by the thanes and drengs before the fair opened, were written
in an ancient Gospel-Book, and a copy of them is still preserved.
In the winter of 1068-69 Robert Cumin, the newly created Norman Earl of
Northumberland, advanced to Durham with his troops, but as the Normans
lay there they were surprised by a sudden rising of the whole
population, and slain almost to a man. A year later news came that
William himself was approaching Durham to avenge the death of Cumin,
whereupon Bishop Egelwin and the priests took the sacred body of St.
Cuthbert and such of the treasures of the church as they could carry and
fled to Lindisfarne, followed by the people of the city, who dared not
remain without the sacred relic. The whole multitude took refuge on the
island while William devastated Durham and Northumberland. At length
peace was made, and St. Cuthbert and his followers returned to the
desolate city. In 1072 William visited Durham, and installed the
foreigner, Bishop Walcher, in the see. About this time also the first
Norman castle was built in the city to keep the people in check; but
when Bishop Walcher ventured out of his stronghold in 1080 he was
murdered. Again William ravaged Durham, and the see was filled by Bishop
William de St. Carileph, who began to build the present cathedral, and
who founded the Benedictine monastery connected with it. To the new
monastery he gave forty merchants’ houses in Elvet, which formed the
nucleus of the Prior’s borough of Elvet. The troubles of Durham
recommenced in 1140, when, the see being vacant, Durham Castle was
seized by William Cumin, a nominee of King David of Scotland, who hoped
through Cumin to annex the Bishopric. In the course of the struggle
between the usurper and the new Bishop, William de St. Barbara, the
greater part of the city of Durham was reduced to ashes. There were four
years of desperate warfare before Bishop William entered his cathedral
town, and at last received the submission of Cumin. Even then there
could be no true peace while England was torn with civil war, and it was
not until after the death of Bishop William that a brighter day dawned
with the election of Bishop Hugh Pudsey. Bishop Hugh rebuilt the ruined
city, restored the fortifications, and added to the cathedral. He
granted the burgesses a charter, by which the customs of
Newcastle-on-Tyne were confirmed to them, besides freedom from merchet,
heriot, and toll. The city of Durham stands first in Bishop Pudsey’s
great survey of the Bishopric (Boldon Book, compiled in 1183), when the
city was at farm for 60 marks. Records which relate to the actual life
of the citizens do not begin until the fourteenth century. The earliest
are various charters of murage, dated 1345, 1377, 1385, which authorized
the citizens to levy certain tolls, and to devote the proceeds to the
repair of the walls and streets. The city was governed
[Illustration: BISHOP PUDSEY’S CHARTER.]
by a bailiff, appointed by the Bishop, in the same way as Darlington. It
is not until the fifteenth century that gilds are heard of in Durham. In
1436 Bishop Langley granted a licence to several of the principal
inhabitants to form the religious gild of Corpus Christi in the Church
of St. Nicholas, in the market-place. This gild was closely connected
with the craft gilds of the town, which must have been in existence at
the beginning of the century. The first records of the gilds occur in
1447, when the Shoemakers (Cordwainers) and the Fullers each gave
recognizances to the Bishop that they would forfeit 20s. to him and 20s.
to the light of Corpus Christi if any member took a Scot as an
apprentice. The ordinances of the Weavers were enrolled and confirmed by
the Bishop in 1450, and in them reference is made to the play which was
to be played when they went in procession on Corpus Christi Day. The
gilds were not merely a picturesque feature of town life, they had also
a powerful influence on the development of the city. The corporation
granted by Bishop Pilkington’s charter of 1565--the first charter of
incorporation which the city obtained--was probably modelled on the
governing body of the Corpus Christi Gild. The governing charter of the
city until 1770 was granted by Bishop Toby Matthew in 1602, and by this
charter the Common Council of the town was to consist of twenty-four
persons, two being chosen from each of the twelve principal companies by
the mayor and aldermen. When the city of Durham obtained Parliamentary
representation in 1678, the franchise of the borough could only be
obtained by membership in one of the companies, and the procedure of
admission was therefore carefully regulated by the mayor and
corporation. But in 1761 Durham experienced two elections within a few
months of each other, and the political excitement completely
demoralized the city. All restraints were thrown to the winds, and
numbers of new freemen were admitted in a most irregular manner. The
reaction of this exciting time on municipal affairs was such that, in
1770, more than half the number of the twelve aldermen had resigned or
been removed, and it was therefore impossible to elect a mayor under the
charter of 1603, which consequently lapsed. The various feuds having
been cooled by an interval of ten years, Bishop Egerton granted a new
charter in 1780, with provisions closely resembling those of the old
one, and under this charter Durham was governed until it was included in
the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.
The North Road, on leaving Durham, follows the course of one of the
Roman roads which passed through the county. It leads northward over
Framwellgate Moor, and six miles from Durham passes through
Chester-le-Street, which lies on the banks of the Cone Burn. As the name
indicates, a Roman camp was situated here, and numerous Roman remains
have been found. The monks who had fled from Lindisfarne in 876 with the
body of St. Cuthbert settled at Chester-le-Street after seven years’
wandering, when peace had been confirmed by the agreement between Alfred
and Guthred the Dane. It was the principal city of the see until 995,
when Bishop Aldhune fled once more before the renewed invasions of the
Danes. In Chester-le-Street the old custom is still kept up of playing a
football-match, in which the whole village takes part, on Shrove
Tuesday.
The borough of Gateshead lies on the Tyne, eight miles north of
Chester-le-Street. The south end of Tyne Bridge was the site of a Roman
camp, and afterwards, in the seventh century, of a Saxon monastery,
which was destroyed by the Danes. A little church which stood there in
1080 was the scene of the murder of Bishop Walcher, who was killed by
the infuriated populace while he was trying to pacify a feud between his
Norman followers and the Saxon nobles. The church was set on fire, and
the Bishop was killed as he rushed from the burning building. The traces
of early Norman work in the present building show that it must have soon
been rebuilt. The new church is first mentioned in 1256, when a
prisoner who had escaped from the castle of Newcastle took refuge in
Gateshead Church. Gateshead’s only charter was granted by Bishop Hugh
Pudsey at some time between 1154 and 1183, and confirmed by his
successor, Bishop Philip of Poitou. The little borough lay on the
outskirts of the Bishop’s forest of Gateshead, and the charter freed the
burgesses to some extent from the tyranny of that very great man, the
Bishop’s Head Forester. In its form of government the borough was
similar to Darlington. Gateshead has always been one of the principal
commercial centres of the county, and, though there are no signs of
craft gilds there, trade companies second in importance only to those of
Durham existed from the reign of Elizabeth till the end of the
eighteenth century. The prosperity of Gateshead very early excited the
alarm of Newcastle, and the history of the town is studded with the
attempts of its jealous neighbour to suppress its trade. In the
fourteenth century the efforts of the Newcastle Corporation were
directed against the fisheries and staithes on the south bank of the
Tyne, which were frequently destroyed by "the malice of the men of
Newcastle." In 1553 the two towns were united, but the Act was repealed
by Queen Mary, who came to the throne in the same year. It was proposed
to renew the union in 1568, but the anxious petitions of Gateshead, and
the opposition of several influential persons in the Palatinate,
frustrated the scheme. There are, however, several cases in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of the interference of Newcastle
with the trade of Gateshead. These troubles were the price that
Gateshead had to pay for its advantageous position by the side of the
greater town. Gateshead was given one representative in the House of
Commons by the Reform Act of 1832, and was incorporated by its inclusion
in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.
The boundary of Durham is now the south bank of the Tyne, but formerly
the Bishop’s jurisdiction extended over one-third of the river, and was
marked by a blue stone on Tyne Bridge. The old bridge, which stood where
the Swing Bridge is now, was built in 1248 to replace the Roman bridge,
Pons Ælii, which dated from _circa_ 119. In 1389 the burgesses of
Newcastle carried off the Blue Stone, seized the whole of the bridge,
and built a tower on the south end, which they held against the Bishop.
It was not until 1415 that Bishop Langley at length obtained judgment
against the Corporation of Newcastle, and took possession of the tower
with all his chivalry. The tower stood until the great flood of 1771,
when part of the bridge was swept away. After this catastrophe the whole
was rebuilt, the new bridge being completed in 1781. The High-Level
Bridge was built in 1849, and the present Swing Bridge replaced the old
stone one in 1876. Meanwhile, the conservation of the River Tyne had
been placed in the hands of commissioners, and the jurisdiction of the
Bishop over the river came to an end.
_Durham to South Shields._
The city of Durham, lying almost in the centre of the county, is an
excellent point of departure from which to visit the other towns and
places of interest in the Bishopric. The road which leads from the city
to the mouth of the Tyne runs north-east from Framwellgate Bridge. The
principal village through which it passes is Houghton-le-Spring, six and
a half miles from Durham. The place is closely associated with the name
of Bernard Gilpin, the Apostle of the North, who in the reigns of Edward
VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, was Rector of Houghton-le-Spring, and the
chief instrument in spreading Protestant doctrines through the North.
From here it is seven miles to the mouth of the Wear, where stands the
flourishing port of Sunderland. In early records the town
[Illustration: JACK CRAWFORD’S BIRTH-PLACE, SUNDERLAND.]
is usually called Wearmouth. It possesses two very interesting charters,
dated respectively 1180-83 and 1634; nevertheless, it did not rise above
the level of a manorial borough until 1835, when it was included in the
Municipal Corporations Act. During the Civil War Sunderland was the
principal centre of the Parliamentarians in Durham, which was on the
whole a Royalist county. The fact that Sunderland was an exception was
due to the influence of the family of Lilburne in the town, George
Lilburne, the uncle of the famous John Lilburne, being the only
magistrate in the borough during the war. At the same time the siege of
Newcastle diverted the coal trade to Sunderland, and thus laid the
foundation of its present prosperity. The town is famous in naval and
military history as the birthplace of two heroes--Jack Crawford, who
"nailed the colours to the mast" at the Battle of Camperdown, 1797, and
Sir Henry Havelock, who relieved Lucknow in 1857. The Sunderland Orphan
Asylum was founded in 1853 by the Freemen and Stallingers of Sunderland,
and endowed with the proceeds of the sale of the Town Moor, which had
become exceedingly valuable in consequence of the building of the
railway. The road crosses the Wear, and enters the parish of
Monkwearmouth.
The history of Monkwearmouth goes back to 674, when Benedict Biscop
founded there the monastery of St. Peter. The early history of the
monastery was recorded by the Venerable Bede, who relates how Benedict
brought over foreign masons and glass-workers to build his church, and
beautified it with sacred pictures brought from Rome. It was destroyed
by the Danes towards the end of the ninth century, refounded by Bishop
Walcher, _circa_ 1075, and finally annexed to the Convent of Durham by
Bishop William de St. Carileph in 1083. A cell of the convent was
maintained there until the Reformation, and Monkwearmouth continued to
be a manor belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Durham until it was
incorporated with Sunderland.
From Monkwearmouth the road runs parallel with the coast-line to South
Shields. Shield Lawe, at the mouth of the Tyne, was occupied in
pre-Roman times; an important Roman camp was built there; and later it
was one of the fortresses of the Saxon Kings of Northumbria, and the
site of St. Hilda’s first religious house, founded _circa_ 650. The
little convent was overshadowed by Benedict Biscop’s great monastery of
St. Paul at Jarrow, and both fell before the onslaughts of the Danes.
Jarrow subsequently became a cell of the Convent of Durham, and the
Chapel of St. Hilda at South Shields kept alive the name of the
foundress. After centuries of struggle with the burgesses of Newcastle,
who put down the trade of South Shields with a high hand, the borough
obtained Parliamentary representation in 1832, and incorporation in
1850. In the seventeenth century the salt-pans of South Shields were a
flourishing industry, but its chief importance is now its harbour. The
first lifeboat was built and used there in 1790.
_Durham to Hartlepool._
The twenty miles of road between Durham and Hartlepool is of an
uninteresting character; but the town of Hartlepool itself has a long
history, which begins in 640, when St. Hieu founded a convent there, of
which St. Hilda was afterwards abbess. The house was destroyed by the
Danes, and Hartlepool disappears from history, to reappear at the end of
the twelfth century as a flourishing port belonging to Robert de Bruce,
Lord of Annandale. Hitherto it had not been included in the Bishopric of
Durham, but in 1189 the overlordship of the whole district of Hartness
was bought by Bishop Hugh Pudsey from Richard I. The succeeding Bishop,
Philip de Poitou, obtained possession of the town, but not until the
burgesses had bought a charter from King John in 1200, granting to them
the customs of Newcastle-on-Tyne, while the same King granted to William
de Bruce, Lord of Hartlepool, the right to hold a weekly market and a
fair at the Feast of St. Lawrence (August 10). The burgesses obtained
another charter from Bishop Richard le Poore in 1230, in which he
conceded to them the right to form a Merchant Gild and to elect a mayor.
From this time the burgesses of Hartlepool were able to manage their own
affairs in their own way, and enjoyed more independence than there was
in any of the other towns of Durham. Their chief misfortunes befell them
after Robert de Bruce became King of Scotland in 1305. Hartlepool
escheated to the King of England, and in consequence the Scots felt a
special enmity against it. The town was attacked more than once in the
ensuing wars, but the walls and ramparts, which had been built by Robert
de Bruce (1245-95) made it one of the strongest places in the Bishopric.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century these fortifications were
still among the finest specimens of Edwardian architecture in the
kingdom, but when the trade of the town revived later in the century,
the ancient walls were pulled down to make way for the new pier and
docks, and hardly any trace of them now remains. In 1599, by the good
offices of Lord Lumley, the burgesses of Hartlepool obtained from Queen
Elizabeth a charter of incorporation, under which the town was governed
until 1834, when the conditions of the charter were not fulfilled, and
it lapsed. The present governing charter of the town was obtained in
1850. The borough of West Hartlepool has grown up in the nineteenth
century on the south side of the bay on which Hartlepool stands.
_Durham to Stockton._
The Durham and Stockton road passes through Bishop Middleham, where one
of the Bishop’s manor-houses used to stand, and through Sedgefield,
about eleven miles from Durham, a market-town which received the grant
of a weekly market and fair at the Feast of St. Edmund the Bishop
(November 16) from Bishop Kellaw in 1312.
The borough of Stockton lies on the north bank of the Tees, twenty miles
south of Durham. It is situated in the district which in early times
formed the wapentake of Sadberg, and comprised all the lands lying along
the north bank of the river. The wapentake, which was purchased by
Bishop Pudsey in 1189, at the same time as Hartlepool, had a separate
organization from the rest of the Bishopric, and its courts were held at
Sadberg, which is now a small village about three miles east of
Darlington. Stockton itself, however, seems to have come into the
Bishop’s hands before the purchase of the wapentake, as it is included
in the Boldon Book, 1183. The date of the incorporation of the borough
is unknown, but there are grants by several of the Bishops, dated 1310,
1602, and 1666, of a weekly market and a fair at the Feast of St. Thomas
à Becket (December 29). There is also an interesting letter relating to
the customs practised both at Newcastle and at Stockton, which was sent
by the Mayor of Newcastle
[Illustration: THE PALACE, BISHOP AUCKLAND.]
to the Mayor of Stockton in 1344 in reply to certain questions which the
people of Stockton had addressed to Newcastle as their mother town. The
municipal government of the borough was in the hands of the mayor and
the borough-holders, seventy-two in number, until Stockton was included
in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.
_Durham to Barnard Castle._
The road to Barnard Castle branches off from the North Road about a mile
south of Sunderland Bridge, and travels south-west into Aucklandshire.
This district included Binchester, Escomb, Newton, and all the
Aucklands, Bishop Auckland, St. Andrew’s Auckland, St. Helen’s Auckland,
and South Auckland. Aucklandshire lay on the borders of the Bishop’s
great forest of Weardale, and the services of the tenants, as described
in Boldon Book, were closely connected with the Bishop’s great
hunting-parties in the forest. All the tenants had to provide ropes for
snaring the deer, and to help to build the Bishop’s hall in the forest,
with a larder, a buttery, a chamber, a chapel, and a fence round the
whole encampment, when the Bishop went on the great hunt. They also kept
eyries of falcons for the Bishop, and attended the roe-hunt when
summoned. In return for their services at the great hunt they received a
tun of beer, or half a tun if the Bishop did not come, and 2s. "as a
favour." The little town of Bishop Auckland was called a borough in the
fourteenth century, when the weekly markets and the fairs held on
Ascension Day, Corpus Christi Day, and the Thursday before October 10,
formed the chief commercial centre of the neighbourhood, but it has
never been incorporated, and is now an urban district.
To the south of Aucklandshire lies the barony of Evenwood, about a
quarter of a mile west of the road. This was one of the early baronies
of the Bishopric, held by the family of Hansard. Evenwood was bought by
Bishop Bek in 1294, and his successors maintained a manor-house and park
there. After passing by Evenwood, the road leads through Raby Park to
Staindrop.
Staindrop was one of the vills over which the Bishop and the Convent of
Durham disputed at the beginning of the twelfth century. Bishop Ralph
Flambard restored it to the monks by the charter of restitution which he
executed on his death-bed; and they kept it out of the clutches of
succeeding Bishops by granting it in 1131 at an annual rental of £4 to
Dolphin, son of Ughtred, one of the progenitors of the family of
Neville. Henceforward, Staindrop remained part of the Neville estates in
the Bishopric. In 1378 Bishop Hatfield granted to John Lord Neville the
right to hold a weekly market and a fair there at the Feast of St.
Thomas the Martyr (December 21). The whole of the Neville estates were
confiscated in 1570, after the rebellion of the Earls of Northumberland
and Westmorland in 1569, and Staindrop remained in the hands of the King
until 1632, when it was purchased by Sir Henry Vane, from whom the
present owner, Lord Barnard, is descended.
Barnard Castle is twenty-five miles from Durham, and lies on the north
bank of the Tees. It did not form part of the Bishopric at the time of
the Conquest, and was granted by William Rufus to Guy Balliol in 1093.
Barnard Balliol, his son, built the castle _circa_ 1132, and apparently
founded the borough, for the first extant charter, granted by his son
Barnard to the burgesses of Barnard Castle _circa_ 1167, refers to the
elder Barnard’s concessions to them. By this charter the burgesses were
granted the customs of Richmond (Yorks). Barnard Castle was a manorial
borough, and is now an urban district. The burgesses obtained charters
from Hugh (1212-28), John (_circa_ 1230), and Alexander, third son of
John. All the Balliol estates in England were forfeited by John Balliol,
sometime King of Scotland, in 1295. Barnard Castle was claimed by Bishop
Bek, but Edward I. granted it to Guy
[Illustration: BARNARD CASTLE.]
Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. The Bishops of Durham made frequent efforts
to obtain possession of the town, and although they were unsuccessful,
they obtained Parliamentary recognition of the fact that Barnard Castle
was part of the Bishopric. Richard III., by his marriage with Lady Anne
of Warwick, became lord of the town, which Lady Anne inherited from her
father, the King-maker. Barnard Castle escheated to the crown in 1485,
and was finally granted to the Earl of Westmorland. In 1569, on
receiving the news that the northern Earls had risen against the Queen,
Sir George Bowes of Streatlam seized and garrisoned the castle, where he
was besieged by the rebels; and although he was forced to surrender
after a ten days’ siege, the delay had given the royal troops time to
come up, and insured the defeat of the insurgents. After the rebellion
Barnard Castle escheated to the crown again, and was leased to the
valiant Bowes. It was finally purchased by Sir Henry Vane in 1632 (see
above).
_Durham to Alston._
The road from Durham to Alston, in Cumberland, passes by the field of
the Battle of Neville’s Cross, fought on St. Luke’s Eve, October 17,
1346, in which David of Scotland, who had invaded England while Edward
III. and all his forces were in France, was defeated by the troops which
he contemptuously called "an army of women and priests," because they
were raised by Queen Philippa, and the four divisions were commanded by
the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishops of Lincoln and
Durham. The cross which Ralph, Lord Neville, erected on the battle-field
was destroyed in 1589.
The next place of interest on the road is Brancepeth, which lies four
and a half miles south-west of Durham. The family of Bulmer of
Brancepeth held one of the early baronies of the Bishopric (see under
Evenwood); the estate finally descended to an heiress, the first of the
many noble ladies whose stories lend interest to the place. She married
Geoffry de Neville, _circa_ 1150. Sixty years after, in 1227, there was
again a sole heiress to Brancepeth; she married Robert FitzMeldred, Lord
of Raby, and her son assumed his mother’s name, becoming the first
Neville of Raby and Brancepeth. When the Neville estates were forfeited
in 1570, the Countess of Westmorland was allowed to remain at the
castle, and there, though beset by spies, she contrived her husband’s
escape to Flanders. The surveys of the estate that were made in 1597 and
1614 mention that wild cattle were preserved in Brancepeth Park, as they
still are at Chillingham. The escheated lands passed from one owner to
another. In 1769 they were again inherited by an heiress, Bridgit, the
only daughter of William Bellasis. She died five years after coming into
her inheritance. The story goes that she pined away for love of a
neighbouring squire, Robert Shafto, who had wooed and forsaken her; and
the old Bishopric song of "Bobby Shafto" is said to be the record of the
brief happiness of the lovelorn lady.
The market-town of Wolsingham lies sixteen miles west of Durham. It was
one of the Bishop’s forest vills, lying on the moors of Weardale; and in
the entry about it in Boldon Book mention is made of Ralf the Beekeeper,
who held six acres for his service in keeping the bees, which were sent
out on to the blossoming heather in the twelfth century, as they are to
this day. Wolsingham lies on the north bank of the Wear, and, after
passing through the village, the road follows the course of the river
westward to Stanhope, which lies in the lead-mining district of West
Durham. Half-way between Wolsingham and Stanhope lies Frosterley, where
are the quarries of Frosterley marble.
Stanhope itself lay in the heart of the forest of Weardale, and was the
spot to which all those who owed hunting-service must make their way
when the Bishop’s great hunt was proclaimed. In 1327 the English and
[Illustration: BRANCEPETH CASTLE IN 1777.]
Scottish armies, commanded on the one side by Edward III., and on the
other by the Earl of Murray and Sir James Douglas, lay encamped for some
days over against each other on the hills round Stanhope. No battle was
fought, and the Scots withdrew by night, having deceived Edward by false
intelligence. The remains of the earthworks in which the two armies
entrenched themselves may still be seen.
St. John’s Chapel, seven miles west of Stanhope, is the last
considerable village on the road to Alston before it crosses the
boundary of Durham. The chapel is mentioned in the fifteenth century,
and a market and annual fair were held there, but there were few
inhabitants until the end of the eighteenth century. From St. John’s
Chapel the road leads up over the moors, past the sources of the Wear,
and crosses the county boundary on Killhope Moor.
FOLK-LORE OF THE COUNTY OF DURHAM
BY MRS. NEWTON W. APPERLEY
Whoever makes a study of the folk-lore of a county will find that its
customs, beliefs, and superstitions, have their origin in immemorial
antiquity. To find out the reason for many a curious and apparently
frivolous observance it is necessary to go back many centuries, to the
time when a nature-worship, already immeasurably old, was practised;
when the sun and moon, fire, water, and earth, were personified by gods
and goddesses. Festivals were held in honour of each, and stones and
trees, wells and rivers, had their temples and devotees. These were
overlaid by and mingled with the successive rituals of Roman, Saxon, and
Dane, and finally were almost, but not quite, conquered by Christianity.
The older faiths made a stubborn resistance to the reformer, and though
adapted and altered, many of their usages survive to this day.
The four great Fire Festivals of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter were
Christianized and dedicated anew; some of the gods and goddesses were
re-named as saints; and many of the rites belonging to their worship
were modified into Christian observances.
But the people kept their old superstitions, and placed their faith in
the charms and amulets belonging to the ancient worship. In the North
especially the old beliefs lingered long, and even now, in the twentieth
century, many quaint customs are to be found. Most of the people who
practise them could give no reason for so doing, and have certainly no
knowledge of their origin. It is "lucky" to do this, and "unlucky" to do
that, is all they can say.
The county of Durham, though the especial patrimony and property of St.
Cuthbert, is particularly rich in legends and traditions, in places both
haunted and hallowed, and in old-world observances of all kinds. Many
are the stories of giants, brownies, fairies, ghosts, witches, and
"worms" or dragons, told of and in it.
The Gabriel Hounds--those monstrous human-headed dogs, whose pause over
a house is said to bring death or misfortune to its inmates--are still
heard traversing the air, though they are seldom seen.
Tales of the Hand of Glory--that unhallowed taper made of the hand of a
hanged man, holding a candle made of the fat of a murderer, whose light
would send all the inhabitants of a house to sleep, and enable a burglar
to make his easy way throughout it--are still told.
And the Fairy Hills near Castleton, Hetton-le-Hole, Middridge, and other
places where fairies used to dance their nightly rounds, are still
pointed out. Cattle were often shot by their tiny arrows, and children
frequently wore necklaces of coral or of peony seeds, as otherwise they
might have been stolen and taken away to Fairyland.
Mr. Henderson, in his _Folk-lore of the Northern Counties_, is convinced
that there is firm faith in ghosts and their power of revisiting the
earth throughout the whole county of Durham.
Witchcraft is to some extent believed in. It is not long since an old
woman reputed to be a witch died at Aycliffe, and charms against their
power have been, and are still, practised; indeed, they are still
"crossed-out" by those who make the sign of the cross on loaves before
they are put in the oven, and by the butchers who make, or used to make,
a cross on the shoulder before selling it. A crooked sixpence, a piece
of rowan-wood, or a four-leaved clover worn in the pocket, will keep
them away. A self-bored stone or a horseshoe hung over the bed or in the
byre will prevent their evil influence from harming either person or
property; and should you be so unfortunate as to meet a reputed witch,
it is well to close your fingers round your thumb, and repeat the rhyme:
"Witchy, witchy, I defy thee,
Let me go quietly by thee!"
And there were wise men, and especially wise women, who knew many spells
of might to be used against them and against fairies.
It is clear that a child born into this haunted country, and surrounded
from his birth by signs, portents, and auguries, must carry through his
life a belief in the superstitions of his forefathers.
The day of birth is most important, for it always influences the
character and fortunes of the child.
"Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for its living;
But the child that’s born on Sabbath-day
Is wise and bonny and good and gay."
Children born during the hour after midnight see spirits, and this
uncanny gift continues through life. If born with a caul, the child will
always be lucky. Children born in May are said to be seldom healthy.
A cake and cheese should always be provided before the birth of an
infant. These are cut by the doctor, and all present partake of them, on
pain of the poor child growing up ugly. The nurse keeps some of this
cake and cheese, and when she takes the child to be christened she gives
them to the first person whom she meets of opposite sex to that of the
child. If boys and girls are being christened at the same time, the boys
must be christened first, as otherwise the girls would have beards, the
boys none!
Baptism is thought to be good for a child, and it is often said that
children never thrive till they are christened. It is well if they cry
during the ceremony, for it means that "the devil is going out of them."
There is some warrant for this belief, for until the time of Edward VI.
a form of exorcism, in order to expel the evil spirit from the child,
was still used in the Baptismal Service.
A child who does not cry at baptism will not live.
It is unlucky to call a child by its future name until it has actually
received it, and most especially should one avoid naming it after a dead
brother or sister. The child will probably die also, or, if it lives,
will never prosper.
Some nurses will never put a child’s dress over its head until it is
christened, but always draw it up over the feet. I never could hear why.
And the inside of the hands should not be washed during this time. Some
go so far as to say that the right hand should not be washed for a year,
so as not to "wash the luck away."
But before taking a child out of its mother’s room the careful nurse
will see that it does not go downstairs first, as that would mean a
descent in life for it. If it is impossible for it to go upstairs, she
must take it in her arms, and mount a chair or stool with it, thereby
assuring it of a rise in life.
The mother should go nowhere till she has been churched, as she would
carry ill-luck to the house she entered.
The baby should receive three, sometimes four, presents when it first
visits another house. These are its "almison," and consist of an egg,
bread, salt, and sometimes a piece of money. The bread and salt are
things used in sacrifices; the egg has always been a sacred emblem; the
money is for luck, and should be carefully kept.
Never rock a cradle when empty, or you may rock another baby into it.
And this is very likely to be the case if the reigning baby cuts its
teeth very early, for, as the proverb says, "Soon teeth, soon toes"
(another set of them). If it tooths first in the upper jaw, that means
death in infancy. Later, on losing a tooth, the cavity should be filled
with salt, and the tooth thrown into the fire with the words:
"Fire, fire, burn bane,
God send me my tooth again!"
It is an ancient custom, when a family is sold up, to except the cradle,
and leave it in the possession of its original owner.
The nails should not be cut for a year, or the child will become a
thief. Bite them off, and all will be well.
When the child grows older, the nails should never be cut on Friday or
Sunday. These are unlucky days, but, as the rhyme tells us, other days
do very well:
"Cut them on Monday, cut them for health;
Cut them on Tuesday, cut them for wealth;
Cut them on Wednesday, cut them for news;
Cut them on Thursday, a pair of new shoes;
Cut them on Friday, cut them for sorrow;
Cut them on Saturday, a present to-morrow;
But he who on Sunday cuts his horn,
Better that he had ne’er been born!"
Still later in life, another verse says:
"Sunday shaven, Sunday shorn,
Better hadst thou ne’er been born!"
The hair should always be cut when the moon is waxing, and all clippings
and combings should be burnt, or "the birds will take it for their
nests." Probably the original idea, like that attached to the clippings
of the nails, was that they should be destroyed, lest some enemy should
use them to work an evil spell against the owner.
If the hair burn brightly when thrown into the fire, it means long life
to the owner; if it smoulder, it is a sign of death.
If you swallow a hair, it will wrap itself round your heart and kill
you. Howitt tells this seriously as having caused the death of Herbert
Southey.
The mother should be careful to see that no child is allowed to jump
over the head of another, as in that case the overleapt infant would
never grow. The Kafirs have the same idea, and some tribes will not play
leap-frog for that reason.
When a seventh son is born, it is still said that he ought to be a
doctor. He was anciently supposed to be able to cure the "king’s evil"
by touching; and the seventh son of a seventh son had still higher and
more Divine attributes. If a seventh daughter appeared without any boy
intervening, she was to be a witch.
When the boy is old enough to put his instilled and inherited beliefs
into practice, he may charm the butterfly to alight on his hand by
saying (it must be said often enough!):
"Le, la let, ma bonnie pet!"
If he wishes for fine weather, he may sing:
"Rain, rain, go to Spain!
Fair weather come again!"
The snail will look out from its shell if he says:
"Snail, snail, come out of your hole,
Or else I’ll beat you as black as a coal!"
And when stung by a nettle, dock-leaves are laid on the stung place, and
this rhyme chanted:
"Nettle in, dock out;
Dock in, nettle out;
Nettle in, dock out;
Dock rub nettle out!"
If he puts a horse-hair into water, it will turn into an eel.
Durham schoolboys used, when they saw a rainbow, to make a cross of
straws or twigs upon the ground, in order to send it away, or, as they
said, to "cross out the rainbow."
Borrow tells of "the gipsy mystery of the trus’hul, how by making a
cross of two sticks the expert in occultism could wipe the rainbow out
of the heavens"; and the charm might have its roots still farther back
in the cross of Thor, anciently used to dispel rain and thunderstorms.
In Confirmation, those who are touched by the Bishop’s left hand will
never marry.
When the time for marriage comes, it is important to choose a lucky day
and season. The days of the week are thus fated:
"Monday for wealth, Tuesday for health,
Wednesday the best day of all;
Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses,
And Saturday no luck at all."
It is well to avoid marriage in Lent, for
"If you marry in Lent,
You’ll live to repent."
And May is an unlucky month for weddings, as for births. But the time
being happily settled, the bride must not hear the banns given out, or
her children will be deaf and dumb, and neither she nor any of the
guests must wear anything green. She should wear
"Something old, something new,
Something borrowed, and something blue."
The day of the marriage should be fine, "for happy is the bride whom the
sun shines on." The bridal party is escorted to church by men armed with
guns, which they continually fire. After the ceremony it is the
clergyman’s privilege to kiss the bride; and outside the church people
are probably waiting with "hot-pots," of which the whole party must
taste.
At St. Helen’s Auckland, and other villages, the "race for the
bride-door" for a ribbon or kerchief is still customary.
And it was formerly the custom to address complimentary verses to the
bridal couple before they left the church. This was called "saying the
Nominy." The verses differed, were of no great poetical merit, and
always ended with, "Pray remember the Nominy sayer."
The word is evidently derived from _nomen_, the bride having received a
new name.
The loss of the wedding-ring means the loss of the husband’s love, and
its breaking forbodes death.
Of portents of death there are many. The howling of dogs; the flight of
jackdaws or swallows down the chimney; "a winding-sheet" in the candle;
the crowing of a cock at the dead of night; the hovering of birds round
the house, or their resting on the window-sill, or flapping against the
pane; and three raps given by an invisible hand, are all auguries of
death.
If thirteen persons sit down to a meal together, one of them will die
before the year is out.
The custom of keeping the Vigil of St. Mark is not unknown. They who
wish to know who of their fellow-parishioners will die during the coming
year must keep watch in the church porch from eleven to one, on St.
Mark’s Eve, for three successive years; then the doomed company will
pass into the church. But if the watcher fall asleep during his vigil,
he will himself die during the year.
At the time of death the door should be left open to afford free passage
to the departing spirit. It is held that no one can die on a bed or
pillow containing the feathers of pigeons or of game of any kind; and
all along the East Coast it is said that people usually die during the
falling of the tide.
When the corpse is "laid out," the death-chamber is shrouded in white,
the clock is stopped, and the looking-glass covered, to show that for
the dead time is no more and earthly vanity departed. There is also the
dread that if the mirror were left uncovered the ghost of the dead man
might be reflected in it.
A plate of salt is also placed upon the breast as an emblem of eternity.
Those who come to see the corpse are expected to touch it, in token that
they are in peace with the dead. It is often said that if you do not
touch it you will dream of it. The coffin must be carried to the church
by the old-established "church-road," and the notion still prevails that
the way over which a body is carried to its burial thereby becomes a
highroad. Therefore in the case of private roads or bridges (the
Prebend’s Bridge at Durham, certainly) a small toll is levied when a
funeral procession passes over it. The coffin-bearers are usually chosen
so as to correspond with the deceased in sex, age, and position. In the
case of children and young girls, white scarves and gloves are worn; and
if the dead person were a young unmarried woman, a "maiden garland" used
to be laid on the coffin, and hung up in the church after the funeral.
There are, or were, some of these garlands hanging in the church of
Witton-Gilbert, near Durham. These have a glove, cut out of white paper,
in the midst.
When arrived at the churchyard, the dead must be carried to the grave
the way of the sun (east, by south, west, and north, for "ye wad no hae
them carry the dead again the sun; the dead maun aye go wi’ the sun."
This is an old British usage, and in the Highlands is called "making the
deisul." It is practised to bring good luck; to go round in the opposite
direction (or "withershins") is an evil incantation, and brings
ill-fortune.
It should rain a little during the procession, for "happy is the corpse
that the rain rains on!"
It used to be customary for anyone meeting a funeral to stop for a
moment and take his hat off. This is still occasionally done.
The survivors should not grieve too much for the dead, as this hinders
their repose.
When the head of a house dies, the bees should be told of their master’s
death, and asked to accept the new one, or they will all die.
It is said that if a loaf of bread weighted with quicksilver be allowed
to float in the water, it will swim towards, and stand over the place
where the body of a drowned person lies.
There is a remedy for most diseases in the shape of a spell or charm.
Whooping-cough may be cured by passing the child under an ass; or by
taking some milk, giving half to a white ferret, letting the child drink
the rest. In Sunderland, the crown of the head is shaved and the hair
hung upon a bush, so that the birds, carrying it to their nests, may
take the cough with it.
For epilepsy, a half-crown may be offered at Communion and then asked
for again, and made into a ring to be worn by the person affected.
For cramp, garter the left leg below the knee, or tie an eel’s skin
round it.
A more unpleasant remedy is that for a wen, for the touch of a corpse’s
hand will cure it. "Andrew Mills’s stob" (gibbet) was once thought
sovereign against toothache.
Warts can be charmed away by taking a piece of raw meat (it ought to be
stolen), rubbing the warts with it, and throwing it away. As the meat
decays the warts will vanish.
If anyone is bitten by a dog, the animal should be destroyed, for,
should it go mad at any time, the person bitten would be attacked by
hydrophobia.
St. Agnes’s Fast (January 21) is thus practised: Two girls, each wishing
to see their future husbands, must fast and be dumb through the whole of
St. Agnes’s Eve. At night, in the same silence, they must make "the dumb
cake," aided by their friends, then divide it in two parts, one of which
each girl takes, walks backwards upstairs, cuts the cake, and retires to
bed. Then dreams of the future husband should follow.
And girls will stick a candle-end full of pins to bring their lovers to
them. Or, taking an apple-pip, and naming the lover, will put it in the
fire. If it burst with a noise he loves, but if it burns silently his
love is nought.
If a girl wishes to meet her future husband, she must carry an ash-leaf
having an even tip, and say--
"The even ash-leaf in my hand,
The first I meet shall be my man."
If it is found difficult to rear calves, the leg of one of the dead
animals should be hung in the chimney. In Yorkshire, the dead calf is
buried under the threshold of the byre, either practice being
(unconsciously) a sacrifice to Odin.
"To work as though one was working for need-fire," is a common proverb
in the North, and refers to the practice of producing fire by the
friction of two pieces of wood. This was done when the murrain prevailed
among cattle, and the diseased animals were made to pass through the
smoke raised by this holy fire. This was considered a certain cure. When
cattle have foul in the feet, the turf on which the beast treads with
the affected foot is taken up and hung in the open air. As it crumbles
away, so will the diseased foot recover.
And the water in which Irish and other stones have been steeped has been
used in the Bishopric as a cure for disease for cattle.
If you seize the opportunities, which are many, you may have what you
please by wishing for it. But the condition is in every case the same:
the nature of the wish must be kept secret. You may journey to Jarrow,
and sitting in Bede’s chair, make your wish; or, nearer at hand, there
is a stone seat at Finchale Priory credited with the same power. If you
see a horseshoe or a nail, pick it up, throw it over your left shoulder
and wish; and wish also if you see a piebald horse, but you must manage
to do so before you see its tail.
You may wish, too, when you first hear the cuckoo, and when you see the
new moon.
Much reverence has in all ages been paid to wells. The Worm Well at
Lambton was once in high repute as a wishing-well, and a crooked pin
(the usual tribute of the "wishers") may be sometimes still discovered
sparkling among the clear gravel of the bottom of the basin.
As late as 1740 children troubled with any infirmity were brought to the
Venerable Bede’s Well, at Monkton, near Jarrow. A crooked pin was put
in, and the well laved dry between each dipping.
Pins may sometimes be seen in Lady Byron’s Well at Seaham. There was a
custom (which cannot now be practised, as the monument is railed in) of
walking nine times round Neville’s Cross. "Then if you stoop down, and
lay your head to the turf, you’ll hear the noise of the battle and the
clash of the armour."
The weather-wise will tell you that if the leaves remain long upon the
trees in autumn it is going to be a hard winter, and will bid you notice
how the wind blows on New Year’s Eve:
"If on New Year’s Eve the night wind blow south,
It betokeneth warmth and growth;
If west, much milk and fish in the sea;
If north, much cold and storms there will be;
If east, the trees will bear much fruit;
If north-east, flee it, man and brute."
Candlemas Day (February 2) should also be observed:
"If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another flight;
If Candlemas Day be clouds and rain,
Winter is gone, and will not come again."
Some pretend to prophesy the coming weather from that of the last three
days of March. These are called the "borrowing days."
"March borrowed from April
Three days and they war ill;
The first o’ them war wind and weet,
The next o’ them war snaw and sleet,
The last o’ them war wind and rain,
Which gar’d the silly puir ewes come hirpling hame."
Of Michaelmas Day it is said: "So many days old the moon is on
Michaelmas Day, so many floods after."
If it rains on Friday it is sure to rain on Sunday--“wet Friday, wet
Sunday."
Watch the cat as she washes her face, and if she passes her paw over her
ear it will rain to-morrow.
The oak and ash-trees are considered to prophesy the weather:
"If the oak bud before the ash,
We shall be sure to have a splash;
But if the ash bud before the oak,
We shall have weather as hard as a rock."
If you will begin the year auspiciously, be careful that your first foot
"is a fair man." Men still go about to "bring the New Year in," and
their guerdon is usually a glass of whisky. On no account should a woman
be the first foot, for she would bring misfortune. But before this the
New Year has been ushered in by the ringing of church bells, and
sounding of buzzers from all the collieries.
Nothing should be allowed to go out of the house on this day, for that
would mean a year of poverty, but as much as possible should be brought
in, as that will insure a year of plenty; and for the same reason a new
dress should be worn with money in its pocket.
Be careful to avoid seeing the first moon of the year through glass;
courtesy to her, and wish.
The day before Shrove Tuesday is known as Collop Monday, and on it eggs
and bacon should be eaten.
Pancakes, of course, are appropriate to Shrove Tuesday; in fact, it is
better known in the North as Pancake Tuesday. Durham children still
believe that on this day pancakes fall out of the mouth of the great
medieval knocker fixed on the north door of the cathedral, and are
sometimes seen bringing plates or baskets to receive the dole, and sugar
with which to eat it.
The Pancake Bell still rings from the cathedral to call the faithful to
confession, though neither confessional nor pancakes are existent.
Football usually begins now and continues till Easter.
Carlings, or grey peas soaked in water and fried in butter, are eaten on
Carling Sunday.
"He who hath not a palm in his hand on Palm Sunday must have his hand
cut off," so "palm crosses" were always made for Palm Sunday of willow
catkins, tied up with ribbon, and kept till next year.
On Good Friday "hot cross buns," a sort of teacake made with spice and
sugar, and marked with a cross, are always made; and fig pudding, or
"fig sue," is eaten, in memory of the fig-tree cursed by our Lord when
He rode to Jerusalem.
No blacksmith in the county of Durham would at one time drive a nail on
this day, in memory of our Lord’s crucifixion.
Good Friday and Easter Sunday were both thought lucky days on which to
cast the coats and caps of young children, or to short-coat them.
You must put on something new on Easter Sunday, or the birds will spoil
your clothes.
Paste-eggs boiled hard and dyed with ribbons or wool, whinblossoms or
onion peelings, are rolled on the grass, or "jauped" against each other
till broken, and tansy puddings should be eaten.
Balls are often given to children and played with by them, this being a
relic of the custom of playing at "handball" at Easter.
On Easter Sunday the boys may pull off the girls’ shoes; but on Easter
Monday the girls may retaliate by pulling off the caps of the boys.
"All Fools’ Day" is still kept to some extent, chiefly by schoolboys,
who send their victims to the chemist for oil of hazel, or "strap oil,"
which they receive in a dry form from the irate shop-keeper!
They also wear oak-leaves on Royal Oak Day; and the choristers of
Durham Cathedral go to the top of the central tower and sing anthems.
This, though now done in honour of the Restoration, was originally in
thanksgiving for the victory of Neville’s Cross, and used to take place
in October.
And it is schoolboys, too, who keep Guy Fawkes’ Day in remembrance, for
the noise of crackers and fireworks and the excitement of a bonfire do
very much appeal to them. Guys are now seldom carried about, but are
sometimes burnt.
The "mell-supper" in the county of Durham (from the Norse _melr_, corn)
is akin to the Northumbrian "kirn-feast," and is held when the last
sheaf is brought in. When this is done, the farmer’s headman proceeds to
"shout the mell":
"Blest be the day that Christ was born.
We’ve getten mell o’ Mr. ----’s corn.
Weel won and better shorn.
Hip, hip, hip, huzza, huzza!"
This last sheaf used to be dressed in finery and crowned with wheatears,
hoisted on a pole, and all the harvesters danced round this "kern-baby,"
or harvest-queen, who afterward presided over the supper. Mummers, or
"guisers," used to attend the feast, but all these usages are dying out,
and the master often gives the harvesters money or ale instead of the
supper. This is the old autumn feast of the ingathering of the corn, and
in Brito-Roman times the image was that of the goddess Ceridwen,
answering to Ceres. Later, it stood for the Virgin Mary.
You must not gather brambles after October, or the devil will come after
you! He is evidently about at this time, for when the brambles are
spoilt at the end of the season, it is said that "the devil has set his
foot on the bummelkites," this being their local name.
Hallow E’en sports are still practised, the mystic apple so often
appearing in Celtic fairy-lore, playing a great part in them. Apples
are ducked for in a tub of water with the mouth, the hands being clasped
behind the back. A small rod of wood is sometimes suspended from the
ceiling, a lighted candle being fixed at one end, and an apple at the
other. The apple has to be caught by the teeth when it passes before
them, and if it is carefully pared, so that the peel comes off in one
strip, and this is flung over the left shoulder, it will form the
initials of the loved one’s name. Or it may be eaten before a mirror,
and the lover’s face will be reflected therein; but on no account must
the worker of this spell look backwards.
At Christmas-tide Yule cakes and "Yule dollies" are made, these last
being quaint figures made of dough, with currants to mark their features
and the outlines of their dress. Furmety (wheat boiled in milk) is
eaten, the Yule log is burnt, and the Christmas stocking is hung up that
gifts may be placed in it. Candles are still given by grocers; the
fruiterer presents a bunch of mistletoe; children come round and sing
carols, bearing a box containing figures of the Virgin and Child. The
sword-dancers or "guisers" come, perform a dance and sing a song, the
words of which vary considerably.
Finally, as many mince-pies as you eat at Christmas, so many happy
months will you have.
Here is "a copious catalogue of things lucky and unlucky," at least of
those considered as such in the Bishopric:
If you accidentally put on a stocking, or indeed any garment, inside
out, it is most fortunate, and the mistake should not be rectified, you
will turn the luck.
But if you put a button or hook into the wrong hole while dressing in
the morning, something unpleasant will happen to you during the day.
"Sing before breakfast, cry before supper," is an oft-quoted proverb,
perhaps deduced from the common belief that unusually high spirits
portend coming misfortune.
When a child first puts on a dress with a pocket in it, its father
should put some money into it; this means lifelong riches.
On putting on a new dress, a well-wisher will say to the owner, "I wish
you health to wear it, strength to tear it, and money to buy another."
Similarly, when a young tradesman first dons his apron, it is well to
say to him: "Weel may ye brook your apron." This, if said by a lucky
person, will insure the young man’s success in life.
If a spider is found on the clothes, it means that money is coming to
you; and if clothes must be mended while being worn, you will lose
money.
If the hem of your dress persistently turns up, a letter is coming to
you.
If your apron falls off, someone is thinking of you.
Those who can always guess the time accurately will never be married.
If the nose itches, you will be annoyed; if the foot, you will travel.
Itching of the right hand, money is coming to you; of the left, that you
will have to pay money; of the ear, hearing sudden news.
If the right ear tingles, someone is defaming you.
If you shiver, someone is walking over your grave.
A blessing is still invoked on people when they sneeze.
Meeting eyebrows are fortunate; so is a mole on the neck, at least, it
means health to the owner, but some say that it brings him in danger of
hanging.
Always enter a house with your right foot first; to enter with the left
foot brings ill luck to the inhabitants, and you must go back and repair
the mistake.
If you stumble, by accident, in going upstairs, you will be married the
same year; the same if you snuff out the candle (this omen is becoming
rarer with the decline of tallow candles).
If two people wash their hands in the same basin, they are sure to
quarrel before bedtime, but this may be prevented by making the sign of
the cross over the water.
If your eyes are weak, have your ears pierced, it will benefit them.
If a loaf be turned upside down after cutting, it is unlucky. Along the
coast they say that it causes a ship to be wrecked. The same if three
candles are placed upon the table.
If a loaf breaks in the hand while cutting it, you part man and wife.
And spilling the salt is as ominous here as elsewhere, but you may amend
your luck by throwing a pinch three times over your left shoulder with
your right hand.
"Help me to saut, help me to sorrow," would be the answer to the person
who should offer to place salt on the plate of another.
To cross the knife and fork is a sign of bad luck. To give a knife cuts
love; it should always be paid for. Only last Christmas I gave a knife
to an old friend, and she punctiliously sent a penny to me in payment
for it.
Do not lend a pin, your friend may take one, but it is unlucky to give
it.
Never begin anything on Friday, it will not prosper.
If you must pass under a ladder, cross your fingers and wish. The
unsophisticated spit; and if you are walking with anyone wait for him to
speak first, and any ill luck that may be coming will fall on his head.
"Spitting for luck" is still common enough. Hucksters and fish-women
spit on the handsel (the first money they receive), and many
horsedealers do the same. Colliers, when considering a strike, used to
spit on one stone together, by way of cementing their confederacy, and
schoolboys used to spit their faith when making a challenge to fight.
This was considered a sacred pledge which it was thought a point of
honour to fulfil.
It is wrong to point at the stars, or even to count them; you may be
struck dead for doing so.
Hawthorn blossoms should not be brought into the house; they are as
unlucky as peacock’s feathers, which also should never be brought
indoors.
And evergreens should not be burnt.
"If you burn green,
Your sorrow’s soon seen."
The luck of three is much believed in. If you fail twice in trying to do
a thing, you will probably succeed in the third trial. "The third time’s
catchy time."
Servants say that if they break one thing they are sure to break three,
a foreboding which not seldom comes true.
And when the minute-bell of the cathedral rings once it is bound to ring
three times.
If you break a looking-glass, you will have no luck for seven years.
Some say that it betokens a death in the house, probably that of its
master.
If a black cat enters the house, it must by no means be turned away, for
it brings good luck.
"Wherever the cat of the house is black,
The lasses of lovers will have no lack."
Kittens born in May are unlucky and useless, never keep them.
It is lucky, when you see the first lamb of the year, if its head is
turned towards you; but unlucky, if its tail.
It is thought that hedgehogs suck cows as they lie asleep.
A toad is poisonous; do not touch it.
In all ages the flight and behaviour of birds have been thought worthy
of notice.
When setting hens, the number of eggs should be odd (generally eleven or
thirteen); if the number be even, you will have no chickens. A hen that
crows brings ill luck, just as does a woman who whistles.
If the hens come into the house, or if the cock crows on the threshold,
a visitor is coming. If you have money in your pocket and turn it when
you first hear the cuckoo you will be rich all that year; but if your
pocket be empty so it will remain. There is a small bird attending on
the cuckoo, generally a meadow-pipit. It is called in Durham the
cuckoo’s sandy, and is supposed to provide its patron with food.
When the peacock screams, it is going to rain.
The magpie is an unlucky bird because it would not go into the ark with
Noah, but sat outside, "jabbering at the drowned world."
"One is sorrow, two mirth,
Three a wedding, four a birth,
Five heaven, six hell,
Seven the de’il’s ain sel’!"
But if you have the misfortune to see one magpie you may nullify the
omen by making the sign of the cross, or, as some do, by waving a hand
at the evil bird, and saying, "Mag, I defy thee."
The raven is thought to be an unlucky bird, though here in Durham city
we should think better of it, for one made the fortune of Sir John Duck
by dropping a gold piece at his feet when he was a poor out-of-work
butcher-boy. He became a rich coal-owner, and in his memory coals are
often called "ducks" in Durham; and the "Old Duck Main" still exists at
Rainton.
If rooks, or crows, as we call them here, desert a rookery, it means the
downfall of the family on whose property it is. Swallows, once sacred to
the Penates, and honoured as the heralds of the spring, are lucky, and
their nests must never be pulled down, as they bring good fortune to the
place where they build, and it bodes ill luck if they leave a place they
have once tenanted.
Naturally, much local lore has gathered round the cathedral, the great
Mother-Church of the diocese. The death superstition relating to the
minute-bell, the ringing of the Pancake Bell, and the legend of the
knocker, have already been mentioned. The Curfew Bell still rings at
nine (the hour of compline), not at eight, as in other places, but
never on Saturday, because on the night of that day a man, who went
alone to ring, was spirited away, and never seen again.
When, on May 29, the choristers go to the central tower, they sing
anthems on three sides only, and except the western side, because it was
from this point that the man leaped whose tombstone is seen below. It is
a mutilated effigy of Frosterly marble, and is said to represent Hob of
Pelaw, holding the purse of money for which he risked and lost his life,
and the fossils in the marble are said, by schoolboys, to be the coins
contained in it. Country people come, for some unknown reason, to draw
their foot over the purse.
Curiously, the churchyard here is on the north side of the church. The
cloisters are ceiled with Irish oak, so that they never harbour dust or
cobwebs, and the saying goes that if the Protestants were not always
doing something to the cathedral the Catholics could take it away from
them!
There is no church at Butterby, and you will often hear a man who is not
in the habit of attending Divine worship spoken of as a "Butterby
churchgoer."
These old-world beliefs and stories are fast fading away before the
advance of the schoolmaster; but they linger yet in the minds of old
people, and it will be long before they are quite forgotten.
[Illustration: THE PALACE GREEN, DURHAM.]
THE LEGENDS[6] OF DURHAM
BY MISS FLORENCE N. COCKBURN
The northern counties are all rich in legendary history, and the county
of Durham has its full share.
Curiously, instead of most of the legends being of an ecclesiastical
nature, as one would naturally expect in a county where the Church has
predominated for many centuries, the contrary is the case. All the
best-known legends are of deadly war waged with some uncouth or
venomous monster, in which, without exception, some local hero,
Jack-the-Giant-Killer-like, comes off victorious.
_The Dun Cow._
Visitors to Durham rarely leave without having the sculptured panel
representing the famous Dun Cow on the cathedral front pointed out to
them.
The legend runs that the monks, having fled from Chester-le-Street and
rested with the body of the saint for some time at Ripon, were desirous
of returning to Chester. "Coming with him (St. Cuthbert) on the east
side of Durham to a place called Ward-lawe, they could not with all
their force remove his body from thence, which seemed to be fastened to
the ground, which strange and unexpected accident wrought great
admiration in the heart of the bishops, monks, and their associates,
and, ergo, they fasted and prayed three days with great reverence and
devotion, desiring to know by revelation what they should do with the
holy body of St. Cuthbert, which thing was granted unto them, and
therein they were directed to carry him to Dunholme (Durham). But being
distressed because they were ignorant where Dunholme was, see their good
fortune. As they were going a woman that lacked her cow did call aloud
to her companion to know if she did not see her, who answered with a
loud voice that her cow was in Dunholme, a happy and heavenly echo to
the distressed monks, who by that means were at the end of their
journey, where they should find a resting-place for the body of their
honoured saint."
[Illustration: THE DUN COW.]
_The Brawn of Brancepeth._
At what time the brawn, or boar, ceased to exist as a wild animal in
Britain is uncertain, but it was at one time a common inhabitant of our
British forests, and protected by the law in the tenth and eleventh
centuries.
The village of Brancepeth (a corruption of Brawn’s path) is said to have
derived its name from a formidable brawn of vast size, which made his
lair on Brandon Hill, and walked the forest in ancient times, and was a
terror to all the inhabitants from the Wear to the Gaunless. The
marshy, and then woody, vale extending from Croxdale to Ferry Wood was
one of the brawn’s favourite haunts. According to tradition, Hodge of
Ferry, after carefully marking the boar’s track near Cleves Cross, dug a
pitfall, slightly covered with boughs and turf, and then, toiling on his
victim by some bait to the treacherous spot, stood, armed with his good
sword, across the pitfall--“at once with hope and fear his heart
rebounds."
At length the gallant brute came trotting on its onward path, and,
seeing the passage barred, rushed headlong on the vile pitfall to meet
its death. It is generally believed that this champion of Cleves sleeps
in Merrington churchyard, beneath a coffin-shaped stone, rudely
sculptured with the instruments of the victory--a sword and spade on
each side of a cross.
Another stone, supposed to be the remnant of a cross, stands on the hill
near the farm of Cleves Cross, and is said to have probably been raised
on the same occasion. It was not unusual, in England or abroad, when a
man had slain a boar, wolf, or spotted pard, to bear the animal as an
ensign in his shield. We believe that the seal of Roger de Ferry still
remains in the treasury at Durham, exhibiting his old antagonist, a boar
passant. The seal of his daughter Maud, wife of Alan of Merrington,
shows the boar’s head erased.
_The Pollard Boar._
A family of the name of Pollard was seated at an early period in the
parish of Bishop Auckland; and one of their estates was called Pollard’s
Dene, and the ceremony of presenting a falchion to the Bishop soon after
his entrance into the See was performed by the possessors of Pollard’s
lands.
The legend of how a Pollard gained this land runs as follows:
The King offered to anyone who would bring the head of a wild boar,
which destroyed man and beast, to his palace "a princely guerdon," and
the Bishop of Durham, who passed the greater part of the year at
Auckland Castle, having also promised a large reward, a member of the
ancient family of Pollard determined to kill the brute, or die in the
attempt. So this courageous knight armed himself, mounted his trusty
steed, and rode to the lair of the boar, and noted its track. After
tying his horse to a tree, out of its regular course, he climbed a
beech-tree under which the monster often passed, and shook down a large
quantity of ripe beechmast.
There he waited until the boar came, and had the satisfaction of seeing
it make a good meal. In time it showed signs of drowsiness, and
commenced moving from the place. Pollard, feeling that the time had come
for action, made an onslaught on the boar. After so hearty a meal, it
was not in a fighting humour, but nevertheless made a fierce resistance,
and taxed to the utmost the prowess of the knight. The encounter lasted
the greater part of the night, and the welcome rays of the sun burst
forth as he severed the head from the trunk of the boar. Having cut out
its tongue and placed it in his wallet, he decided to rest for a short
time under a tree; but a deep sleep overcame him, and led to a serious
disappointment, for when he awoke he discovered that the head had been
taken away. He was in great despair, for he had not the trophy to take
to the King to obtain the promised prize; so, mounting his horse, he
rode to the Bishop and told his tale, and, showing the tongue, his
lordship, who was about to dine, rejoiced to hear the good news, and, as
a reward, promised the knight as much land as he could ride round during
the hour of dinner. When he next came before the prelate, he startled
the latter by intimating that he had ridden round his castle, and
claimed it and all it contained as his meed. The Bishop was loath to
part with his stronghold, but was bound to admit the validity of the
claim, and eventually made a compromise by granting him an extensive
freehold estate known to this day as Pollard’s Land. These broad acres
were given with the condition attached that the possessor should meet
every Bishop of Durham on his first coming to Auckland, and present to
him a falchion with this speech: "My lord, I, in behalf of myself as
well as several others, possessors of the Pollard’s lands, do humbly
present your lordship with this falchion, at your first coming here,
wherewith, as the tradition goeth, he slew of old a mighty boar, which
did much harm to man and beast; and by performing this service we hold
our lands."
Hutchinson, rather curiously, quotes a letter signed "R. Bowser,"
commencing: "Sir, inclosed you have the speech my brother Pewterer gave
me out of Lord Bishop Cosin’s old Book," in which the boar is described
as "a venomous serpent."
Dr. Longley, created Bishop of Durham in the year 1856, was the last
Bishop to whom the falchion was presented.
The crest of the Pollard family is an arm holding a falchion. As to the
missing head, it is related that while Pollard slept the head of the
Northumbrian family of Mitford passed, saw what had occurred, seized the
head, and rode with all speed to the King, and gained the reward. The
champion Pollard also sought an interview with His Majesty, and giving
the facts, showed that the head presented had not a tongue; he was,
however, dismissed without any recompense, the King declining to
entertain a second claim.
There is in the parish church of St. Andrew’s Auckland an old wooden
effigy representing a knight in a suit of chain armour, cross-legged,
with his feet resting on a boar, and it is generally believed that this
monument was erected in memory of our hero.
In sequel it should perhaps be added that the Mitfords have for many
centuries borne as their crest two arms holding a sword pierced through
the head of a boar; and as a commentary, perhaps, upon the principle
that fortune
[Illustration: HILTON CASTLE FROM THE NORTH.]
helps those who help themselves, they flaunt the pious motto:
GOD + CARYTHE + FOR + US.
_The Cau’d Lad of Hilton._
The grey old castle of Hilton has long had the reputation of being
haunted by a bar-guest, or local spirit, known as the "cau’d lad of
Hilton," or "cowed lad of Hilton." His history, however, seems to be
rather mixed, and to partake of the nature of the genuine ghost as well
as that of a brownie. This brownie was seldom seen, but often heard
engaged in playing pranks in the great hall, or in the kitchen after the
servants had retired for the night. If they left the kitchen orderly and
clean, the brownie, angered at having his work taken out of his hands,
would throw all the crockery and kitchen utensils about the room, so
that when the servants appeared in the morning a picture of confusion
met their eyes. Of course, as a rule, they found it worked best not to
attempt to leave things tidy, and then the brownie would exert himself
through the night, and all would be straight and clean for the maids
when they rose.
The servants, however, engaged by the last Baron thought his pranks
rather wearisome, and determined to attempt his banishment by the usual
means employed in such cases--that is, by leaving for his express use
some article of clothing, or some toothsome delicacy to tempt his
palate. They resorted to a green cloak and hood as the best means of
driving him away. However, the brownie knew what they were after, and
many a time during the making of the cloak and hood could be heard
singing in the dead of night--
"Wae’s me, wae’s me!
The acorn is not yet
Grown upon the tree,
That’s to grow the wood,
That’s to make the cradle,
That’s to rock the bairn,
That’s to grow the man,
That’s to lay me."
The green cloak and hood were finished at length; the servants laid them
down before the fire in the great kitchen, and watched at a prudent
distance. At midnight the "cau’d lad" glided in, surveyed the garments,
put them on, frisked about, and when the cock crew disappeared, saying--
"Here’s a cloak and there’s a hood:
The Cau’d Lad of Hilton will do no more good."
And so disappeared for ever.
The appearance of this brownie seems to have been confused with another
ghost.
The apparition of a boy who was killed by one of the Barons often used
to be seen--sometimes, it is said, with his head under his arm.
A Baron of Hilton, many years ago, ordered his horse to be got ready. He
was a passionate man, and a fearsome one to cross. The stable-boy
foolishly fell asleep. For awhile the lord waited for his horse, and
then, in a lively temper, went off to the stable and found the sleeping
boy. He struck the boy with a hay-fork and killed him there and then.
Horrified at what he had done, he covered the body with straw till
night, and then threw it into a pond at the south side of the park,
where, many years afterwards, the skeleton of a boy was discovered. So
runs the legend.
It is interesting to note that a boy named Roger Skelton was killed by
Robert Hilton, a brother of the then Baron, in July, 1609.[7]
There was a haunted room in the castle called the "cau’d lad’s room,"
which was never used. Here, it is said, the spirit of the murdered boy
made its residence. For many years there has been no appearance of the
ghost, though there are persons who affirm that, if they have not
actually seen it, they have heard it about the castle.
_The Lambton Worm._
In Plantagenet days the Lord of Lambton had a godless son, who
desecrated the Sabbath by fishing in the Wear, and while so doing he
hooked a strange worm with nine breathing-holes on either side of its
throat. This queer find he threw into a well near by, since known as
"the Worm Well," and here the worm grew until it was too large for the
well. It then emerged, and betook itself by day to the river, where it
lay coiled round a rock in the middle of the stream, and by night to a
neighbouring hill, round whose base it would twine itself. Meanwhile it
continued to grow so fast that it soon could encircle the hill three
times. This hill, which is on the north side of the Wear, and about a
mile and a half from old Lambton Hall, is oval in shape and still called
the Worm Hill. In the meantime the heir of Lambton had turned over a new
leaf, and departed as a Crusader to the Holy Land. The worm still grew,
and came daily ravaging for food. The milk of nine cows hardly sufficed
it for a meal, and if this were not forthcoming it slayed both man and
beast. Many knights tried their prowess against the worm, but with no
avail, for no sooner was the worm cut in two than the pieces grew
together again. The poor Lord of Lambton was in sore trouble when, after
seven long years, the heir of Lambton returned home, a much sadder and
wiser man. Seeing the result of his former evil practices, he determined
to kill the enormous beast. Several attempts he made without success,
because the parts would come together whenever he cut it in two. At last
he consulted a witch of the neighbourhood, and she told him if he came
to the fight clothed in armour studded with razors, and stood in the
swift stream, he would conquer; but that he, like Jephthah, must kill
the first living creature that met him after the victory. So to meet
this latter difficulty he told his old father to listen, and when he
gained the victory he would blow three notes upon his bugle, then his
father was to loosen his favourite greyhound, which would come to the
bugle’s call.
Having made all preparations, the heir started on his mission. Standing
in midstream, he waited the onset of the worm. It came, and seeing its
enemy, wound itself about him; but as it tightened its hold, the razors
cut it into many pieces, which, falling into the water, were swept away
by the current, and so were unable to grow together again. Thus the
victory was won, and the bugle sounded; but the old lord, overjoyed at
the thought of his son’s victory, forgot to let loose the hound, and ran
himself to meet the conqueror. Here now arose a difficulty; the son
would not be a parricide. He went again to the witch, and she told him
that the only alternative was the doom that none of his family should
die a peaceful death, to the seventh, or some say the ninth, generation.
Tradition sayeth that this alternative was accepted, and that no head of
the family died on his bed for several centuries after.
There are two stone figures of some antiquity preserved at Lambton
Castle. One of these is apparently an effigy of our hero in the middle
of the fray, only the worm has ears, legs, and a pair of wings. The
other figure is a female one, and marked by no very characteristic
features.
_The Sockburn Worm._
The legend of the Sockburn worm is very similar to that of the Pollard
boar. It is recorded in an old manuscript that Sir John Conyers, knight,
slew a monstrous and poisonous wyvern, or worm, which had devoured many
people in fight, for the scent of the poison was so strong no person
could stand it. But before making this enterprise,
[Illustration: LAMBTON CASTLE IN 1835.]
having but one son, he went to the church of Sockburn in complete
armour, and offered up his only son to the Holy Ghost. The place where
this great serpent lay was called Graystane. The gray stone is still
pointed out in a field near the church. For more than six hundred years
the manor of Sockburn was held by the singular service of presenting a
falchion to the Bishop of Durham on his first entering the diocese, and
it was the duty of the Lord of the Manor of Sockburn, or his
representative, to meet His Grace at the middle of Sockburn Ford, or on
Croft Bridge, which spans the River Tees, and after hailing him Count
Palatine and Earl of Sadberge, to present him with a falchion, saying:
"My Lord Bishop, I here present you with the falchion wherewith the
champion Conyers slew the worm, dragon, or fiery flying serpent which
destroyed man, woman, and child, in memory of which the King then
reigning gave him the manor of Sockburn, to hold by this tenure, that
upon the first entrance of every Bishop into the county this falchion
should be presented." The Bishop, after receiving the weapon in his
hand, promptly and politely returned it, and at the same time wished the
Lord of Sockburn health and a long enjoyment of the manor.
This ceremony was last performed in April, 1826, when the steward of Sir
Edward Blackett, the Lord of Sockburn Manor, met, on Croft Bridge, Dr.
Van Mildert, the last Prince-Bishop of Durham. The tenure is mentioned
in the inquisition post-mortem held on the death of Sir John Conyers in
the year 1396. The falchion was formerly kept at the manor-house of
Sockburn: the blade is broad, and 2 feet 5 inches long, and on the
pommel of the weapon, which is of bronze, are two shields; on one side
are the three lions of England, as borne by the Plantagenet monarchs
from John to Edward III., and the eagle displayed on the other side is
said to belong to Morcar, the Saxon Earl of Northumberland. This relic
was also represented on one of the stained-glass windows of Sockburn
Church. On a marble monument, placed to the memory of an old member of
the Conyers family, the serpent and falchion were sculptured.
_The Pickled Parson._
The present rectory house at Sedgefield, erected by the Rev. George,
Viscount Barrington, was preceded by a castellated edifice, which, after
serving the purpose of a rectory house for some years, was burnt down in
1792. During a lengthened period previous to the destruction of the old
house the inhabitants of Sedgefield appear to have been greatly
disturbed by the visits of an apparition known as the "Pickled Parson,"
which, it was confidently declared, wandered in the neighbourhood of the
rector’s hall, "making night hideous." Whose wandering shade the ghost
was supposed to have been is explained as follows: A rector’s wife had
the ill-luck to lose her husband about a week before the farmer’s tithes
fell due. Prompted by avarice, she cunningly concealed his death by
salting the body of her departed spouse, and retaining it in a private
room. Her scheme succeeded, she received the emoluments of the living,
and the next day made the decease of the rector public.
_The Picktree Brag._
Picktree, near Chester-le-Street, is famous for two reasons--first,
because it was the home of the heroine of the popular song, "Ailsie
Marley," and, secondly, because it was the haunt of one of those
mischievous goblins known as the Picktree Brag. Sir Cuthbert Sharp gives
an account of the apparition, as told by an old woman of respectable
appearance, of about ninety years of age, living near the spot, probably
at Pelton. The old woman said: "I never saw the Brag distinctly, but I
frequently heard it. It sometimes appeared like a calf with a white
handkerchief about its neck, and a bushy tail. It came also like a
galloway, but more often like a coach-horse, and went trotting along the
lonnin, afore folks, settin’ up a great nicker and a whinney every now
and then; and it came frequently like a dickass, and it always stopped
at the pond at the four lonnin ends, and nickered and whinnied. My
brother saw it like four men holding up a white sheet. I saw then sure
that some near relation was going to die, which was true. My husband
once saw it in the image of a naked man without a head. I knew a man of
the name of Bewick that was so frightened that he hanged himself for
fear on’t. Whenever the midwife was sent for it always came up with her
in the shape of a galloway. Dr. Harrison wouldn’t believe in it, but he
met it one night as he was going home, and it ’maist killed him; but he
never would tell what happened, and didn’t like to talk about it, and
whenever the Brag was mentioned he sat tremblin’ and shakin’ by the
fireside. My husband had a white suit of clothes, and the first time he
ever put them on he met the Brag, and never had them on afterwards but
he met with some misfortune; and once when he met the Brag, and he had
his white suit on (being a bold man), and having been at a christening,
he was determined to get on the Brag’s back, but when he came to the
four lonnin ends the Brag joggled him so sore that he could hardly keep
his seat, and at last it threw him off into the middle of the pond, and
then ran away, setting up a great nicker and laugh, just for all the
world like a Christian. But this I know to be true of my own knowledge,
that when my father was dying the Brag was heard coming up the lonnin
like a coach and six, and it stood before the house, and the room
shaked, and it gave a terrible yell when my father died, and then it
went chatterin’ and gallopin’ down the lonnin as if yeben and yerth was
comin’ together."
These northern ghosts or goblins have been very well described in the
following verse attributed to Ben Jonson:
"Sometimes I meete them like a man,
Sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound,
And to a horse I turn me can,
To trip and trot about them round.
But if to ride
My backe they stride,
More swift than wind away I go;
O’er hedge and lands,
Through pools and ponds,
I whirrey laughing, ho, ho, ho!"
NAME-PLACES IN THE DURHAM DALES
BY WILLIAM MORLEY EGGLESTONE
When Julius Cæsar conquered Britain, he found the island peopled by
Celts--a branch of the great family of nations called the Aryan, or
Indo-European, which spread over the world from Central Asia. The
Western branches, which rolled in successive waves over Europe, included
the Celts, who, according to the Greek traveller Pytheas, were in the
fourth century before the Christian era quite at home in Britain, for he
there saw growing in the fields corn which the farmers took in sheaves
to the barns, in which were threshing-floors.
In Weardale, situated in the western and mountainous part of the county
of Durham, and surrounded by brown and heath-clad fells, the ancient
Briton lived in the limestone caves, and hunted in the oaken forests. In
the Wear Valley, near Hamsterley, and about seven miles east of
Stanhope, there is a remarkable relic of the ancient Britons. This
ancient fortification--like many other works constructed by the Britons
of old, such as the Dene Holes of Essex and the Cliff Castles--has its
name, and is called The Castles. The treasure of Heatheryburn Cave, at
Stanhope, consisted of bone knives and pins, boar tusks, bronze and jet
ornaments, spearheads and bronze celts, with prehistoric human skulls,
showing considerable activity of the natives who manufactured and formed
the various rude implements. Apart from these landmarks, there have come
down to us in names of places the Celtic roots the _ray_ and the _tay_,
which we find in Lang Tay, the name of a small but long tributary stream
of water in Burnhope; and in Reahope, a tributary hope to Stanhope, and
which empties its waters into Stanhope Burn, a tributary of the River
Wear.
The Roman power seems to have been extended to Weardale, for the two
Roman altars found at Bolihope and Eastgate, and the denarii found at
Westgate, prove that this lead-mining dale was well known to those
ruling and wall-building people.
Soon after the Romans left, the Anglo-Saxons--including the Jutes, the
Saxons, and the English--established themselves along the eastern coast
of Britain, and these tribes of the Teutonic family took a firm grasp of
the land, and planted the roots of the English nation.
Though little more in the early Saxon period than a dense forest, in
which wild animals and ancient Britons found shelter, Weardale
ultimately became an Anglo-Saxon district, influenced by the blending of
the Scandinavian element in dialect and names of places, owing to its
proximity to the Danelagh on the south, and the Norwegian settlement in
Cumberland on the west. The whole of the Palatinate appears to have
remained Saxon through the Danish rule except the northern banks of the
Tees. We know little of Weardale at this period. Situated amidst
mountains, and lying next the Strathclyde, it was probably as much
Celtic as Saxon; but the division of counties, however, was made in 953
by the Saxon Edred, or Eadred, and the Weardale people would know their
county, for, on the bleak and heather-clad fell of Burnhope, the limits
of the Palatinate is marked by a pile of stones, called "eade
stones"--evidently King Eadred’s stones--the boundary established by
that Saxon monarch. Weardale and Teesdale, however, under the power of
the Normans, were destined to be turned into desolate wastes; yet, as we
shall see, the Saxon names of places survived the desolation of fire and
sword.
If we examine the names of places in the Bishopric of Durham a century
or so after the Danish rule had ceased and the Norman rule had been
established, we shall find a large percentage of Saxon suffixes. In the
Boldon Buke, A.D. 1183, there are some 151 names of manors, wards,
vills, etc., in which, with a few other names in charters of about the
same period, we have 45 endings, or suffixes, in 175 names of places.
The Anglo-Saxon test-word, _ton_, figures in no less than 34 of these
principal names of places: as Darlington, a settlement of the Deorlings;
Stockton, the stockaded town; Haughton, the haugh town; Morton, the moor
town; Norton, the north town; Essington, the home or settlement of the
Essings, as the Herrings gave a name to Herrington. Of the other Saxon
suffices we have: _ley_ 25, _burn_ 14, _don_ 8, _worth_ 6, _ford_ and
_ham_ 5 each; and the Celtic _hope_, common in the Anglo-Saxon North,
occurs 8 times. Thus, 8 endings take up 105 of the names of places in
Boldon Buke, the remaining 70 names having 37 endings. The Danish
test-words, _by_ and _thorpe_, only occur once each--Killerby and Thorp.
These names do not show that the Vikings made permanent settlements
north of the Tees. In Teesdale we find in Domesday Book, A.D. 1086,
Lontune, Mickleton, Lertinton, and Codrestune, having the Saxon ending
_tun_ or _ton_; but though the names of these places were English, the
places themselves were, or had been, belonging to a Dane, for they were
then in the hands of Bodin, and had formerly been Torfin’s--a person
named from the Scandinavian god Thunder, or Thor. Hundredestoft and
Rochebi have the Danish _toft_ and _by_, and, like many other names,
such as Thorsgill and Balders Dale, point to the influence and power of
the Scandinavians and their heathen worship in the neighbouring dale of
the Tees.
In the five northern counties, Worsaae returns Danish-Norwegian
place-names in the following order: Westmorland 158, Cumberland 142,
Durham 23, Northumberland 22, and Yorkshire in its three Ridings 405.
The ending _by_ occurs 167 times in Yorkshire, and _thorpe_ 95 times;
whilst 7 of each are ascribed to Durham, and but 1 of the latter only to
Northumberland. Yorkshire, however, on a closer inquiry, shows over 250
names of places containing the element _by_, and over 160 of that of
_thorpe_, the former predominating in the North and West, and the latter
in the East and West Ridings. Of the 83 names ending in the Norwegian
test-word _thwaite_, as mentioned by Worsaae, 80 occur in the northern
district, Yorkshire 9, Lancashire 14, Westmorland 14, and in Norwegian
Cumberland 43, whilst there are no _thwaites_ in Durham or
Northumberland. The evidence adduced from names of places thus goes to
prove that the Angles of Durham and Northumberland, though under the
yoke of the Danes during the ascendancy of the Scandinavian power, have,
from their first settlement, continued on their adopted soil through all
the vicissitudes incident to the descents of the Britons from the
western mountains, the inroads of the Picts and Scots, the ravages of
the Vikings, and the subduing marches of the powerful William of
Normandy.
Northumbria, as of old, may be divided into two provinces in respect to
its place-names--Deira, the district of the Danes, and Bernicia, the
district of the Angles, the central boundary-line being the River Tees.
The Norse _beck_ and Anglo-Saxon _burn_ distinctively mark this line
between these districts in the upper reaches of the valleys of the Wear
and Tees. The mountain-range from Burnhope Seat, at the western confines
of Durham, eastward to Paw Law Pike, forms the south division between
the parishes of Stanhope in Weardale and Middleton in Teesdale. The
principal tributaries of the Tees, on the south of this ridge, are
_becks_, whilst those on the Wear side are _burns_. In Weardale, at the
north-western extremity, Scraith _Burn_ and Langtay _Burn_ contribute to
Burnhope _Burn_. On the Tees side, rising within half a mile or so of
the above burns, Ashgill _Beck_ contributes its waters to Harewood
_Beck_. Farther eastward we have Harthope _Burn_ on the Weardale side,
and Harthope _Beck_, which runs into Langdon _Beck_, on the Teesdale
side, both streams rising on Harthope Fell, and within a few yards of
each other.
Continuing eastward, we find several _becks_ on the southern border of
the county of Durham. In 1672 a Teesdale stream was named Raygill Burn,
having the Celtic _ray_, the Norse _gill_, and the Saxon _burn_. In the
adjoining parish of Wolsingham, in the Wear valley, nearly all the
tributaries are named _becks_ in the Ordnance map, but these are, with
one or two exceptions, originally all _burns_. In an old document of
Queen Elizabeth’s time we find in this parish, Wascrow _Burn_,
Westerharehope _Burn_, Hadderly Clough _Burn_, Houselop _Burn_, Bradley
_Burn_, Collier _Beck_ and Ells _Beck_. There do not appear to be more
than two _becks_ in this parish, Ells Beck and Holbeck, the latter a
small runner near Holbeck House, the home of the Craggs family, one of
whom was the Right Hon. James Craggs, Secretary of State.
In the Wolsingham names of streams that of Wascrow is generally now
called Waskerley; its real name, however, appears to be Westcrau, from
_crau_, a crag or rock, and _west_; or its adjectival component might be
_wæs_, water. Houselop is Ouselhope, the hope of the _Ousel_ or _Ouse_,
Welsh _wysg_, Erse _uisge_, water. Ouse is a common river name.
Having so many Anglo-Saxon names of places in the eastern part of the
Bishopric of Durham, it is natural to suppose that the settled families
of the Angles would send offshoots along the banks of the Wear, up into
the dale where the river had its source. Wolsingham--the Saxon
metropolis of Weardale, for its ancient manor included the whole of the
Wear valley westward--is the _ham_ or home of the sons or descendants of
a family of Franks, represented in Kemble’s English settlement names in
Wælsingas, and in the German Walasingas, a family who probably settled
in the South of England and sent their sons to the North, for Durham,
according to Taylor, contained no original Anglo-Saxon settlements.
East of Wolsingham but a few miles is Witton, the _ton_, or town of
witness, Anglo-Saxon _witena-gemot_. North of Weardale lie Hunstanworth
and Edmundbyres, so the dale of the Wear is surrounded by towns having
the Anglo-Saxon suffixes, _ton_, _ham_, and _worth_, except the Danish
_byre_ of St. Edmund.
Along the banks of the Wear, three miles west of Wolsingham, is situated
the village of Frosterley. Here early settlers appear to have had an
abode on the banks of the river. The present name of the village is
evidently derived from the forest or foresters of the Bishops of Durham,
who resided here to manage the great forest westward, but the
Scandinavian personal name, Frosti, is worthy of consideration. There
appears, however, to have been a far earlier settlement here. A very
small enclosure near the river-side is named Bottlingham, but not a
vestige of a settlement remains, and the name of the small plot of
ground is all that is now left. Bolihope, a tributary valley to the
Wear, and which empties its burn into the river a hundred yards or two
below the place under consideration, was called, in Bishop Bec’s time,
Bothelinghopp. In these two names we have the _hope_ and the _ham_ of
some Anglo-Saxon settlers, named Pottel, which by the law of interchange
might become Bottel. Bodvulf, who died in 655, was canonized, having
founded the monastery of Ikano. This saint’s relics were dispersed,
hence several churches are dedicated to St. Botolph, and Bottlebridge is
St. Botolph’s bridge. The old chapel at Frosterley was, according to
tradition, dedicated to St. Botolph, and close to the chapel site there
is Bot’s Well, a name which would appear to confirm the local tradition
in respect to the dedication.
Stanhope, too, with its Anglo-Saxon initial syllable _stan_, a stone,
and Celtic _hope_, had an older settlement in all probability than the
present town, which takes its name from the adjoining Hope, which is
full of rocks or stones. At the west end of Stanhope town there is a
small stream called Allerton Burn, which gathers its waters near
Allerton Riggs, lying north-west of Stanhope. The stream joins the Hope
Burn, near Stanhope Hall, but where is Allerton? which is, or was, the
_ton_ or town beside the allers or alders, or more probably the enclosed
place of some Saxon named Alder or Ealder, from Anglo-Saxon _ald_, old,
and _hari_, warrior. The site of this place was most likely near
Allerton Bridge at Stanhope Hall, and this old hall residence--the seat
of the Fetherston-halghs, from the days of King Stephen--probably
represents the spot which we are in search of; it occupies a tongue of
land between the confluence of the Allerton and Stanhope Burns.
Seven hundred years ago, persons bearing the Saxon names of Osbert,
Ethelred, Meldred, Goda, Aldred, Collan, and others, held lands at
Stanhope, and did service under the Bishops of Durham.
Considering the close proximity of the principal Danish settlement in
England, that of Yorkshire, it would not be surprising if an inquiry
into local names of places revealed the fact that the followers of
Odin’s prophetic raven had left a footprint of some value in the Durham
dales. The most remarkable, if not unique, footprint of the adventurous
Northmen is preserved in the word _thing_, pronounced _ting_, which in
names of parishes and places points out the localities where the
Vikings, in their days of rule, held their outdoor national assemblies,
and promulgated their national laws.
When the daring Northmen touched the shores of England, subdued in the
year 867 Northumbria, and set up Inguar, the first Danish King, as
ruler, they brought with them, and implanted, their traditions and
customs.
In Weardale there is a Thimbleby Hill, on the south side of the Wear,
opposite Stanhope, and if the Danes were in this dale for the purpose
of assembling a _thing_ or council, this hill is the one above all
others which they would have chosen. It has on the top a considerable
flat, and it overlooks Stanhope Town on the north, commands a most
excellent view down the valley eastward, and up the valley westward,
whilst to the south lies a rising heath-covered ridge. The position of
the hill would at once recommend itself to the Danes, who always took
care to have their national courts held in places which would be free
from surprise; and it is possible that Shield Ash represents the
shealings of ash bows, erected for the accommodation of those attending
the court. Stanhope is in Darlington _Wapentake_, which word is Danish,
and each wapentake had its court or _thing_. Presuming that the Danes
held a council at Stanhope, they do not appear to have established
themselves to any extent; but, as we find the Danish _toft_, as in Toft
Well, and a place in Bolihope, named in Hatfield’s Survey Turpenstanes,
the boundary stones of _Thorfinn_, a Danish personal name, and that in
A.D. 1183 persons holding the Scandinavian names of Russell, Thore,
Arkil, and a son of Turkill, held lands at Stanhope, it would not be a
matter of surprise if a Danish council did take place in Weardale, which
is situated so close to the Danish district, and which was under the
rule of the first Danish King in England.
One of the most striking instances of the Norwegian element in Weardale,
is what was fifty or sixty years ago the "national" winter sport of the
dale. This was _skeeing_, the national sport of Norway. Within the
memory of a few of the oldest inhabitants no snowy winter passed in
Weardale without this sport being practised to its full extent.
In the mountainous district of Weardale, one of the most important North
of England rivers is cradled, and into this isolated highland dale the
Celtic name of the Durham river has penetrated. Almost all the English
rivers have retained the names given to them by the Celts, and _avon_,
_dur_, _esk_, _rhe_, and _don_, are Celtic roots repeated, over and over
again, in names of streams, not only in England, but on the Continent.
In the name Nent Water, in Cumberland, we have the simple name "water,"
and the Cymric _nant_, a hollow or valley formed by water--a common name
in Wales. Writers mention Nant Lle as+ the vale of Lle; Nant Gwyrfai,
the vale of fresh water; Nant Frangon, the beavers’ hollow or ravine;
and Pennant, the head of the valley. The little village Nenthead, on the
western slope of Killhope, is the head of the valley. From the root
_dwr_, water, and the frequently occurring Celtic _gwent_, an open
region, comes Derwent, the name of the stream on the north of Weardale,
and of various other rivers in England. The local pronunciation,
however, in the district of Derwent is _Darwen_, which suggests _dwr_
and _gwen_, the clear water.
The River Wear is formed by the joint streams of Killhope and Burnhope
Burns, which meet at Wearhead village. Its course through the dale is
rapid, receiving many tributaries from the hopes. On reaching Auckland
it takes a north-easterly course. "And now," says Camden, "the river, as
though it proposed to make an island, compasseth almost on every side
the chief city of this province standing on an hill, whence the Saxons
gave it the name _Dunholm_. For as you may gather out of Bede, they call
an hill _dun_, and a river island _holme_." The Wear, which enters the
sea at Sunderland, was called _Vedra_ by Ptolemy, _Wirus_ by Bede, and
in Bishop Pudsey’s time (1153-94) the name was written _Were_, the same
as we find in Hatfield, 1380, Holinshed 1577, and Camden 1604. The
latter form is the proper modern spelling up to about the last century,
when _Were_ became _Wear_, the present form of the name of St.
Cuthbert’s stream. Ferguson, on the authority of Pott, gives the
Sanscrit _ud_, _udon_, water, from which comes the German _wasser_,
English _water_, as the root of Ptolemy’s _Vedra_.[8] _Wirus_ suggests
the Celtic _gwyrhe_, rapid water. Perhaps _gwy_ or _wy_, water, and
_garw_ or _arw_, rough, form the roots. The former root enters into the
names of several rivers, as the Wye, Edwy, Elwy, and others. In all the
forms of spelling the river-name of Durham the letter "r" is
conspicuous. It is the principal one in _arw_, which enters into the
names of several streams--the Ayr, Are, Aire, Arre, being variations of
this widely diffused root. The Welsh _rhe_, rapid, with _gwy_, may show
equal claim to notice as first mentioned--namely, _gwyrhe_. Omitting the
initial _g_ in the first, and the middle letter in the second, root, we
have _wyre_.
A _hope_ is a small opening running up to the mountain ridges as a
tributary to a main stream. From the burns again branch out _grains_,
which, fed by springs, issue from _brocs_. The _cleugh_, _gill_, and
_sike_, contribute their waters generally to the burns, whilst a _well_
may come from a _dene_, and empty into the main stream. The western
dales of Durham are pre-eminently dales of _hopes_. This word is the
Celtic _hwpp_, a slope or hollow between hills--a little dale in which a
stream of water gathers. These openings at the sides of the dale may
very properly be termed places of refuge, places of shelter for animals,
such as the deer, and in these days we find sheep located in the various
_hopes_, where they have their _heft_--a locality to which they become
attached; Anglo-Saxon _hæft_, from the having a holding or place. The
Norse _hop_ is a place of shelter or refuge. An inquiry into the
Bishop’s possessions of game in Weardale, nearly three hundred years
ago, particularly mentioned forests, parks, _hopes_ and pastures. The
place-name _hope_ is common throughout the hilly parts of Durham,
Northumberland, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire. In the neighbouring parish of
Wolsingham there are Harehope, Ouselhope, and Thornhope; in Allendale
Swinhope, Sinderhope, Ellershope, and Mohope; the Boldon Buke records in
the Bishopric, Ayleshope, Rokehope, Cazhope, Refhope, Horsleyhope,
Histeshope, Baldingehope, Burnhop, and Roueleiehope; and in Teesdale we
have Egleshope and Hudeshope. In Weardale we have the Hope, sometimes
called Stanhope Hope, probably to distinguish it from the town of
Stanhope.
In Weardale there are sixteen _hopes_, distinguished in name by some
characteristic feature, as represented in their respective initial
components.
Burnhope and Killhope, with Wellhope, are the three vales which
contribute their streams to form the Wear at Wearhead. The initial
components _burn_, _kil_ and _wel_, are all Anglo-Saxon, meaning water,
and have been given according to the custom of the early settlers. From
the head of the River Wear, the hopes, striking into the hills
encircling the head of the dale, are those out of which come water.
_Burn_hope is the hope of the burn, Anglo-Saxon _burne_, a stream;
_Kill_hope is from Anglo-Saxon _keld_, a fountain; we have also
Icelandic _keld_, Danish _kilde_, Norse _kill_, a fountain or brook;
_Well_hope from Anglo-Saxon _wyl_, _wel_, a well or fountain--hence they
are all the hopes of water. _Kil_ is the Scotch and Irish word denoting
a church, and if the situation had been favourable, and had there been
any evidence of a St. Godric having been located here, as at Wolsingham,
we might have had the hope of the _kil_, kirk, or church, but in Camden
we find _Kelhop_ and _Welhop_. Leland, at an earlier date, gives
_Kelhope_ and _Welhop_, and Holinshed _Kellop_. Brocket says _keld_ is a
word used in Yorkshire, Westmorland, and Cumberland, for a well or
spring. Taylor gives _kell_ and _well_ as synonymous terms for a place
from whence water flows. We read in Simeon of Durham of the Scots, in
A.D. 1070, having marched through Cumberland and devastated Teesdale and
the parts bordering; then they came to the place called in English,
Hundredeskelde--that is, "the hundred springs." Barnard Castle
water-supply comes from a place called Spring Keld.
One of the Bishopric knights at the Battle of Lewis was Sir Henry
Merley, of Herkeld, in Witton; and Besanskeldes is a Boldon Buke
place-name. We thus have, at the western confines of the county of
Durham, the hopes of water, and which pour forth their streams to form
the main river of the historic county of Durham.
Ireshope, Middlehope, and Westernhope, derive their initial components
from their position. _Middle_hope occupies a central position in the
forest. The first tributary burn to the Wear after its formation is, of
course, the most western one, _Ire_shope, from Erse _iar_, the west.
Snowhope, sheltered under the southern hills, retains patches of its
winter covering long enough, no doubt, to have warranted its
name--_Snawhope_, as it was formerly written, Anglo-Saxon _snaw_, Danish
_snee_, German _schnee_, Belgic _sneeuw_--a name given to many mountains
subject to being covered in winter, as Snafell in Iceland, Sneekoppe in
Bohemia, Sneeuw Bergen at the Cape of Good Hope, Snee Hatten in Norway,
Snafell in the Isle of Man, and Snowdon in Wales. In respect to
Ireshope, there is the Anglo-Saxon _yrfe_, _erfe_, _irfe_, inheritance,
from the root _ar_; Old English _ear_, _earth_, as the _Ar_yan races
were the tillers of the ground. There is also a root _ar_ applied to
rivers, as the _Ayr_, _Are_, and _Aire_: Welsh _araf_, gentle; Gaelic
_ar_, slow; Celtic _arw_, violent--some of which might apply.
Stanhope and Rookhope are characteristic names in a district of stone
and rock. In the Boldon Buke and Hatfield’s Survey we have Stanhope,
Rokhop, and in the times of Bishop Beck, Stanehop, and Stanhop. The
first components in these names are from Anglo-Saxon _stan_, German
_stein_, Icelandic _sten_, Danish _steen_, a stone; and Gaelic _roc_, a
mass of stone. The district is full of stones, as the many stone fences
which net the whole of the inlands and the higher lands to the moors
testify. From Boltsburn village the Rookhope stream runs over successive
edges of limestone and freestone, and culminates in a grand display by
leaping over several picturesque linns at Eastgate.
[Illustration: THE KEPIER HOSPITAL.]
Two of the place-names, Harthope and Swinhope, carry us back to the wild
beasts of the forest. One was the lodging-ground or resort of the hart
or stag, Anglo-Saxon _heort_; and the other gets its initial component
from Anglo-Saxon _swin_, _swyn_, a swine; Old German _suin_, traceable
back to the Sanskrit _su_. The boar tusks found in Heatheryburn Cave,
and the Roman altar at Stanhope Rectory, testify to Weardale being the
abode of boars. The local word _aswin_, obliquely, Welsh _asswyn_, does
not apply to this place-name. A far more probable etymology is the
Celtic _swyn_, holy. Charnock is of opinion that the several rivers
named "swine" or "swin" may be from this root.
Bolihope, the name of a considerable subvalley on the south of
Frosterley and Stanhope, is interesting, if not so easily explained. The
name is evidently associated with the district of Frosterley, where the
stream from Bolihope enters the Wear. At this village we have as
place-names Bottlingham and Bot’s Well, and the ancient chapel is said
to have been dedicated to St. Botolph. Bishop Beck granted to Walter
Berington twenty-seven acres of land in Bothelinghopp. The initial
component would suggest the Anglo-Saxon _botel_, _botl_, _botles_, an
abode, mansion, or dwelling; also Norse _botl_, German _buttel_. Leo,
however, says that very few Anglo-Saxon names of places are united with
this word. Bolton was formerly written Bodeltune. This, however, does
not appear to be the etymon of the name in question, as _botel_ and
_ham_, both Saxon for a dwelling, would not be found in one name. A
large number of names of places have the Saxon patronymic _ing_, which
often forms the medial syllable, such as Wolsingham, Darlington,
Easington, Washington, Heighington, and, if the medial syllable of the
name under consideration be the Saxon patronymic, then it is an
Anglo-Saxon place-name--the home of the sons of some Saxon named Bottel.
Bot is a Scandinavian personal name, but we find the Saxon Byttingas and
Potingas, _Liber Vitæ_, Bota, and Frisian Botte. The personal name
Pottel--which by the law of interchange of initial letters might become
Bottel--would explain that the _hope_ and the _ham_ were belonging to
the son of some Saxon settler of this name, as elsewhere mentioned.
Boltshope is a small offshoot from Rookhope. Bolt, as an iron-door bolt,
is from Anglo-Saxon and Danish _bolt_, German _bolgen_, from the root
_bole_, round as the bole of a tree. The Anglo-Saxon _bold_, _bolt_,
originally _búld_, _búlt_, means a house or dwelling, an abode; Danish
_bolig_; and we have mention made in Hatfield of Bold Shell in Rookhope.
Boltsburn is the village of the Rookhope Valley, and is situated at the
foot of Boltshopeburn. At the top of the hope is Bolts Law, which is
probably the place earliest named, and in all probability is from a
personal name. Bold Shield would not be from the Anglo-Saxon _bold_, an
abode, but is evidently Bold’s shield, the _shield_, or home, of Bold,
as the eminence might be the _law_ of Bold or Bolt.
_Dene_ is from the Celto-Saxon _den_, a deep, wooded valley; Anglo-Saxon
_den_, _dene_, _denn_. The best specimen of this kind of valley in the
county of Durham is probably Castle Eden Dene, a wooded, narrow valley
near the sea. Its name is interesting, and contains the ancient and
modern spelling. Its earliest name was evidently Eden, from _ea_ or _e_,
water, and _den_, a wooded valley; and this becoming a proper name, a
second _den_ was added--namely, Eden Dene, which gives us
water-dene-dene. We have also in the north Hesleden, Deneholm, and
Hardwick Dene.
_Burn_, _grain_, _broc_, are allied. The first of these may be said to
be as pure Weardale as Saxon. Whilst the Norse _beck_ crowds the banks
of Teesdale, it does not exist in Weardale. _Burn_ spreads from this
dale northward through Durham, Northumberland, and Scotland. _Beck_ is
as foreign to Weardale as the Danish test-word _by_ and the Norwegian
_thwaite_, though all the three names crowd around, close to the very
hills on the south and west of the dale of the Wear. Within the bounds
of Stanhope parish the Wear is fed by several tributary burns. These
streams receive or are formed at the head by _grains_, and the grains
are fed by springs from the _brocks_. _Brock_ is from Anglo-Saxon
_broc_, _brece_, to break forth--the place where the water first breaks
through the earth--hence _brook_, literally water running through the
earth. A _brock_ is a little hollow a few feet wide, formed by water
breaking through the ground, and washing out a miniature valley. The
moors of Weardale and surrounding district abound with these broken
places, which are mostly known to shepherds and game-shooters. They
exist on the top of the fells, where they are the only natural shelters.
Platey Brock, on Chapel Fell, receives its name from an exposed plate or
shale bed. To show how numerous these places are, I will mention that on
Burnhope Moor there are also Coldberry Brocks, Limestone Brocks,
Highfield Brocks, Wester Langtayhead Brocks, Todsyke Brocks, Lodgegill
Brocks, Scraith Head Brocks, Browngill Brock, Cocklake Brock,
Sally-Grain Brocks, Lang Brock. To the above may be added the
better-known names of Black Brocks, or Moss Brocks, in Burnhope, and
Welhope Brocks.
_Grain_, Icelandic _grein_, is a division, a branch, as the grain of a
fork; Danish _green_, a branch, a bough. Generally the branches at the
head of a burn are distinguished by north and south, and east and west
grains; and sometimes by name, as Sally Grain in Burnhope, and Jopla
Grains in Bolihope. "East Graine under Craggs" is in Bolihope. At
Harthope Head there are the east and west grains, which meet and form
the burn. In addition to the sixteen hopes previously mentioned, from
twelve of which flow the principal tributary burns to the Wear, there
are some thirty secondary streams, named _burn_, Anglo-Saxon _burne_, a
_bourn_, stream, brook, river, and which are distinguished by the names
of the hope, or place, from which they flow, or from some other
characteristic feature or condition.
Sowen Burn, near Stanhope, is a very characteristic specimen, the
adjectival component being the Old English _sounen_, sound, the noisy
burn, or, rather, the sounding burn.
Fine Burn, in Bolihope, is so named owing to the stream being a line of
boundary. The words "fine," "confines," "finish," "finis," mark the end,
and the above stream is the boundary between the parishes of Stanhope
and Wolsingham. The Roman camp, _ad fines_ camps, is situated close to
the border-line between England and Scotland.
In Rookhope Smails Burn implies the small burns--Anglo-Saxon _smala_,
small--two little runners rendered somewhat historic in the days of
Border broils, as we find in the old ballad of Rookhope Ryde. In the
same district we have Red Burn, and Over Red Burn. _Red_ is from
Anglo-Saxon _read_, _rud_; Danish _röd_, red, the red stream; or the
Celtic _rhyd_, a ford; whilst _over_ is from the Anglo-Saxon _ofer_, a
shore, or _ofer_, over, above or higher--hence High Redburn.
Yeky Burn is from Anglo-Saxon _æc_, _eac_, oak, the stream of the oaks.
There are two Heathery Burns, one associated with the noted cave at
Stanhope. Old spelling hetherie, hetherye, hethery, from heath,
Anglo-Saxon _hæth_, Scotch heather.
The name _well_ is given to a large number of tiny streams in Weardale.
Dutch _wellen_, Anglo-Saxon _wel_, a fountain of water, and in Saxon
names of places, _wel_, _wyl_, and _well_ often occur.
Kelhope and Welhope are literally the hopes out of which water _wells_.
The source of the latter is named Wellheads. At the head of smaller
wells there are _springs_, places where water springs out--Anglo-Saxon
_springan_--hence we have such names as Spring Wells, Whitewell Spring,
White Wells, White Springs.
Ludwell is the people’s well, Anglo-Saxon _leod_, people. This water
springs out of a cave in the great limestone, where, in olden times, the
Weardale folks might have congregated, for the Saxon prefix shows it to
have been the well of the people, like Ludlaw, the people’s hill,
suggesting the days of village communities, and the days of superstition
when wells were in many cases held sacred. These were generally iron
wells--locally, _haliwells_. There are many wells known as holywells in
this district, some of which are also termed _spa_-wells. This term is
from the bath town, Spa, in Belgium, derived from _espa_.
Of other wells proper, we might mention Sunderland Well, Hunterley Well,
Huntshield Well, Black Dene Well, Carrbrow Well, Earnwell; Anglo-Saxon
_earn_, _ern_, an eagle--the eagle’s well. Several names of places in
England are from the eagle. Toft Well, east of Stanhope, is the well in
the toft or field, and the initial in Totley Well is probably from toft.
Bot’s Well, at Frosterley, is supposed to be that of St. Botolph, to
which saint, the old chapel, close by the well, was dedicated. Poppet
Well is a curious name, and is probably "coppet," from _cop_, a head.
The adjectival component in Duntert Well is evidently the same as in
Dunter Linn, at Eastgate. Boutes Well is Bolts Well, as in Boltsburn.
Berry Well is apparently the well of the mountain, Anglo-Saxon _beorg_,
_beorh_, a hill, a mountain. At Newhouse there is a Bank Spring, and at
Westgate a Spring Bank, indicating at each place a bank and a spring of
water. Cuthbert’s Spring, near Westgate, is in honour of the patron
saint of Durham, and it is no wonder that we find the name of St.
Cuthbert associated with names of places. On Harthope Moor, and close to
the road, is an excellent spring called Jenny’s Meggie, and at
Frosterley a spring is called Meggie.
_Cleugh_, _gill_, and _sike_ are associated with water. We have in the
parish of Stanhope, in round numbers, 30 _cleughs_, 10 _gills_, and 70
_sikes_. _Cleugh_ is from the Anglo-Saxon _clough_, a cleft down the
side of a hill; Danish _kloft_; Norwegian _kliufa_, to split--a narrow
ravine more like a cleft in the hill than a water-worn valley. Yearn
Cleugh, written _earne_ in 1666, is the eagle’s haunt, or that of the
falcon, the latter being once reared in Weardale for the purpose of the
Bishop’s hunt.
In 1666 we find mention of Addercleugh, the adder being frequently found
in Weardale. Whick Cleugh--in 1595 written Weekerclough--is probably
from the Anglo-Saxon _wic_, a marsh, but more probably from _wice_, the
mountain ash, or rowan-tree, well known in the dale, and also known as
the wich-elm.
_Gill_ is from the Norse _gil_, a mountain chasm, a glen or fissure in
the hillside. For this name we are indebted to the Norwegians, who
peopled the neighbouring county of Cumberland. The best-known places of
this class are Aller Gill, Lodge Gill, and Dry Gill, as being associated
with habitations and lead mines. The first is the _gill_ of the alders.
In Burnhope there is Lodge Gill, a well-known name owing to a once
famous lead-mine being there situated. The name very probably originated
from some forest animal lodging there, as we find Lodge Field,
Anglo-Saxon _logian_, to place, put, lodge--the field where probably
deer were lodged in the forest-hunting days of the princely Bishops of
Durham.
In Burnhope, a lead-mine in 1666 was called Hesley Gill--the hazel gill.
In Witton Gill we may have a very important place-name, for here may be
the gill of the witness--the spot where the inhabitants met, similar to
the meetings held in primitive times at particular stones. Leo says: "By
the names Wittan-ig, Wittan-mor, Wittan-mær, and Readan-stan, we are
informed of those national and provincial meetings for self-government
which have always characterized our race." Anglo-Saxon _witan_, to know;
Icelandic _vita_; German _wissen_, to know. The _Witena gemot_ Bosworth
explains as "the assembly of the wise, the supreme council of the
nation." Edred the Saxon King held a witan at Ginge, in the parish of
West Hendred, Berks, and there is a Witan Dyke at Worthe in Hants,
whilst in our valley there is the village of Witton-le-Wear. Mirke Gill
in Bolihope is the dark gill from the Anglo-Saxon _myrc_, Icelandic
_myrk_, dark. It is curious to notice how the Danish and Saxon _cleugh_,
the Norwegian _gill_, and the Anglo-Saxon _burn_, are intermixed in
Rogerley-Gill-Burn, Willowgreen-Burn-Gill, and Stock-Gill-Cleugh; but
such are many names of places, for if the term _burn_ was not understood
by a Norwegian settler, he would add his own term, _gill_; if this was
not sufficiently clear to a Saxon, _burn_ would be added to convey his
own meaning of a mountain-stream, and in a similar manner the various
races of mankind have stratified and built one upon another the various
components of place-names which are ethnological and historical
landmarks too invaluable not to be closely investigated.
_Sike_ or _syke_ is a very common local name. It is from Anglo-Saxon
_sic_, _sich_, Icelandic _sikje_, Norse _siki_. Sullivan says a _sike_
is the drainage of a marsh, and that all sikes were once marshes.
Natural productions have given names to several sikes, as the marshy
hollows were the homes of trees, grasses, and animals; hence we have
Rowantree Sike, where there is an excellent ironstone mine; Saugh Sike,
two Aller Sikes, Rushy Sike, Bents Sike, Moss Sike, and Birk Sike. Where
we find trees we find birds, so we have Hawk Sike, Hawk Sikes near
Stanhope, and Snipe Sike. Todd Sike is where the fox haunted, and Goat
Sike wants no explanation. Chisholm Sike, Anglo-Saxon _ceosel_, _ceosl_,
gravel, sand, the sike by the gravelly or sandy holm. In Teesdale there
is a Whey Sike, in Burnhope a Whoe Sike, and in Ireshope a Hoe Sike. In
Middlehope there is Scar Sike, the sike of the rock. Anglo-Saxon _carr_,
Danish _skær_, Swedish _skar_, a projecting or prominent rock, a
cliff--as Scarborough, Scarthwaite, Scarcliff, and Scarsdale, written in
Doomsday Book, Scarnesdele. At Middleton on the Tees there is a place
called Skears, and _scarr_, _skarr_, _skire_, are forms found in
place-names. Whetstone Sike is where the whetstone sill is exposed.
A _linn_ is a deep or still pool, from the Celtic _llyn_, water, a lake,
flood; Anglo-Saxon _hlynna_, a brook. In the North of England, however,
a _linn_ is understood to be a cascade or cataract, evidently owing to
the waterfall being a more attractive feature in a river scene than the
linn or pool, which is always found at the bottom of a fall. In Scotland
a _lin_, _lyn_, is described as a cataract, and in a secondary sense the
pool below. In Ireland _lin_ is a pool; and the Icelandic form of the
word is _lind_. The most attractive _linns_ in Weardale are Linnkirk, on
Shittlehope Burn, near Stanhope--a romantic spot where there is a tiny
waterfall and a cave close by in the great limestone; the Dunter Linn
and Holm Linn at Eastgate; and the Linny--a waterfall on the Harthope
Burn, near St. John’s Chapel. The Danish _dundre_ is to make a noise
like thunder, and the Scotch _dunder_ has the same meaning. The Saxon
Donar is the god of thunder, hence Dunter Linn is that which makes a
great noise.
_Kern_ is from the Anglo-Saxon _cyrn_, _cyrin_, _cerene_; Danish
_kjerne_, a churn; Icelandic _kirna_; Scottish _kirn_. The primary
meaning appears to be to turn, the act of turning, allied to quern, the
ancient mills for grinding corn. _Kern-holes_, found in the bed of
rivers, are holes worn out by the churning motion of water mixed with
sand. On Chapel Fell there is a watery hole called Jackson’s Kern, owing
to one Jackson being accidentally drowned in it whilst coming from
Middleton; but this might be _cairn_, a heap of stones. In Burnhope
Burn, at Six-dargue, a deep hole in the stream is called Kern Pool.
_Pool_, Anglo-Saxon _pol_, Welsh _pwll_, Icelandic _pollr_. There are in
the Wear and its tributaries a large number of pools which have names.
Holm Pool is the pool by the holm, and Wash Pool very probably was a
place where the good wives washed their linen in the days when
spinning, weaving, and various other methods of manufacturing household
requisites were in full operation. Winn Pool, from the Anglo-Saxon
_winn_, _gewin_, contest, struggle, to win--the pool where the meeting
of the waters cause a fight, and struggle, as it were, to _win_.
The _eale_ and _ealand_ are our isle and island, and are the names given
in Weardale to alluvial land on the margins of the main river. In the
river and place-names Gret_a_, _Ea_, _Ea_mont, Batters-_ea_,
Aldern-_ey_, Pont-_eland_, _ea_ or _a_ represents water or a river.
Bishop Egelwin, 1069, "after having, with all his people, passed three
months and some days at _Ealande_, returned to the church of Durham,"
according to the Saxon writers. In the Boldon Buke we find in a charter
of Bishop Flambard--“R. Biscop greteth well all his thanes and drenghs
of _Ealand_scire and Norhamscire." In Wolsingham parish we find in
Hatfield’s Survey, Papworth-ell, Small-eys, and in the same record
Catherine of the Ele is mentioned. The names of places containing the
Anglo-Saxon root _ea_, in the parish of Stanhope, are about a dozen.
In 1380, according to Hatfield, the parson of Stanhope held the Frith,
and a place _parcellum del Ele_, containing one acre. In 1608, in a list
of lands held by the rector of Stanhope, we find "one close called ‘The
Parson Ele.’" A few hundreds of yards eastward, just below the Butts, we
have Bond Eale, a stretch of land subject to be flooded, and formerly
held by bond tenants, who had to perform services in connection with the
land, such as thatching and carrying the running gear for Stanhope
corn-mill.
Thomas Morgan, by will dated 1641, left for charitable purposes amongst
other lands: "One parcel of arable ground in ye said Frosterley lying
and being at ye west end of ye same town in a place there called Hudse
Eale, and one acre and a rood of ground lying and being in ye said
Frosterley in a place called ye Mille Eale, and all other my lands and
tenements with ye said appurtenances in Frosterley aforesad--Barnes
Eale--excepted."
A mile and a half west of Eastgate we have, between Hunterley Well and
Parkhouse Pasture, the interesting Cammock Eale, locally called "Cammo
Keel," for the derivation of which we have the adjectival component from
the Celtic _cam_, crooked, and the ending _og_, diminutive, Celtic
_ock_--hence the little crooked isle.
_Holm_ is akin to ealand. Taylor says: "The suffix in the name Durham is
properly not the Saxon _ham_, but the Norse _holm_; and Dunelm--the
signature of the Bishop--reminds us also that the Celtic prefix is
_Dun_, a hill-fort, and not _Dur_, water. In the Saxon Chronicle the
name is correctly written Dunholm." _Holm_ is also Anglo-Saxon, and is
described by Bosworth as "a river island, a green plot of ground
environed with water--hence holmes."
Holmside, in the county of Durham, and Midge Holm, Holmwath, and Yallow
Holm, are names of places by the river in Teesdale.
By the Wear, at the west end of Rogerley Park, is situated Burry Holm.
In the year 1583 Thomas Blacket, Esq., of Woodcroft, demised to Peter
Maddison, gent., three closes of land being part of Woodcroft estate;
one close was on the west side of the low pasture, and another close of
meadow was called "Buiri Holme." It might be the holm of the burdock
(_Arctium Lappa_), or the berry holm from Anglo-Saxon _berie_, _berige_,
a berry, or the _bere_ holm or place where barley grew, Anglo-Saxon
_bere_, barley. Again, the spear plume-thistle (_Cnicus lanceolatus_),
called in Scotland the bur-thrissil, might flourish here, or the
burtree, the common elder (_Sambucus nigra_).
The names _flask_, _swang_, _bog_, and _wass_, indicate wet land, and
are kindred terms to a certain extent. Those accustomed to travel on the
highlands of Weardale will be familiar with lands denominated _boggy_,
_swampy_, _swangy_, _marshy_. The term _wass_ may be considered
obsolete, and that of _flask_ nearly so.
In Hatfield’s Survey there were in Bolihope lands called the Wasses and
Seggefeldland. _Wass_ is from the Anglo-Saxon _wæs_, water, and _segg_
from the Anglo-Saxon _segg_, _seeg_, a reed or sedge, which commonly
grows on wet land.
A pasture in Killhope, between Low Moss and the Rush, was some thirty
years ago called the Flask. Langtay Flask is in Burnhope, and a
lead-mine here was known by that name 200 years ago. In the bailiffs’
roll under Queryndon, we find in Hatfield, lands called _fennes_,
_flasskes_, and a place called Atthillswang. In Quesshowe there was le
_Flaske_. At Framwelgate, Broom cum le _Flassh_, at Cotam les _flaskes_.
_Bog_, Gaelic _bog_, Irish _bogach_, marsh, morass, quagmire, needs
little explanation. Riggy Bogs, Boghouse, White Bog, and Bog Hole, are
amongst names of places in the dales.
_Den_, from the Celto-Saxon, is a deep wooded valley, and has already
been considered under valleys. The most important _denes_ are Easter
Black Dene and Wester Black Dene.
Hot Hill is no doubt the wooded hill, but Hotts has another derivation,
and appears to be from _hut_, an abode or sheltered place. Another name,
_hurst_, pure German, a thick wood, is confined, as far as Weardale is
concerned, to Shield Hurst.
The termination _shaw_, a thicket or small wood, is frequently met with
in place-names. The Danish _skov_ is a wood or forest, Icelandic
_skogr_; the Anglo-Saxon _scua_, _scuwa_ is a shade, the same as the
Swedish _skugga_. Anglo-Saxon _sceaga_ seems to mean shaggy wood. In the
Hatfield’s Survey, a place in Bolihope is called Watteshawe--a wet
wooded place. Near Allergill we have Birkshaw, the place shaded by
birch-trees. In Shittlehope there are two places on the expanding
moorlands called Bashaw and Mogshaw. The former was probably the badger
shaw or wood. In the latter we have an important root, the Erse _magh_,
Welsh _maes_, a plain. Taylor gives _magh_ as a Gadhelic test word, and
says that it is found in more than a hundred Irish names of places.
The various place-names embracing _mea_, _may_, are from the same root,
and probably Migg Clos, held by the parson of Stanhope in 1380, is a
kindred name. A place on the south side of Bolihope is named
Harnshaw--written in 1614 _Hornyshawe_, and in 1666 _Harnshaw_--from
Anglo-Saxon _hyrne_, _hirne_, an angle or corner, a resemblance to a
horn--hence the _hyrne_ shaw would be the horn-shaped wood. Ramshaw,
particularly known for its well, is evidently the ram wood, Anglo-Saxon
_ram_, _ramm_, a ram; but some authorities derive _ram_ from _raven_.
These etymological conclusions give us a broad birch, a horn-shaped and
a wet wood, a wood on a plain, and a wood frequented by the ram and the
badger.
_Wood_, Anglo-Saxon _wudu_, _wode_, woodland, enters into a few local
names, as Bradwode or Broadwood.
In Rookhope there is a Foul Wood, a lead-mine so named over two hundred
years ago. Its name is evidently from the Anglo-Saxon _ful_, rotten, the
same as Foul Sike was the impure watercourse. In 1401 Roger Thornton
leased a lead-mine in Weardale at a place called Old Wode Clough.
In _field_, _ley_, and _ridding_, we have indications of clearings in
the forest--places where cattle might feed. In Weardale there are some
thirty _leys_, numerous _fields_ but very few _riddings_. The latter
word is from Anglo-Saxon _hreddan_, to rid; _hredding_ a ridding; Danish
_rydde_, to clear, grub up; _rydning_, clearing. The Weardale people are
familiar with _rid-up_, a house; _rid-out_, a quarry; and similar terms.
It is different from the _riding_, from Anglo-Saxon _thri_, _thry_,
three; _thridda_, the third; _thrithing_, a third part of a province, as
in the Yorkshire Ridings. Five hundred years ago John Migg held at
Stanhope four acres of land in the _Ridding_, Robert Todd held _j
Ridding_ over an acre, and Alexander Brancepath held five acres and one
rod in the _Riddying_. In Queen Elizabeth’s time Michael Fetherstonhalgh
of Stanhope Hall purchased of Follinsby a parcel of ground called
Pathemairidding. In Path-mairidding we have the ridding on the plain
over which there was a path.
_Ley_, _lea_, _lee_, _lay_, is an open place, a pasture or field where
cattle may lie; from the Anglo-Saxon _leah_, _leag_, _lege_, _lea_,
_leah_; from _licgan_, _liggan_, to lie. The _lea_ was an opening or
forest clearing where cattle might be depastured, but where a good deal
of woodland might exist. Gray, in the opening lines of his beautiful
"Elegy," sings--
"The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the _lea_."
This terminal occurs in over twenty names of places in Boldon Buke. In
Weardale there are five names of places having this suffix which are
very important, as they give names to extensive stretches of land, and
very probably the adjectival components may all be derived from personal
names. These are Frosterley, Bishopley, Rogerley, Horsley, and
Brotherlee.
On the hill north of Eastgate is situated Bewley, where once a cross
existed, and in former days a watch for invaders was kept here. This
place-name is probably more correctly Bewdley. In 1380 and 1590 it was
written _Bowdlye_, and may be derived from the Anglo-Saxon _bige_,
_biga_, _bigan_, a turning, corner, bending, angle, the ley, or field,
on the bend or bow of the hill, the bowed ley.
Amongst the highest hills in Weardale are Fendrith Hill, Knoutberry
Hill, Noon Hill, St. Cuthbert’s Hill, and Horseshoe Hill. _Hill_, _hyl_,
_hyll_, is Anglo-Saxon, Norse _holl_, a name given to large and small
elevations. One of these hills is named after the patron saint of the
Bishopric of St. Cuthbert. Like Outberry Plain on the southern ridge,
Knoutberry Hill on the north, evidently derived its name from the
cloud-berry, _Rubus Chamæmorus_, which grows on the Weardale fells. In
1614, however, it was written Nookhill. Fendrith was written in 1539
Fenrake. The word _rake_ is common in Weardale, and means to walk or
range, or the extent of the walk--hence a sheep-_rake_, Swedish _reka_,
to travel, journey. A _fen_ is land covered with mud, a morass--hence
the Fenrake was the district covered by a large morass. The hill known
as the Horseshoe might be so shaped, or the suffix may be _shaw_, a
wood--the wood of Horsa.
Amongst hills of lesser elevations than the five abovementioned are
Billing Hills, where the Scots camped in 1327; Scaud Hill, in Burnhope,
from the Anglo-Saxon _sceawian_, _scewian_, to look; Batable Hill,
debatable land; Scrog Hill, Anglo-Saxon _scrob_, _scrobb_, a shrub, the
hill of shrubs; Dun Hill, Ancient British _dun_, a height or hill fort
(Gaelic _dun_, as Dun Fell, in Teesdale). Dod Hill and Dodder Hill are
mountains with rounded summits, as Dodd Fell, in the Lake District.
Cross Hill, in Stanhope, is where an ancient cross stood. We had a Paper
Hill and a Poperd Hill, which were the hills where the priests preached.
We have hills known or distinguished as _hard_, _long_, _windy_,
_slate_, _black_, _green_, _white_, _gold_, _quarrel_ (quarry), _hungry_
(poor), _stony_, _great_, _low_, etc. Animals contribute their names, as
in Hog Hill, Lamb Hill, Plover Hill, Fairhills (Norse _faar_, sheep),
and Cowshill, the hill where cows congregated.
_Law_, Anglo-Saxon _hlaw_, _hlæw_, rising ground, an elevation, a hill.
In the south it is _low_, as Ludlow, the people’s hill. Killhope Law is
2,206 feet above sea-level, Collier Law 1,692, Bolts Law 1,772, and Pow
Law and the Three Laws are the names of other hills in the district.
_Seat_, Anglo-Saxon _set_, a sitting; _sæta_, settlers, inhabitants. The
root _sæte_, _set_, or _seta_, enters into several names of places in
England, some of which are county towns, as Dorset, Somerset;
Old Norse _setr_, a seat. The Norwegian _seter_ is a pasture or
mountain-side--Burnhope Seat, Dora’s Seat, and Raven’s Seat. One was the
settlement of a person named Raven, or Rafn; the other that of Dora, or
Dore. In 1614 we find Dorry Sette. Bishop’s Seat was the place where the
lords of the Bishopric settled when hunting in Weardale Forest. Another
name is Laverock Seat, evidently Leofric’s Seat, modernized into
Lark-seat.
_Head_, Anglo-Saxon _head_, _heafod_, a head. In a district full of
undulating lands and small valleys there are several places deriving
their names from being the top or head, or finished part of something,
as Lanehead, Wearhead, Dalehead, Sidehead, Nag’s Head, Lamb’s Head, and
others.
_Rig_, _rigg_, Anglo-Saxon _rig_, _hrycg_, and various other forms;
Danish _ryg_; Icelandic _hriggr_, a ridge, a back. Stangend Rigg is
2,075 feet above sea-level.
_Plain_ and _pike_ are sufficiently expressive--the one a broad stretch
of land, and the other a peak or pointed eminence. Five Pikes are near
Paw Law Pike, a south-eastern boundary point on the hills. Ireshope
Plains is a euphonious name; and Bewdley Plain, Sedling Plain, Outberry
Plain, may be mentioned in the list.
_Moor_, _fell_, _common_, are well-known terms. Anglo-Saxon _mor_ is
waste-land, a moor, a heath; Danish _mor_ is a moor, or morass; we have
Killhope, Burnhope, and Wellhope Moors. _Fell_ is Old Norse. All the
Weardale moorlands are called fells. Chapel Fell is 2,294 feet above
sea-level; A _common_ is a tract of unenclosed pasture or outside land
on which the tenantry of the inlands have a common right, or right of
common for their sheep.
_Bank_, _band_, _brae_, and _brow_, are common in place-names, as Brook
Bank, Owsen Bands, Whitfield Brow, etc. _Batts_, low, flat ground near
water; Anglo-Saxon _bæth_, a bath, land subject to be soaked with water.
_Berry_, as Knoutberry Hill, Bleaberry, and Snodberry, are from the
Anglo-Saxon _beorg_, _beorh_, a hill. _Cut_, _cove_, as Cove’s Houses;
_crooks_, as Milncrook, Seggecrok, Crawcrook, are found. Also _end_, as
Hill End; and _edge_, as White Edge, Band Edge. _Flat_, _green_, and
_ground_, are also found in several place-names, as Barnflat, Willow
Green, and Trodden Ground. In the Boldon Buke we have Pelhou, Quesshow,
and Dunhow, from _haw_, Anglo-Saxon _hæge_, a hedge.
_Haugh_ is a common name in Northumberland for low-lying grounds close
to rivers. It is frequently met with on the Tyne, but it is not so
common on the Wear. Worsaae returns _haugh_ in no other county than
Northumberland, to which he ascribes ten, the _haugh_, or _how_, being
given as the Scandinavian _haugh_, a hill; but the _haugh_ of the
Borderland is low-lying and sheltered meadow-land close to the winding
rivers. In 1380, at Stanhope, there was a Castle Hogh, known as the
Castle Haugh until within fifty years ago. There is a _haugh_ at Softly,
and a _haughing-gate_ at Eastgate. There are various _haughs_ in and
about Blanchland, and it might appear that Weardale, where it is very
rare, formed the southern boundary. But there are, however, three
_haughs_ in the West Riding.
_Hooks_, _height_, _hole_, and _howl_. We have Fairy Holes--caves in the
limestone--Foxholes, Brockholes, and Catholes, as names of places; Hole
House, Clay Holes, and many others. Cuthbert Heights is from St.
Cuthbert. _Knot_, _loc_, _lake_, _land_, as the Knotts, the Locks,
Cocklake, and the Lands. _Mea_, Welsh _maes_, Erse _magh_--a plan--is
very common in the Durham dales. In Teesdale there is Flushy Mea, Sow
Mea; and, in Weardale, Broad Mea, Mea Sike, Pitty Mea, Rimea, and
others. _Mound_, moss, _nook_, _rake_, _pit_, and _pot_, occur in many
names.
_Side_, a Saxon word, Icelandic _sida_, the edge, a hillside, enters
into a number of names of places, as Fell Side, Kirk Side, with
_siders_, as Cuthbert Siders; and also _sedeing_, a sideling or sloping.
_Slack_, _spot_, _wick_, _wham_, _clints_, _crag_, _carr_, _scar_, are
amongst other words forming place-names.
Habitations and enclosures have their special names.
When the Angles and Saxons arrived in our island they planted
settlements in fertile districts. By the margins of some meandering
river, which had already been named by the earlier Celtic race, the
Saxon families located themselves and established homes, many of which
are now large towns. The forest growth was cleared, and, with that love
of home characteristic of the Saxons, a portion of the cleared land was
enclosed, guarded, or protected, with the _tines_ of forest growth--the
tines or twigs of the wood; hence _tun_ occurs in 137 Anglo-Saxon names
of places in the 1,200 taken from Kemble’s Charters. This termination
became to mean, not the tines or twigs alone, nor yet the hedges of
which they were made, but the whole enclosure or estate was the _tun_ or
_ton_ of some person; or the _ton_ otherwise distinguished, as Stockton,
the stockaded town; Middleton, the middle town; Willington, the town of
the family of Willing--sons of Will. Other terminations indicate Saxon
homes, as _ham_, _worth_, _stoke_, _stow_, _fold_, _bury_. In the Boldon
Buke we find the Danish _toft_; and the universal description of small
holdings in Hatfield’s Survey is a _toft_ and a _croft_. We also find in
primitive days the villagers holding _dales_ of land--land divided into
long, narrow strips or divisions, each villager knowing his own strip.
When Weardale was more under cultivation, it was customary for the
inhabitants to _take in_ land from the moors; hence we find the
place-name _intake_, locally _intak_. And at a later period still, when
Acts of Parliament dealt with the division of moorlands, we got the name
_allotment_, abbreviated to _lotment_ and _lot_--the allotted land.
_Acre_ is mentioned, as in Farnacres, in the Boldon Buke; and in later
surveys are Longacre and Etheredacres. _Barn_, _berry_, _beeld_, _byre_,
and _by_, _bower_, _cave_, _castle_, _chesters_, _close_, _croft_,
_dale_, and _darg_--as six darg, from Anglo-Saxon _dæg-weorc_, day’s
work. _Fold_, _farm_, _faw_, _frith_, _gate_, _garth_, _hot_, _ing_,
_ham_, _kirk_, _lodge_, _park_, _meadow_, _pry_, _shield_, _stead_,
_ton_, and _wall_, are common in the dales of the county of Durham.
Amongst the names referring to buildings we have _cross_, as Killhope
Cross and Edmundbyres Cross. Stone crosses to guide the wayfarer were
once erected at these places. _Brig_ is from bridge, whether built of
stone or wood. _Currock_, a pile of stones erected on the moors or fells
as a landmark. _Peth_ and _lonnon_ and _way_ are also common names. And
all these have their adjectival component, as Lodge Field, Leases Park,
Mill Houses, Pry Hill, Old Faw, Shield Ash, Watch Currock, etc.
DURHAM CATHEDRAL
BY THE REV. WILLIAM GREENWELL, M.A., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.S.A.
In the year 875 the great Scandinavian invasions were assuming large
proportions, and among other parts of England where the Danes landed and
harried the country was the coast of Northumbria. The monks fled from
Lindisfarne, which had been selected by Aidan principally because of its
resemblance to Iona. There was probably another reason for the choice:
its neighbourhood to the stronghold of Bamborough, the seat of the
Northumbrian Kings. Lindisfarne is very near to it, and naturally would
be under the protection of the King who lived there.
Bamborough, however, proved no protection against the Danes, who came
oversea, and, landing on the coast, overran not only a great part of the
North of England, but also a considerable portion of the South of
Scotland. The monks, fearing lest they should be deprived of St.
Cuthbert’s body and their other treasures, and of their lives as well,
fled from Lindisfarne, carrying with them the body of the saint. Many
churches dedicated to St. Cuthbert in these parts probably mark the
spots where the monks in their journeying rested for a while.
After wandering from 875 to 883, having remained for a short time at
Crayke, they settled at Chester-le-Street, which was given to them by
Guthred, a Danish King then reigning in Northumbria, and who had become
a Christian.
There the body rested, and from it the Bernician See was ruled until the
removal of Bishop Aldhun and the congregation of St. Cuthbert (after a
short sojourn at Ripon) to Durham in 995. The difficulties of an
adequate defence probably proved to the monks that Chester-le-Street was
not a suitable place for their protection. The superior position of
Durham was no doubt the reason why it was selected for the site of the
see. This, then, was the commencement of the church and city of Durham.
In 999 Bishop Aldhun, having commenced it three years before, completed
the building of a stone church, to which the body of St. Cuthbert was
transferred from a wooden building (_æcclesiola_, Symeon calls it),
where it had been at first placed. Of that church no part remains
visible to the eye, though there are no doubt thousands of the stones
belonging to it enclosed within the walls of the present church.
The first building remained until after the Norman Conquest, a great
change having taken place in the meantime. The monks who, with the
Bishop, had originally constituted the congregation of St. Cuthbert, had
fallen from the rule which was first observed. There was in those days a
great tendency among the regular clergy in the Saxon Church to
degenerate into a kind of secular clergy. Symeon says those at Durham
were neither monks nor regular canons. At Durham, as at Hexham, some
members of the congregation were married and had families, and there was
springing up at Durham possibly, as there certainly was at Hexham, an
hereditary system, son succeeding father; and had the system gone on,
there would have arisen a sacerdotal caste, with all the evils attending
such a body. The Norman Conquest happily did away with that, as it did
with other abuses. It is probable that some remains connected with these
married members of the congregation were discovered in 1874, when the
foundations of the east end of the old chapter-house, which was so
ruthlessly destroyed in 1796, were laid bare. The graves of Bishops
Ranulph Flambard, Galfrid Rufus, and William de St. Barbara were met
with, each covered with a slab bearing his name--probably not quite
contemporary--and in them were found three episcopal rings of gold, set
with sapphires, and in the grave of Flambard, the head, made of iron,
plated with silver, and the iron ferrule of a pastoral staff, all of
which are now preserved in the cathedral library. Below the level of the
Bishops’ graves there were found a considerable number of skeletons of
men, women, and children, with one of which was deposited the iron head
of a spear, having the socket plated with gold. There can be little
doubt that these bodies belonged to the married portion of the
congregation and their families, who occupied the monastery at Durham
from the time of Aldhun to their being dispossessed by Bishop William of
St. Carileph.
Allusion has already been made to the congregation of St. Cuthbert, but
of that body some further account must be given. The religious
community, the congregation of St. Cuthbert, which ultimately settled at
Durham, included the Bishop and the monks. The two formed one body,
whose interests were identical, and whose property was in common; and
the Bishop lived among the monks, over whom he ruled within the
community as he ruled over the diocese without, having no estates or
means of subsistence separate from the congregation of which he formed a
part. This unity between the Bishop and the monks was very similar to
that which prevailed amongst the early religious communities in Ireland
and Scotland. The system went on at Durham until the establishment of
the Benedictine Order there by Bishop William of St. Carileph, shortly
after the Norman Conquest. He was the second Bishop appointed by William
I., Walcher, the first Norman Bishop, having been killed, after a short
reign, by his own people at Gateshead, during a rebellion caused by the
oppression of his officials. William of St. Carileph, Abbot of St.
Vincent, became Bishop in 1081. Originally a secular priest, he
afterwards became a monk in the monastery of St. Calais, and such an
establishment as that he found at Durham must have been most distasteful
to him. A Benedictine monk himself, he naturally preferred being
surrounded by religious of his own Order, and not by those of whose
system he disapproved. In the time of Bishop Walcher the ancient
monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth were to a great extent, though
probably not altogether, deserted, and had been so since they were laid
waste by the Danes. When Bishop William determined upon establishing
Benedictine monks at Durham, he found these two monasteries already
existing at Jarrow and Wearmouth. Thinking there were not sufficient
provision for the maintenance of more than one monastery, he transferred
the monks from Jarrow and Wearmouth to Durham in 1083, and founded a
Benedictine house there. He became a party to the rebellion against
William Rufus in 1088, and was driven an exile for three years into
Normandy. It may well be that during his sojourn there he conceived the
design of replacing the old church by a new and more magnificent one.
Normandy at that time was full of large and noble churches, many lately
erected, and we can readily understand how the thought may have passed
across the mind of Carileph that, if he ever returned to Durham, he
would raise there a more glorious building, and one better adapted to
the wants of the new community than the church he had left behind him.
At all events, on his return, he determined to build a new church, and
may we not suppose that gratitude was among the motives which induced
him to do this? In the meanwhile, during the time of his exile, as we
learn from Symeon, the monks had built the refectory as, says he, it now
stands. Symeon was living in the early part of the twelfth century; he
therefore speaks with authority. The crypt under the refectory, which
still exists, cannot be later than Symeon’s time, and must therefore be
part of the refectory built during Carileph’s exile (1088-1091), and is
therefore in either case one of the earliest buildings at Durham in
connection with the monastery.
[Illustration:
_W LEIGHTON
1909_
THE CRYPT, DURHAM CATHEDRAL.]
This very ancient structure lies on the south side of the cloister, and
to the west of a contemporary passage leading from it into the great
enclosure of the monastery, now called the college. The passage itself
has an arcade of low blind arches on either side, and openings, possibly
coeval with it, lead into the crypt under the refectory at one side,
and into a smaller one on the other. The refectory crypt is low, being
only seven and a half feet high, and commences at the east end with a
division, which has a plain, barrel-shaped vault. From this an arched
opening leads into the main area of the crypt. It is divided into three
aisles by two rows of short, massive square pillars, four in each row,
making five bays in the length. The pillars support a plain groined
vault without ribs or transverse arches. This space is again succeeded
towards the west by three divisions, the westernmost one being not so
long as the others, all the three having, like the first and easternmost
one, plain barrel vaults. Up to this point the whole crypt is of the
same early date, but beyond, to the west of what appears to be an
original wall, are some other structures, the cellar and pantry, of
later times. The older crypt has been lighted on the south side by at
least seven, or possibly more, small windows, all round-headed except
one, which is circular.
To the east of the passage there is, as has already been stated, a
smaller crypt, which in general corresponds with the architectural
character of that under the refectory. It is now beneath the
entrance-hall of the deanery, once part of the Prior’s hall, and has
apparently been curtailed of some of its original length.
Symeon, a monk of Durham, already mentioned, lived when a great part of
the work at the church was going on, and therefore his testimony is very
important. He wrote a history of the church of Durham, and his history
was continued after him by an anonymous writer. We next have a further
continuation by Geoffrey de Coldingham, Robert de Graystanes, and
William de Chambre, together with a number of indulgences from various
Bishops, given towards obtaining means for making additions to and
alterations in the building, and a few, but late, fabric rolls. Besides
these there is a most important document, "A Description or Brief
Declaration of all the Ancient Monuments, Rites, and Customs belonging
or being within the Monastical Church of Durham before the Suppression,"
apparently written towards the end of the sixteenth century by someone
who had been an inmate of the monastery. These form the series of
historical evidences which now exist with regard to the dates of the
various parts of the church.
In 1093, on August 11, the foundation-stones of the new church were
laid, the foundations themselves having been dug on the preceding July
29. Aldhun’s church, as Symeon tells us, had been previously destroyed.
There were then present Bishop William of St. Carileph; Turgot, Prior of
the monastery, afterwards Bishop at St. Andrews; and, as other writers
say, Malcolm, King of Scotland. The continuator of Symeon says that, on
the accession of Flambard, he found the church finished as far as the
nave. This statement does not, of course, imply that the whole of this
was the work of Carileph, for the monks after his death had carried on
the building of the church; but it appears on the whole probable that,
with the exception of the west side of the transepts and the vaulting of
the choir, all the church up to the point mentioned had been built
before the death of Carileph.
It may be well to give here a general description of the Norman work,
taking the nave first, as being the most important feature in the whole
great scheme. The nave consists of three double compartments, a single
bay westward of these, and the western bay flanked by the towers. The
principal piers consist of triple shafts, placed on each face of a
central mass, square in plan; the shafts rest on massive bases of
cruciform plan, having a flat projecting band about the middle and a
narrow plinth at the bottom. A similar band and plinth are carried
beneath the wall-arcades of the nave and transepts and entirely round
the church on the outside. In the choir, however, except on the piers of
the tower arch, the bases are without a band, but have a plinth of
greater height, the responds on the aisle walls being similar. The
triple shafts next the nave or choir rise almost to the top of the
triforium, and support the great transverse arches of the vault. The
shafts next the aisles receive the diagonal and transverse ribs of the
aisle vault, and the shafts on the two remaining faces receive the
arches of the great arcade. The intermediate piers, in the centre of
each double compartment, are circular in plan, and stand on square
bases. The western pair of piers, at the corners of the towers, are
clustered like the other main piers, but have two additional shafts
(like the crossing piers), but these shafts on the side next the nave
receive the diagonal ribs of the vault, whereas the additional shafts on
the crossing piers support the outer order of the tower arches.
The triforium is of eight bays, having a containing arch with two
sub-arches, the tympanum being solid. The clerestory has in each of its
eight bays a lofty and wide arch with a smaller and lower one on each
side, the central arch having a window fronting it. It has a wall
passage which connects it with the clerestories on the west side of the
transepts. The inner arcade in the eastern bays appears to be an
insertion, possibly made when the vault was put on the nave. The idea of
vaulting the nave was apparently abandoned, when the triforium stage was
reached, and it is probable that the arrangement of the nave clerestory
was at first not unlike that of the south transept. The resumption of
the vaulting idea thus necessitated an alteration in the design of the
clerestory.
The nave is covered a double quadripartite vault over each double
compartment, without transverse ribs over the minor piers. The great
transverse arches, which spring from the major piers, are pointed. The
diagonal ribs, which rise from corbels inserted in the spandrils of the
triforium arches, are semicircular. They are all decorated with zigzag.
The choir consists of two double compartments, and in its plan as a
whole agrees with that of the nave. There are, however, some differences
in the details. The piers of the great arcades, although similar in
motive to those of the nave, are much longer from east to west, and are,
in fact, more like sections of wall than piers. The clerestory is quite
unlike that of the nave, having a plain round-headed arch in each bay,
with a corresponding window, and is destitute of a wall passage. The
triforiums on both sides of the choir and on the east side of the
transepts are all very similar. They are lighted by windows, consisting
of two small round-headed openings, about twenty inches apart, under a
containing arch. The buttressing arches, which are opposite the piers,
are semicircular in form, and are contemporaneous with the arcades. Each
transept has two double bays, with an aisle on the east side. The vault
on the north transept has one transverse arch, which is semicircular,
the double bay to the north having a single quadripartite vault with
segmental diagonal ribs. All the ribs are moulded with a roll between
two hollows. The south transept has a similarly formed vault, but the
ribs are enriched with zigzag. The triforium and other upper parts of
the church are reached by staircases contained in two square internal
projections which are in the north-west and south-west angles of the
transept. The end walls of the transepts were probably lighted by three
tiers of windows; the lowest--which still remains--though blocked up, in
the south transept, is a single round-headed window. It is difficult to
say what was the arrangement above, but probably there were three
windows on the triforium level and one on that of the clerestory.
Passages crossed the ends at these levels, but none now remain in their
original state.
The vaults of the aisles of the choir, transepts, and nave, are
quadripartite and are the same throughout, except that the diagonal ribs
of the nave aisles beyond the two eastern bays have zigzag upon them.
The transverse ribs, which rise alike from both piers and columns, are
composed of a flat soffit, with a roll and shallow on each edge, the
diagonal ribs having a large roll between two hollows. The first
compartment of the nave arcade, which comprises two bays and the east
bay of the triforium arcade, correspond in their mouldings and other
features with those of the choir, whereas in the remainder of the nave,
although the elevation in its general design and principal features is
the same, the mouldings in some essential particulars, especially in the
use of the zigzag and the course of small sunk squares forming a quasi
hood-moulding round the arches of the great arcade, differ from those of
the choir. There is a difference also in the way in which the diagonal
ribs of the main vault was carried. In the choir the diagonal ribs of
the original Norman vault are supported on shafts, which still remain
and rise from the level of the triforium floor; on the east side of the
transept they are supported by similar shafts; in the nave they are
supported on brackets formed of two grotesque heads, inserted in the
spandrils between the containing arches of the triforium. The eastern
compartment of the nave arcade, with the triforium arch above it, which,
before the nave was completed, acted as an abutment to the tower arches
on the west side, as the similar and corresponding arches of the
transepts did on the north and south, must necessarily have been built
at the same time as the tower arches themselves, and, therefore,
naturally corresponds with them in the details.
The spiral grooving on the piers, a rare feature in Norman work, is seen
in the choir and transepts, but not in the nave, where lozenge and
zigzag patterns and flutings are used instead. The spirals are contrary
to the ordinary direction of those on a screw. The eastern part of
Carileph’s church no longer exists, having been replaced by a very
beautiful eastern transept. Until some important excavations were made
in 1895, it was generally believed that the choir ended in an apsidal
termination, with an extension of the aisles forming an ambulatory
round it. The foundations of the east end of the aisles, as well as of
the choir, together with a small portion of the choir wall itself, were
then discovered. From what remained it was shown that Carileph’s choir
terminated in three apses, the central one, which extended 27 feet
beyond the others, being semicircular on the outside as well as within,
while those at the end of the aisles had been semicircular only on the
inside, being finished square externally.
To Galfrid Rufus may be attributed the present great north and south
doorways of the nave, themselves, however, replacing earlier ones. The
sculpturing upon these doorways, and that upon the corbels which once
supported the ribs at the east end of the chapter-house, have apparently
been done by the same hand, and there is otherwise much in common
between the decoration of these doorways and that of the chapter-house
itself.
Skilfully wrought and probably contemporary ironwork covers the south
door, still remaining in a very perfect state.
On the north door there are sufficient indications to show what was the
pattern of the ironwork once there, and, indeed, with care and under a
favourable light, the very elaborate design may be made out. The
grotesque but effective sanctuary knocker of bronze, of the same date as
the door itself, if it does not invite the unfortunate offender to seek
for that protection now, happily, under more humane conditions, not
needed for his safety, will recall to memory how the Church in a ruder
age held out her saving hand, and interposed between the shedder of
blood, sometimes guiltless, and the avenger.
The death of Bishop Carileph took place in 1096, and an interval of
three years elapsed before the election of Bishop Flambard, in 1099, who
is described as great by some, and infamous by other, writers.
Ralph Flambard was William Rufus’s Chancellor, and whether he was
infamous or not, he was, anyhow, a remarkable man. We are told by the
continuator of Symeon, that he carried on the work of the nave up to the
roof--that is, that he completed the nave as far as the vault, including
the side aisles and their vaults, and probably at the same time building
that portion of the western towers which attains an equal elevation with
the walls of the nave.
[Illustration: THE SANCTUARY KNOCKER, DURHAM CATHEDRAL.]
Flambard probably began to build soon after he became Bishop, and though
that part of the church which is due to him might not have been finished
until near the time of his death, no material alteration seems to have
been made in the plan. With regard to the upper part of the western
towers, and the time when they were built, we are entirely left to the
evidence of the architecture itself, for nothing has been recorded which
has reference to their erection. The upper stages belong to a time when
the style called the Early English was being developed, and they may
have been constructed during the episcopate of Richard de Marisco
(1217-26), or even of Philip de Pictavia (1197-1208). Although the
towers have suffered much from weathering, and more from the paring
process, which, however, to some extent, has been remedied by the late
reparation, they are well designed and very effective additions to the
church as originally planned. In combination with the end of the nave
and the bold mouldings of Pudsey’s Galilee, they form a termination
which will not suffer even when compared with some of our finest west
fronts. The upper part of both is enriched by four arcades, two open and
two blank, of alternately round-headed and pointed arches. The towers
were, until the time of the Commonwealth, surmounted by spires of wood
covered with lead. At present they are finished by a parapet with
turrets, placed there at the beginning of the present century, which,
though faulty in detail, are, nevertheless, by no means unworthy of the
towers they crown, and add materially to the picturesque outline of the
cathedral when viewed from a distance.
Bishop Cosin, in his articles of inquiry at his first visitation in
1662, asks: "What is become of the wood and lead of the two great
broaches that stood upon the square towers at the west end of the
church?" (_Miscellanea_, Surtees Society, vol. xxxvii., p. 257). This
inquiry was repeated in Cosin’s second visitation, July 17, 1665, and
the reply made in the presentment of the minor canons, etc., was as
follows: "And as for the lead and timber of the two great broaches at
the west end of the church, Mr. Gilbert Marshall can give the best
account how they were employed" (Hunter MSS., vol. xi., No. 94). To
[Illustration: THE WESTERN TOWERS OF DURHAM CATHEDRAL, FROM THE WINDOW
OF THE MONKS’ LIBRARY.
_From a Drawing by R. W. Billings._]
this reply James Green, minor canon and sacrist, adds: "Mr. Gilbert
Marshall, Mr. Gilpin, and Mr. Anthony Smith, can best tell what became
of it" (Hunter MSS., vol. xi., No. 98). Bishop Cosin would remember them
as being on the towers when he was Prebendary before the time of the
Commonwealth. That they were never rebuilt is shown by Buck’s view,
published in 1732, where the towers are without spires.
The most important, as it is not the least striking and beautiful,
object in the choir is the large and lofty throne, built by Bishop
Thomas de Hatfield (1345-81) during his lifetime, for his tomb beneath
and the throne above. It is a structure worthy of the Palatine See of
Durham and of the mighty Prince-Bishop who erected it. The alabaster
figure of the Bishop still remains, comparatively perfect, clothed in
richly decorated pontifical vestments, lying on an altar-tomb under a
canopy whose groining is finely ornamented with bosses of boldly
sculptured foliage. Upon the wall at each end of the arch, and opposite
to the head and feet of the Bishop, are two angels painted in fresco.
Those at the feet hold a blank shield, but at the other end the painting
is too much damaged to allow the object they hold to be made out. The
whole throne has once been richly gilded and coloured, and contains many
shields with the Bishop’s and other arms upon them. In the construction
of the upper portion of the throne it is not well fitted into the space
it occupies between the pillars, and some of its parts do not quite
correspond with each other. The impression given by these incongruities
is that Hatfield used some pieces of stonework already carved before he
planned the throne, and that it possibly was, like the Galilee, not
intended from the first to occupy the position in which it was
ultimately placed.
Another beautiful piece of work of about the same period as the throne
is the screen behind the high-altar, commenced to be built in 1372 and
finished before 1380, when the altar was dedicated. It is commonly
called the Neville Screen, on account of a great part of the expense of
erecting it having been defrayed by John, Lord Neville, of Raby, though
Prior Fossor (1341-74), Prior Berrington (1374-91), and others, bore
some part of the cost. It was brought from London to Newcastle by sea,
and has always been spoken of as made of Caen stone, "French peere" as
it is called in the rites of Durham, being really Dorsetshire clunch.
St. Cuthbert is said to have had a more than usual monastic dislike to
women--though some of his most intimate friends were women--and
therefore to have built the Lady Chapel at the east end of the choir,
the ordinary position, which was close to his shrine, would have been
most distasteful to him. No woman, indeed, was allowed to approach
farther eastward in the church than as far as a line of dark-coloured
Frosterley marble, forming a cross with two short limbs at the centre,
which stretches across the nave between the piers, just west of the
north and south doors. The Chapel of the Blessed Virgin,[9] commonly
called the Galilee, was therefore placed where we now see it. It rises
almost directly from the edge of the river-bank, and is built against
the west front of the church. It is of an oblong form, of five aisles
divided by four arcades, each of four bays, the aisles being all of the
same width. The middle aisle is higher than those adjoining, and these
again are higher than the extreme north and south ones. The arches,
richly decorated with zigzag, are supported upon columns, originally
composed of two slender shafts of Purbeck marble, but now of four
shafts, alternately of marble and sandstone, the latter, added by
Cardinal Langley when he repaired the Galilee in which he placed his
tomb in front of the altar, having capitals of plain volutes, which are
very characteristic of the Transitional period. The chapel was entered
from without through a doorway on the north side, which has been
restored, the old one, however, having been exactly copied to the
minutest parts. The doorway is deeply recessed, the wall being increased
in thickness on both sides in the manner usual at that time, and is a
fine example of the style in use when it was erected. Access to the
church from the Galilee was also obtained through the great west door,
which was probably not blocked up until Bishop Langley placed the altar
of the Blessed Virgin there, and made two doors, one at the north and
the other at the south end of the west wall. The chapel was at first
lighted by eight round-headed windows, placed high in the wall above the
arches of the outer arcade on the north and south sides, and no doubt
had other windows at the west end. The three windows in the north wall
and the four in the south, originally inserted about the close of the
thirteenth century, when the walls were raised in height, have all been
renewed, so far as the mullions and tracery are concerned. It is
probable that at the same time five similar windows were placed in the
west wall, of which only two are now left, the others having given place
to three fifteenth-century windows. At the time when these important
alterations were made, the original windows in the wall above the arches
were probably blocked up. Their outline, however, is still to be traced
quite distinctly.
It must not be overlooked that the shrine containing the bones of the
Venerable Bede were ultimately placed in the Galilee in 1370, in front
of his altar. The bones are now placed in a plain tomb, having upon it
the well-known inscription, which, however, was only engraved on the
covering slab in 1830:
HAC SUNT IN FOSSA BEDÆ VENERABILIS OSSA.
There are some beautiful and well-preserved fresco paintings on the east
wall at its north end. They are contemporary with the building, and
comprise a King and Bishop, probably St. Oswald and St. Cuthbert, and
some tasteful decoration of conventional leaf forms, very
characteristic of the art of the period. The lower part of the back of
the recess, on the sides of which the figures occur, is filled with a
representation of hangings, the middle of which is now defaced, but
where, before the Dissolution, was a picture of our Lady with the dead
Christ. It is not impossible that the principal altar of the Blessed
Virgin originally stood there, and was transferred by Cardinal Langley
to the position it afterwards occupied when he probably built up the
great western doorway of the church. The site in question was, up to the
time of the Reformation, devoted to the altar of Our Lady of Pity, or
Piety, which may have been removed thither by Langley from the recess to
the north of it, which is surmounted by an arch with the dentel moulding
of a date apparently not later than the commencement of the thirteenth
century--a removal necessitated by his making there one of the two new
doorways into the Galilee. These paintings are not only of great
interest in themselves, but they possess a further one of being the only
specimens of fresco decoration in the cathedral which are now anything
more than mere fragments. The arches and capitals in the Galilee have
also been enriched by colour, among the designs being a zigzag and
spiral pattern. It does not appear that this kind of decoration had ever
been used to any great extent throughout the church, for very few
remains of it were discovered when the modern whitewash was lately
removed.
In the aisle, however, of the north transept, where the altars of St.
Benedict and St. Gregory and that of St. Nicholas and St. Giles once
stood, there are some portions of the pictures which adorned the wall
behind them, including, in connection with St. Gregory’s altar, the
upper part of a figure vested with the pallium. There are also some
scanty remnants of colour left behind the altars of Our Lady of Houghall
and Our Lady of Bolton in the aisle of the south transept. The site of
the Neville Chantry in the south aisle of the nave still contains
sufficient remains of the delicate and tasteful pattern to enable one
to judge what the design has been, and slight traces of colour are to be
found upon the arches of the arcade behind the altars in the Chapel of
the Nine Altars. It is probable, indeed, that the walls behind all the
altars in the church have been more or less decorated with painting,
though certainly it had not been used generally on the church itself.
The point of junction between the Norman choir and the
thirteenth-century work which connects it with the eastern transept may
be placed at the fourth pier from the eastern tower arch on each side.
The arch of the triforium next these piers comes close up to them,
whereas in the corresponding piers to the west there is a space between
the arch and the pier. The same feature is to be seen in the triforium
arch, which is next to the piers of the tower arch, which have five
shafts, the others having only three. It is very probable that the piers
at the entrance of the apse supported a larger transverse arch than the
others, corresponding in this to the great tower arch, and that the
supporting piers had, like those at the entrance of the choir, five
shafts. These piers, the body of which forms a part of Carileph’s Norman
work, untouched where they face into the aisles, have been encased on
the choir face with very rich and tasteful decoration of about the
middle of the thirteenth century. Above, upon each side of the choir, is
a figure of an angel under a canopy, that on the south side holding a
crown in the left hand, the other having lost the uplifted hand and what
it once held. They are the only two left out of a numerous host of
statues once decorating the church, and their beauty makes the
destruction which has befallen the others the more to be regretted.
After the Nine Altars was finished and the connecting part between it
and the choir completed, a new vault was put on to the choir, and the
whole of the original Norman vault was taken down. The reason for this
was almost certainly an artistic one: the sumptuously decorated vault of
the Nine Altars being of a pointed form, while the original plain vault
of the choir was semicircular, it would have been very difficult, if not
impossible, when the great transverse arch was taken down, to bring
these two forms into harmonious combination. It was replaced by one
which to a great extent in its mouldings and decoration corresponds with
that of the Nine Altars. This vault is in five compartments, and has
four richly moulded transverse arches in addition to the eastern arch of
the crossing. These arches are supported alternately on the main
vaulting-shafts, which rise from the floor, and on triple shafts, which
rise from the level of the triforium floor, and originally received the
diagonal ribs of the Norman vault. The diagonal ribs spring from the
outer shafts of the three semi-shafts and from the corresponding outer
shafts next to the main vaulting-shafts. The vault is quadripartite, but
in the eastern bay is an additional rib on each side--a quasi ridge-rib,
which runs north and south from the spandrils between the clerestory
arches, and unites at the intersection of the diagonal ribs. The
additional rib on the north side springs from a draped male seated
figure, on each side of which is a lacertine creature with its back to
the figure, and its head turned so that the mouth touches the hair,
while the tail curves towards the feet; that on the south side springs
from an angel. The wall ribs spring from shafts of Frosterley marble,
resting on inserted corbels or on the capitals of the Norman
vaulting-shafts. In the eastern angle of the eastern bay the wall rib on
each side springs from the head of a small canopy, which contains a
sculptured figure; that on the north side a demibishop blessing; that on
the south the upper half of a male figure.
Whatever difficulty, however, there may have been in collecting the
necessary funds for the erection of this noble addition to the church of
Bishop William of St. Carileph, first projected by Bishop Poore, no
expense or pains has been spared in its being carried out to perfection,
and the vault of the Nine Altars and choir, the last part of this great
work, with its enrichment of dog-tooth ornament of various and graceful
forms, and bosses of foliage and figure subjects, fitly completes the
building in a style no less beautiful and effective than the walls which
support it. It may be asserted without fear of contradiction that no
more effective or majestic vault crowns any church in our country.
The cloister occupies a considerable space of ground left open at the
centre, where the lavatory was placed, and was enclosed on the north
side by the church, and on the other sides by those various structures
which had relation to the household economy of the monastery and to its
domestic and political life. Around it, in the dormitory and refectory,
the monks slept, lived, and ate. They studied in the library and in the
small wooden chambers--carells, as they were called--one of which was
placed in front of each compartment of the windows of the north alley,
which, like the east one, was glazed, the latter containing in its
windows the history of St. Cuthbert. In the west alley the novices had
their school, where they were taught by the master of the novices, "one
of the oldest monks that was learned," who had opposite to them "a
pretty seat of wainscot, adjoining to the south side of the treasury
door."
In the treasury, situated at the north end of the crypt under the
dormitory, and which is still divided by its ancient iron grating, were
kept the title-deeds and other muniments of the church, in themselves no
small treasure. At the other end of the same crypt was the common house,
the only place where there was a fire for ordinary use, and which was
frequented by the monks as their room for converse and recreation, and
which had in connection with it a garden and a bowling alley.
In the chapter-house on the east side the monks met the Prior between
five and six o’clock "every night there to remain in prayer and
devotion" during that time. Here also at other times they assembled in
chapter to regulate all matters connected with the life within the
body, and to order the many transactions which as a great corporation
the convent necessarily had with the world without. Close by, on the one
side of the chapter-house, out of which it opened, was the prison, where
for minor offences a monk was confined; and on the other side was the
passage through which his body was conveyed to his last home in the
cemetery beyond.
Opening out of the dormitory to the east, at its south end, where a
modern doorway has replaced the earlier one, is a room which was called
by the monks "the loft," and which forms, in connection with the
refectory, the south side of the cloister. It was the place where the
monks, with the Subprior presiding, ordinarily dined, having beneath it
what was once the cellar of the convent. Beyond this, to the east, was
the refectory, or frater-house, standing above the early crypt which has
already been described, where the Prior and monks dined together on
March 20--St. Cuthbert’s Day. Whatever it was before then, though
possibly the original building still remained, in part at least,
unaltered, it was entirely reconstructed by Dean Sudbury (1662-84), who
made it into the library, transferring the books from the old library
adjoining to the chapter-house, and filling it with the handsome and
commodious oak cases which now furnish it. Near to it, on the
south-west, is the kitchen of the monastery, now attached to the
deanery, an octagonal building which well deserves examination.
Returning to the cloister, there may still be seen at the centre of the
garth what is left above ground of the lavatory. It was originally an
octagonal structure, the upper part being occupied as a dovecote. The
basin was begun in 1432, and completed the next year. The marble
stones of the basin, which still exists, were brought from
Eggleston-on-the-Tees, of the Abbot of which monastery they were bought.
The basin is not _in situ_, but has at some time been removed from its
original situation, "over against the frater-house door," where the
foundations of a circular, or octagonal, building were discovered in
1903, and with them those of an earlier building, square in form, with
the substructure of an earlier basin.
Before concluding the description of the church, it is necessary that a
few words should be said about the exterior. It has charms of its own
which, in spite of the disasters it has undergone in the shape of paring
down and refacing, still makes it one of our noblest churches.
It must be admitted that, on account of the removal of some inches from
the surface of the stone,[10] and the consequent curtailment of
mouldings in their projections and hollows, there is a want of light and
shade which much detracts from its effect when seen near at hand.
Indeed, the first impression made is perhaps one of disappointment. The
east end is especially flat and bald, and with its ill-designed modern
pinnacles forms but a poor clothing to the wondrous beauty which is to
be seen within the Nine Altars. But with all these drawbacks, when
viewed as a whole, and when distance has lent its compensating power,
the cathedral, its lofty central tower rising in harmonious combination
with the two western ones, stands sublime in its grand outline, and
fitly crowns the hill of Durham.
FINCHALE PRIORY
BY J. TAVENOR-PERRY
After the Romans had completed the subjection of the Brigantes they
constructed a great military road through the centre of their country
from Eburicum, which became the capital of the province, to the Tweed
and the country beyond. This road intersected the county of Durham from
north to south, and much of its course can still be traced from its
point of entry at Pierce Bridge, through Vinovium or Binchester in
Auckland, Epiacum or Lanchester, and Vindomora or Ebchester where it
passes over the Derwent into Northumberland. From Binchester a branch
road led by way of Chester-le-Street to the Pons Ælii or Newcastle,
which was continued by another branch to Jarrow and South Shields
passing along the south bank of the Tyne. This great military road and
the branch to Newcastle were cut through the dense forest which then
covered the whole of Durham and which continued through Saxon times to
form an almost impassable boundary, save by these roads, between the
closely associated provinces of Deira and Bernicia. The considerable
remains of the Roman towns still standing after the conquest of
Northumbria by the Angles were no doubt occupied by them as settlements;
and we find it stated in the life of St. Cuthbert that when he was
crossing the wild country of Durham and was like to be starved he found
succour from someone residing in the buildings still remaining at
Chester-le-Street. Along the sides of the roads, between the towns,
would be the ruins, not then entirely destroyed, of villas and other
buildings which may have formed places for rest or refuge to those who
like the saint traversed these dangerous forest paths, from which may
have been derived the names of localities still in use although the
ruins after which they were called have long since been forgotten. The
monks who were conveying the body of St. Cuthbert to its final
resting-place were directed to take it to Dunholm, and an accident
revealed to them the obscure place which then bore that name; and when
St. Godric was directed to repair to Finchale and there build himself a
hermitage, he only discovered there was a place so called by a chance
conversation he had with a monk at Durham.
The name of Finchale must have been well known in the ninth century if
we accept the common and reasonable belief that it was a place of
meeting of two or three important councils concerned with the affairs of
Northumbria. Its position in reference to the great road passing to the
South, its accessibility to the neighbouring town of Chester-le-Street
only three or four miles distant, and its comparative seclusion in the
great surrounding forest made it particularly suitable for such
meetings, which were held, as Bishop Stubbs says in his _Constitutional
History_, generally on the confines of states whence those assembled
might easily retire at nightfall to safer places. The councils held in
Northumbria during the latter part of the eighth century met at a time
when the country was not only disturbed by internal troubles, but
already threatened by the Danish pirates along the coast; and the forest
depths of Durham were safer for such meetings than the more open lands
of Northumberland or Yorkshire. The affix of "hale," the Saxon "hal,"
signifies the existence of a hall or some building, perhaps the remains
of a Roman villa, which would have served as a temporary shelter for the
members of a council, of which all traces have long since disappeared;
but, taking all the circumstances together, we may fairly assume that
Finchale was the place in which these Northumbrian councils met, and the
name still lingered in the locality when St. Godric established himself
within its glades on the banks of the rushing Wear.
This Godric, whose name is indissolubly associated with Finchale Priory,
although he was in no sense the founder of it, was as selfish and dirty
an old anchorite as ever attained the brevet rank of sainthood. Born
about 1065, the first thirty years of his life were spent as a pedlar
and sailor, during which he travelled far and wide, and met with many
adventures; and the remainder he spent in pilgrimages or a hermit-life
of penance and prayer. The _Dictionary of National Biography_ gives a
very complete history of him, compiled from all available sources, the
most important being the MS. life by his contemporary Nicholas of
Durham. While he was leading the roving life of a pedlar he was nearly
drowned in trying to catch a porpoise, and afterwards made a pilgrimage
to Rome, presumably in thankfulness for his rescue. But the time was
unfortunate, for it appears to have been about 1086, when Gregory VII.,
Hildebrand, had just died in exile, when the Anti-Pope Clement III. was
in possession of the Vatican, while the newly elected Pope Victor III.
was afraid to enter Rome, which then lay sunk in the most frightful
anarchy. The spectacle he beheld could scarcely then have induced him to
accept a religious vocation; and we find that for sixteen years
afterwards he led a seafaring life, trading between England, Scotland,
Flanders and Denmark, presently going so far afield as the Holy Land,
where the Chronicler’s description of him as "Gudericus pirata de regno
Angliae" sufficiently indicates the character of his occupation.
Returning thence, he paid a visit to the shrine of St. James of
Compostella; and when he reached home he accepted a menial position in
the house of a countryman, which suggests that he had not made much
money by his ventures. But with a restless spirit on him he went two
more pilgrimages to Rome, and the second time he took his mother with
him carrying her, it is said, on his shoulders where the way was
difficult. It was on this journey that he was accompanied by a lady of
wondrous beauty, whom he met on his way in London, who left him there
again on his return, and who nightly washed his feet; a story which
perhaps grew out of the custom of noble ladies, and which became more
common later on, of washing the feet of pilgrims in penance for some
special sin, in the manner described by Charles Reade in _The Cloister
and the Hearth_. On his return, somewhere about 1104, he settled for a
time at Carlisle, and then went to share his cell with a hermit named
Aelrice, by Wolsingham, and perhaps learn the lessons which were to
guide him in his future life. After a stay here of only seventeen months
the hermit died, and directed, he believed, by St. Cuthbert, Godric went
again on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, after which he was instructed to
return and take up his residence at Finchale. Not knowing the locality
by name he returned to Durham where he resided for some time until a
chance conversation disclosed the whereabouts of the place.
When he at length retired to Finchale he seems to have found there the
remains of some ancient building, perhaps of a Roman villa, which may
have given its name to the place, and which may not only have formed a
sufficient residence for the hermit but for the other members of his
family who came to reside with him. The site of this dwelling was a
little nearer to Durham than is the present Priory, and the lands around
were a hunting-ground (the villa may have been a hunting-lodge)
belonging to Bishop Ralph Flambard who gave Godric permission to settle
here, so that possession must have been taken before 1128, the date of
the Bishop’s death. Adjoining to this residence he seems to have built
a wooden chapel which was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and about
twenty years after he built another of stone which was consecrated by
Bishop William de St. Barbara, dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre and St.
John Baptist, and regularly served by a priest from Durham. As well as
the many self-imposed mortifications he endured, he was much troubled by
the serpents with which the place abounded, but which, at his command,
departed; but if we may believe the equally veracious story of "the
loathly worm of Lambton," a witch as well as a saint had a hand in that
achievement.
Godric, who was bedridden with rheumatism, the result of his senile
excesses, for eight years before his death, died in 1170, during the
episcopacy of Bishop Hugh de Puiset, or Pudsey, who appears to have
personally interested himself in the Finchale oratory; and under his
directions two monks from the Durham convent, named Henry and Reginald,
took up their residence in the place. In 1180 Pudsey confirmed the
priory of Durham in their possession of Finchale and added lands and
other benefactions to those already granted by Flambard; and thus no
doubt the attention of his son Henry was drawn to the place.
Henry de Pudsey, who may be regarded as the founder of Finchale, was
Bishop Pudsey’s eldest illegitimate son, and must have been born some
long time before his father succeeded to the see as the Bishop had other
children younger than Henry. His mother was Adelaide de Percy from whom
he appears to have inherited a good deal of land in Craven, as well as
the manors of Wingate and Haswell, with which he afterwards endowed
Finchale. At some period not long before the death of Godric he seems to
have been engaged in founding a small establishment for Austen Canons at
a place called Bakstanford not far from Neville’s Cross to which the
monks of Durham seem to have objected as an intrusion of a foreign order
within their immediate sphere of influence. Whether it was in
consequence of their protests or at the wish of his father is uncertain,
but he suspended his operations and transferred his endowments to
Finchale; and there he erected new monastic buildings for the
accommodation of a colony of Benedictines from Durham who, under Thomas
the Sacrist as Prior, took possession of the convent in 1196, a year
after the death of Bishop Pudsey. It was apparently the intention also
of Henry to rebuild Godric’s church in a more suitable manner, but in
1198 he became involved in some political troubles and went crusading in
1201 from which he did not return until 1212; and he left the rebuilding
of the church to be carried out by the community.
[Illustration: PISCINA IN CHOIR.]
The building of a new church seems to have been taken in hand in 1242, a
year memorable in the annals of Durham Cathedral as the one which saw
the beginning of the great eastern transept of the "Nine Altars," under
the auspices of Prior Thomas of Melsamby, of whom Canon Greenwell says:
"He was one of the greatest men who have sat in the prior’s chair at
Durham." The subservient position which Finchale held to the Durham
convent necessitated the assent of its Prior to so important an
undertaking; and it is not improbable that he may have pointed out the
necessity of the work and that his architect, Richard de Farnham, was
responsible for the design. Although of but modest dimensions for a
priory church, and but little longer and wider than the chapel which the
Brus family had recently built near by at Hartlepool, it was still on
too ambitious a scale for the limited resources of the convent; and the
work dragged on for a number of years, and was never completed in its
entirety. Its chief internal dimensions were--total length of nave and
choir 194 feet and of the transepts 99 feet; the widths of the nave and
choir were 23 feet and of the transepts 21 feet, while the width across
the unbuilt aisles would have been 52 feet. But the aisles would seem
never to have been finished, and though Mackensie Walcot pathetically
says that "it was the hand of the monk which pulled down the chapel of
the transept and the aisles of the choir and nave" it seems more than
likely that they were never begun, and that the idea was abandoned for
lack of funds soon after the nave and choir arcades had been completed.
It is probable that the choir only was roofed in in a temporary manner,
and that the nave and perhaps the transepts as well were not enclosed
until the works were seriously resumed in the next century. The wars
with Scotland caused much trouble within the county of Durham, and
doubtless affected the revenues of the priory, although there is nothing
to show that the monks were disturbed in any way by the invaders; but
twice the Scotch armies appeared upon the Wear, first under the Douglas
just before the treaty of Northampton made in 1328, and again in 1346
when they were defeated at the Battle of Neville’s Cross within sight of
the cathedral.
All works were suspended at Durham as well as at Finchale for the same
reasons, but with the return of peace and under the energetic sway of
Prior John Fossor they were resumed; and no doubt under his direct
[Illustration: CHOIR.]
influence and perhaps with his assistance the completion of the church
at Finchale was undertaken. The account rolls of the priory from 1348
begin to mention large quantities of material bought for the works and
money expended upon labour until 1372 when we may consider the fabric of
the church was finished. Instead of building the aisles as originally
intended, they filled up the moulded arches of the arcades with walling
in which they inserted traceried windows; and they seemed to have roofed
in the buildings at a level but little above the top of the arches
without any clerestory but sufficiently high to clear the great arches
of the crossing. Whether the crossing was vaulted is not quite certain,
but some stones found among the ruins seem to indicate remains of groin
ribs, and it was raised as a low tower, and covered in all probability
with a squat, leaded spire such as those which once stood on the western
towers of the cathedral. The windows which had their heads filled in
with reticulated tracery were, with those of Easington Church and those
inserted in the cathedral by Prior Fossor, among the most important
Decorated work in the county. The east end of the choir had originally
three lancet windows, but either at this time or later a large traceried
window was inserted in their place, the cost of reglazing which appears
in the accounts for 1488. A reredos to the high-altar was erected about
1376 during the period when the great Neville screen was in course of
construction in the cathedral. The exact position it occupied in the
choir is not now evident, as the position of the original double piscina
(see p. 135) and the sedilia left but little room for such an erection,
and it seems to have involved some alteration in the arrangements of the
east end. It is clear from existing remains that it was originally
intended to build a chapel on the east side of the north transept and
possibly a corresponding one to the south transept, the former with an
altar dedicated to St. Godric and the latter to the Blessed Virgin, but
these chapels were abandoned at the completion; the whole south transept
became the Lady Chapel, and it has been suggested that the shrine of St.
Godric was removed to the extreme east end of the choir, from which it
was cut off by the new reredos, in which case another piscina which has
disappeared must have been made for the service of the high-altar. The
ancient sedilia of which there were three were cut into and reduced to
two when the large traceried window was inserted in the south wall of
the choir, and our illustration (see p. 137) shows not only this
alteration but what is supposed to have been the base of the reredos.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH FROM THE NORTH-WEST.]
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE RUINS OF FINCHALE PRIORY.]
The arches, which had been left open on the eastern face of the
transepts, were filled in in the same manner as the nave arcades but
with two-light windows in the walling except in the case of the south
transept where there is a five-light window, with the heads uncusped,
beneath which was the altar of the Blessed Virgin. In 1469 sixty
shillings was paid for glazing this window. The west walls of the
transepts contain the only original windows left complete, the south
transept having a short lancet which looked over the cloister roof, and
the north transept has two narrow and lofty lancets. The lancets at the
north end of the transept were doubtless removed for a traceried window
as in the choir; but the triplets of the west front were left
undisturbed, and their remains and the beautifully simple west front,
together with the lancets of the transepts, are shown in our
illustration (see p. 139).
[Illustration: FRONT OF THE CHAPTER HOUSE.]
[Illustration: CRYPT UNDER REFECTORY.]
The conventual buildings were all placed on the south side of the church
and their arrangement, so far as they exist at the present time, is
shown on the general plan (see p. 140). They were to a great extent
erected at the same time as the church, that is during the thirteenth
century, but were far from completed, and the account rolls show that
they were not finished before the latter half
[Illustration: THE PRIOR’S LODGING.]
of the fifteenth century; but it is quite possible that some of the
buildings erected by Henry de Pudsey continued in use until the new ones
were ready for occupation. The chapter-house adjoins the south transept
and still retains its front over which one of the dormitory windows can
yet be seen (see p. 141). To the south of the cloister are considerable
remains of the refectory, raised, as at Durham, above a vaulted basement
(see p. 142); it was lighted by a fine range of lancet windows on either
side, and had a fireplace at the west end, and over it was another
chamber the use of which is not apparent. By the west front of the
church a guest-house for the poorer travellers was erected about 1464 in
two storeys, the lower one containing an oven; but the superior guests
were entertained in the Prior’s lodging. Although surrounded by earlier
buildings, the cloister was not completed until the second building
epoch, the north walk occupying the site of the proposed south aisle of
the nave, and the original doorway which had been built to be the south
door of the church now crosses the east walk at the north end.
The Prior’s lodgings (see p. 143) form an important and picturesque
group of buildings standing by themselves to the south-east of the
church, much in the same position as those of Durham. The vaulted
basement under the Prior’s hall and most of the substructure may be the
earliest part of the conventual buildings remaining, and earlier in date
than the church, though much of the upper storey which contains the
hall, camera and chapel belong to the subsequent periods. The low
building at the west end containing a fireplace, which has been
described as the Prior’s kitchen, seems to be the building which,
according to the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1836, was the "spacious
entertainment room" which Mr. Prebendary Spence erected for the use of
the picnic parties which have in modern times pervaded the ruins. To the
north of the Prior’s lodging, separated from it only in the basement
story, is the building mentioned in the account rolls for 1460 under the
name of the "Douglestour." How it came by this name is uncertain, but as
the lower part of the building was standing in 1328 when Douglas and his
Scots made their raid across Northumberland to the banks of the Wear,
it may have gained it through some association with him. The upper
storey of the tower formed the Prior’s camera and had at the north end
an embayed window which commanded a charming prospect of the river and
the Cocken woods beyond. St. Godric was reputed to be the special patron
of women, and this encorbelled window-base was known by them as the
"wishing-chair"; but whatever was its charm, the spell was broken when
the monks left the convent at the Reformation.
At the Dissolution, as its income was less than £200 per annum, the
Priory was treated as one of the lesser monasteries and suppressed in
1536, when the site was granted to the Bishop of Durham, and the
buildings were left neglected; but their ruin was hastened by being
treated as a stone-quarry. It does not appear that the Priory was ever
purposely damaged otherwise, and it remains, after three centuries of
neglect, a more perfect and picturesque ruin than many of higher
importance and more beautiful architecture.
MONKWEARMOUTH AND JARROW
BY THE REV. D. S. BOUTFLOWER, M.A.
It is almost impossible for the student of history to dissociate the two
names. In their earliest origin, in the ups and downs of their long
existence, and almost, if not quite, in their present conditions, the
sister churches have met with one and the same experience. Their
foundations were laid within the short period of ten years; they have
arisen and decayed and revived (and that more than once) almost
simultaneously. They have shared together honour and neglect, wealth and
poverty. In all things and at all times the supreme desire of their
great founder has been fulfilled, and Monkwearmouth and Jarrow have been
one. Planted long ago as outposts of religious culture brought oversea
to the mouths of the Wear and the Tyne, the Churches of St. Peter and
St. Paul are now the centres of populous districts. Like other churches
around them, they have their own busy church life; but, unlike to and
above the rest, these two stand as witnesses of the antiquity and
continuity of the Christian faith in England. The churches where Bede
worshipped are still, at least in part, the churches of the twentieth
century. The Gospels which he expounded are heard at their Communion
services to-day.
Much of their history must be sought for and read in the buildings
themselves. The first thing they will tell us is that they belong to a
very early period of Saxon art. We have other evidence to assure us that
these were
[Illustration: MONKWEARMOUTH CHURCH.]
among the first stone churches in England, and to tell how masons were
brought from the Continent to erect them. The singular height of the
church at Monkwearmouth would lead us to the same conclusion. They were
thus churches of quite a peculiar type, a type destined to undergo many
modifications in later times. In Monkwearmouth and Jarrow you are face
to face with the earliest form of English ecclesiastical architecture.
We have no need to ask about the builders, or to wrangle over the date
of their foundation. There are darker and lighter periods in any
history; Monkwearmouth and Jarrow have, indeed, known much of both. But
the light shines clearly enough upon their early days. For Monkwearmouth
saw the birth and Jarrow the death of the patriarch of English
historians. Both places claim him as altogether their own. In the united
convent of St. Peter and St. Paul he spent practically the whole of his
life. Like all great men, he said little about himself; but he has much
to tell us about his twofold home. We turn gladly enough to the writings
of Bede, and specially to his Lives of the Abbots. We find ourselves at
once in the presence of one who knew how to observe and to describe, to
admire but never to condemn; one who loved to dwell upon the beautiful
in the characters and works of men; a conscientious man withal, who
sought out and told the truth. It is he that relates to us how
Monkwearmouth and Jarrow grew.
It was not fifty years since the Christian faith had been first taught
to the Northumbrians, and less than forty since its permanent
establishment by the preaching of the gentle Aidan, when there came back
to his native kingdom of Northumbria a man of noble birth and cultured
training, Biscop, called Benedict. He had wealth and interest at his
command, and, above all things, a fervent zeal concentrated upon a
definite purpose. It was an age that had recently witnessed a revival of
monasticism; the life of contemplation had led on to study; orthodoxy
[Illustration: OLD STONE AT MONKWEARMOUTH.]
was the aim of trained thinkers; emotional minds dwelt on the
devotedness of the saintly life. Biscop himself was a traveller and a
student; he desired to found his own monastery, and to bring to it
treasures from foreign lands. His relative, King Ecgfrid, granted him
for this purpose an estate at the mouth of the Wear (A.D. 672). There he
built the Church of St. Peter, of which the western wall and porch still
remain. He brought with him (as we have seen) masons, and also glaziers,
who restored to England a science that had long been lost. The building
was quite peculiar in its dimensions--some 60 feet long, 30 high, and 20
broad. The singular proportions of Monkwearmouth Church, which have long
puzzled antiquaries, appear to be explained by a sermon in the now
printed works of Bede, and possibly preached in the church itself on
some anniversary of its dedication. They correspond with those of
Solomon’s Temple, the units in this last case being cubits. There was a
truly mathematical love of numbers in the mind of Bede, and he is
evidently pleased to explain how the three dimensions above mentioned
set forth in allegory the three Christian virtues of faith, hope, and
charity. The windows were small, and set high in the walls of the
building. You may see two of them, their splays adorned with baluster
shafts, in the western wall of the church. The south wall was adorned
with paintings representing scenes from the Gospel of St. John; a series
of pictures illustrating the Apocalypse occupied the northern wall. The
roof was adorned with portraits of the Virgin and of the Twelve
Apostles; the presumption is that it was in the form of a flat ceiling.
The whole arrangement of the building thus gave fair scope for light,
shelter, and decoration.
There was a second church soon afterwards erected at Monkwearmouth,
dedicated to St. Mary. There were also dining-rooms and porches and
sleeping apartments, in connection with the last of which there was an
oratory dedicated to St. Lawrence. Where these other buildings lay is
uncertain. Tradition says that they were to the west of the present
church. St. Mary’s Church was probably very much in this direction. In
the fourteenth century "the old kirk" was used as a granary.
The house at Monkwearmouth grew and prospered, a home of arts and
science and religion. There Bede began to acquire his wonderful
knowledge, and John the Chanter founded his great school of music. Seven
years after its foundation (A.D. 681) expansion became a necessity, and
a new grant of land was obtained, this time at Jarrow, on the south bank
of the Tyne. Seventeen persons, clerical and lay, were sent thither,
their leader being Ceolfrid, to whose care Bede, already for two years
an inmate of the older monastery, was committed. Soon after this event
Biscop departed on his last visit to Rome, leaving his stalwart kinsman
Eosterwini to rule at Monkwearmouth. He was absent for more than three
years, an eventful time, during which both houses suffered grievously
from a visitation of the plague. Eosterwini was its most notable victim,
whilst at Jarrow nearly the whole convent was stricken down. At that
place, as an anonymous writer informs us, only Ceolfrid and one boy,
obviously Bede, were left to chant the daily services. The above facts
will explain the delay in the consecration of the great church at
Jarrow, which, according to a contemporary inscription still preserved,
was not dedicated till the fourth year of Ceolfrid’s presidency.
Of this church only some stones now remain. A smaller church had,
however, been first built and consecrated, and it is this which forms
the chancel of Jarrow Church to-day. Its dimensions do not suggest any
special meaning. Twenty-eight feet to the west of it, and lying
precisely in the same right line, stood at one time a fabric precisely
similar to that of St. Peter’s, Monkwearmouth, the same, apparently, in
length and breadth and height, and lighted by windows of the same type
and in the same position. Annexed to it on the north and south were a
number of apartments, undoubtedly to be identified with the _porches_ in
Bede’s account of Monkwearmouth, chambers opening by round-headed arches
into the church itself. The arches on the north side, and vestiges of
three rooms on the south, remained as late as the year 1769. Probably
one such porch as this stood at the eastern end of the building; this we
know was the case at Monkwearmouth. These apartments, walled off as they
were from each other, would be used for prayer and study, and sometimes
as places of sepulture. They were probably constructed in imitation of
the chambers round Solomon’s temple.
This, then, appears to have been the church which it took so long to
complete, and in this building was set up the dedication stone above
mentioned. It was erected and consecrated under the auspices of King
Aldfrid (brother and successor to Ecgfrid), and the Abbot Ceolfrid.
Biscop himself was still abroad, but soon afterwards returned to
England, bringing with him many books and pictures, one series of which,
depicting the events of our Lord’s life, was ranged as a crown round the
Church of St. Mary in the greater monastery; another, representing the
Gospel story by type and antitype, adorned the monastery and Church of
St. Paul. Biscop’s last homecoming had its sorrows. He found Eosterwini
dead, and his successor Sigfrid slowly dying of consumption. Then there
came to himself a stroke of paralysis. Very touching is the story told
us of the last days of the two Abbots. The greater man feels the greater
anxiety. His much-prized library is not to be dispersed, but before all
things the unity of the double foundation is to be maintained. Before
his end comes he appoints Ceolfrid to govern the united monastery of St.
Peter and St. Paul.
The narrative continues till the year 716, when the aged Ceolfrid
resigned his charge, and departed to die, as he hoped, at Rome. But this
was not to be. His last moments were spent at Langres, near Lyons. But
one great work of Northumbrian art passed on by other hands to
Italy--the splendid manuscript of the Vulgate, now known as the Codex
Amiantinus, and preserved in the Medicean Library at Florence.
Bede himself lived on in his old home till the year 735. The story of
his end is too well known to need repetition here. Before his death
Northumbria had fallen from its former glory. A period of darkness
supervenes, broken here and there by the lurid light of Danish
invasions. Yet the churches of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow lasted on,
sacked, it might be, burned and desolated, but still saved from total
destruction.
The period of depression that followed the golden days of the twin
monasteries has left us but scanty memorials of their history. We begin
to hear of times of insecurity, of attacks made upon the eastern coast
of England by Danish pirates. The situations of the two churches would,
under these circumstances, be distinctly against them. Jarrow is to this
day conspicuous; it is probably less well known that Monkwearmouth
Church stood for centuries upon the top of a hill. This is shown quite
clearly in the engraving of the year 1785. The sea rovers would take
their own survey of the coast and its harbours, and would make for any
place that offered promise of pillage. There is much good and rich land
between the Wear and the Tyne, and the monks of early days were
assiduous cultivators. The country of Wilfrid and Biscop and Bede was no
uncivilized or neglected part of the world. To a pagan race there would
be no impediment in the form of religious scruples. The wealth of the
Church would but invite the spoilers to their prey.
And so the Danes came first to Northern England, to begin with, somewhat
tentatively, in the year 793, harrying the island of Lindisfarne,
plundering its monastery, and burning the church. The next year their
ships put into the Tyne. On the hill overlooking the slake, just where
that river receives its tributary the Don, stood the monastery of
Jarrow, Egfrid’s Port lying immediately below it. Here they landed, and
took such booty as they found. But the people of the neighbourhood
rallied, and drove back the invaders to their ships. Few of them made
good their escape, for the wind was against them. The storm came up into
the river, and the fugitives were driven to the shore, where they and
their chieftain, Ragner Lodbrog, met with the vengeance they deserved.
It is quite clear that the lesson thus given was not forgotten. We hear
no more of Danish invasions for well on to sixty years. When they
recommenced, they were directed elsewhere. In the year 851 the Danes
landed in Sheppey, and this time they came to stay. The chroniclers have
much to say about _the Army_; but it was not till the year 875 that it
marched into Northern England, and then probably not much beyond York;
it moved south two years later. But meanwhile there had no doubt been
many a raid upon the settlements on the coast. The year 866 was marked
by one of the most serious of these. At that date Hingvar and Hubba
burned the church of Monkwearmouth. The traces of this conflagration are
still distinctly perceptible. Again in the year 875 the fleet of Halfdan
was in the Tyne. Contemporaneously with this event took place the flight
from Lindisfarne, and the commencement of the journeyings of the body of
St. Cuthbert.
How the Danish power was driven back by Alfred, how his wise policy
reclaimed the half of his kingdom, is a well-known part of our national
history. The final triumph was not so much one of war as of peace. The
wisdom of a very great King effected much; the growing strength of
recovering Christianity did the rest. Never did any ruler so effectually
combine the forces of secular and spiritual power, or hold them more
truly in balance and co-operation. The invaders became settlers, and
have left this part of their history in the names of their new homes.
This is especially true of Lincolnshire; then, hardly less decidedly, of
York. But north of the Tees the English population simply retained lands
which they had never ceased to occupy. Danish place-names in the county
of Durham are few and far between.
[Illustration: ORNAMENTAL STONEWORK, MONKWEARMOUTH CHURCH.]
This is so much evidence--and it is worth something--in favour of the
supposition that the sister churches of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow were
not left to permanent ruin. The population of the neighbourhood was, and
remained, English, and would no doubt be warmly attached to the ancient
sanctuaries. Their hearts and minds would be as faithful to the sacred
memories of the past as were those of the wanderers who guarded the body
of St. Cuthbert. That there was no revolution in the history of this
particular district may be presumed from the silence which veils this
part of the story of their two great churches. The theory here advocated
appears to be further confirmed by the one incident recorded at this
period in connection with the church of Jarrow.
The old faith in the potency of the relics of the saints remained
unshaken through all periods of sunshine or of gloom. Respect for the
past and for the good clings to the devoted Churchman of every age; it
may sometimes even be strong enough to overpower his moral principle. It
was so undoubtedly in the case of Ælfred, a monk of Durham in the early
part of the eleventh century. This man conceived himself to be divinely
commissioned to visit the sites of ancient monasteries and to gather
together the remains of departed martyrs and confessors. He was very
successful in his quest. Hexham and Melrose were laid under
contribution, and Jarrow was not likely to be forgotten. To it he paid
an annual visit on the anniversary of the death of Bede. At least once
he prolonged his stay for several days, fasting and praying in the
church. Then one morning he departed at a very early hour, and he
returned no more. What he had done may be inferred from the assurance
with which he stated in after-years that the remains of Bede were
resting in the grave of St. Cuthbert. From what we know of the man and
of the age there seems little room for dispute about the matter: it
appears, moreover, to have been corroborated at a later date by visual
evidence.
The story is of interest to us mainly as bearing witness to the fact
that in the year 1022 the church of Jarrow remained a popular centre of
worship. In the case of Monkwearmouth history and legend alike fail us;
we must judge for ourselves. The tower of the church was evidently built
at two distinct periods. The porch and the parvise over it appear to
belong to the age of the founder. They also show traces of the fires of
the Danes. This is not the case with the superstructure. Incontestably
of Saxon work, it belongs to the same period which saw the erection of
at least four church towers in the valley of the Tyne. As it exhibits no
traces of the burning of the year 866, its date and theirs must be
looked for somewhere in the next two centuries. The reign of the
Northumbrian Guthred (A.D. 884-894) has been ascertained to be a period
when relations between Church and State were more than ordinarily
friendly. At this time the tower of Monkwearmouth Church may well have
been completed. It can hardly have been built at a much later date, for
there is other and different work in the
[Illustration: JARROW CHURCH.]
same church which appears to belong to the age before the Conquest. The
modern arch between nave and chancel rises on its south side from an
ancient substructure, of which one feature is the cushion moulding at
its base. There is something here begun by Anglo-Saxon masons, but
carried out apparently by Norman builders. It was possibly a work of the
reign of Edward the Confessor, and apparently implies some
contemporaneous reconstruction of the early porch or chancel.
Subject, then, to the chances of time and of warfare, the churches of
Monkwearmouth and Jarrow still carried on their existence. The latter
was certainly in use at the date of the Conquest. This was a period of
trouble and disaster. Oswulf, the Earl of Northumberland, is displaced,
and soon after murders his successor. Gospatric next buys the earldom,
and forthwith rebels. The Conqueror marches northward in person, and
appoints Robert Cummin to the vacant office. He, too, is assassinated in
the city of Durham. This event is followed by the King’s return, and the
wholesale devastation of the lands north of York. Ethelwin the Bishop,
accompanied by his canons, flees northward with the body of St.
Cuthbert. They rest for a night in the church at Jarrow. Their pursuers
follow on their track and set the building on fire. Northumbria is
devastated by Norman and Scottish enemies at once; and for nine years
the land lies waste. During this period we may well believe that both
our churches stood unroofed and desolate; their walls, on the other
hand, certainly resisted the flames, and were preserved to be ere long
the home of a new band of settlers.
* * * * *
The Norman Conquest brought in its train a very distinct revival of
monasticism. This was part of the general movement in favour of order
and authority which then prevailed. It came, no doubt, originally from
Rome. It was, in fact, the characteristic of Rome from very early days.
It made itself felt in the eleventh century by the growth of the
military spirit, and later on by the gradual development of law. It
affected more immediately the religious side of national life. Clerical
celibacy began to be enforced, and the foundation of monasteries was
encouraged. The foreigners took the lead in this matter, amongst them
Walcher of Lorraine, Bishop of Durham. Hearing of a small party of
missionary monks who had just arrived at Monkchester (now Newcastle), he
made haste to invite them to settle in his own territory at Jarrow. We
are told that he gave them the churches there (the plural number is
significant). They were soon joined by others who had followed them from
the South--the men of the North stood aloof; they had at this time good
reason to be suspicious of Southern visitors. The numbers of the monks
grew, and their patron enlarged their estate to meet their increased
needs. Besides a large property in land on both sides of the Tyne, they
received a grant of the church of Monkwearmouth. Briers and trees were
standing within its walls; much the same thing was probably true of
Jarrow. But they set to work with energy to repair and to acquire and to
establish.
What they did at Monkwearmouth we are not able to say. Probably they
extended the eastern porch into the form of a chancel. Two centuries
later that chancel attained its present peculiar form--long and
narrow--as became the custom in this part of England; it is also
decidedly lofty, being apparently intended thus to correspond with the
ancient nave. Undoubtedly respect was from the first shown to those who
designed the original church. The same right sentiment may be observed
much more evidently in the case of Jarrow, with which as their first and
more important possession Bishop Walcher’s monks proceeded to deal at
once.
We have mentioned above the existence of two churches at Jarrow, and
have observed that there exists written corroboration of this. The
smaller church which stood to the east is the chancel of the present
building. Twenty-eight feet to the west of it was the termination of
the nave or main block of the western church, built precisely on the
quite mathematical lines of the elder fabric at Monkwearmouth. We may
presume of this building what we know to have been the case at St.
Peter’s, that there was a porch behind the altar, a building, that is to
say, with three walls and one open side. Such a building still exists in
the chancel of the Saxon church at Escomb, near Bishop Auckland.
Assuming that the porch at Jarrow was like that at Escomb, square, and
of proportionately larger dimensions, there would be a space of some
thirteen feet intervening between it and the eastern church. It was here
that the Norman builders would be disposed to erect their tower, and
here the tower was accordingly built, not foursquare after the Norman
model, but in an oblong form. The site occupies a rectangle of thirteen
by twenty-one feet. The lower stages of this structure are essentially
massive and very distinctly Norman in character. The highest storey, on
the other hand, less well executed as some think, has its own
ornateness; it was probably erected in the succeeding generation. If so,
we understand the better the set-back of its northern and southern
sides; the architect employed had, no doubt, his own opinion to the
effect that the tower ought to have been square.
[Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH SNAKES, MONKWEARMOUTH CHURCH.]
The principle adopted by Bishop Walcher’s monks appears to have been
that of reverent adaptation to immediate needs. They wished to repair
and to add, but not to destroy. Had their stay at their new home been
prolonged, the case would in time have been altered. Large medieval
buildings would have taken the place of the more primitive original
structures. But their sojourn at Jarrow lasted for only eight years. In
the year 1083 Bishop William of St. Carileph transferred them to his
cathedral. The extruded canons were placed at Auckland and Darlington,
and the Evesham Benedictines occupied the mother-church of the diocese.
It was all done in haste. It was repented of, no doubt, at leisure. In
the enthusiasm of the moment Bishop William founded the one and only
abbey in the Bishopric of Durham. His successors, we may well believe,
deplored what was politically and ecclesiastically a great mistake. But
what was done could not be undone by anything less than a revolution.
The Abbey of Durham grew and was strong. The magnificence of its
buildings tells of the wealth of the builders. The Durham Household Book
speaks of the stir and pomp and cheerfulness of its daily life.
Meanwhile, the two more ancient sanctuaries were reduced to the
insignificant condition of Cells. They were left with their old estates,
each under the rule of a master, appointed or removed by the Prior of
Durham at his will. Each master had one monk with him for company,
sometimes two, and very rarely three. The masters appear to have taken
but little interest in the spiritual affairs of their churches. The
naves of these buildings were considered the property of the
parishioners, who executed repairs at their own cost; an ill-paid
stipendiary, called the chaplain or parish priest, discharged all
parochial duties. The church of Jarrow had its chapels at Wallsend, at
Shields, and at Westoe. The first named of these was left very much to
itself; the very altar-fees of the other chapels, as well as those of
the churches, were the perquisite of the master, while the services of
the chaplain were remunerated at very much the same rate as those of the
monastery barber.
The result as regards the fabrics was much what might have been
expected. The nave at Monkwearmouth was left to itself; that at Jarrow
was at some time extended so as to include the ground occupied by its
eastern porch. The other porches or chapels that once flanked this
building may have served for a while as parts of the parish church; then
they fell one after another by a lingering process of decay. On the
other hand, Monkwearmouth Church was in course of time enlarged; a north
aisle was added in the thirteenth century; its very pleasing doorway has
been fortunately preserved. About the same time two rather large windows
were set to lighten the east end of the nave of Jarrow.
The case was different with the conventual part of the two churches. At
Monkwearmouth, as we have seen, the choir was made long and lofty. Two
Decorated windows were placed on its southern side; a third, similar to
the others, stood in the north wall, all traces of which seem to have
been destroyed in quite recent times. The date of these windows is fixed
by an entry in the account rolls under the year 1347. A little later an
east window of five lights was erected; it has been reproduced from its
fragments, and is not without merit. The design at Monkwearmouth is,
however, far better than the workmanship.
In the case of Jarrow it was not necessary to find a new chancel; the
old eastern church was quite sufficiently roomy. What was required was
light, and this was provided first by a north-east window and an east
window, each of three lights, and afterwards by two additional windows
of three lights, one on each side of the western end of the chancel. The
latest of these was inserted in the year 1350.
The two houses conducted their financial affairs in an easy way. They
wanted enough to live upon, but had no further ambitions. They did not
develop their estates, and were careless as to their fisheries. Jarrow
was the richer house, but Monkwearmouth was reckoned the healthier;
thither came the monks of Durham to enjoy the bracing air. Once, at any
rate, Jarrow had to contribute to their maintenance. The usual donations
were made--subscriptions to subsidies and to the needs of scholars at
Oxford. A singular entry is often repeated in the rolls--the cost of
wine for the parishioners’ Communion.
* * * * *
Such was the uneventful life of Jarrow and Monkwearmouth till the
revolution of 1536, which brought an end to the existence of the smaller
monasteries. These two were valued at £38 14s. 4d. and £26 9s. 9d.
respectively.
The property of both the cells passed thenceforth into lay hands, and
the churches became poorer still. To Jarrow was preserved the meagre
endowment of ten marks; to Monkwearmouth two marks less. The former
church had, moreover, Easter offerings and a small parsonage. The
incumbents of both had, of course, an uncertain income from fees. No
attempt to mend matters was made till the commencement of the nineteenth
century.
Before that period had arrived the neglected churches had at last fallen
quite into decay. The parishioners had had to do something; what they
did was to destroy the nave of Jarrow, and the southern (or Saxon) wall
of Monkwearmouth. These demolitions took place in 1782 and 1806
respectively. The result of the alterations and rebuildings no doubt
commended itself to those then concerned with such matters. We find a
picture of the new Monkwearmouth Church accompanied with a note of much
satisfaction in a contemporary number of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_.
Restorations followed in 1861 and 1873, but they could not give back the
past. What was spared has been treated with reverence. The west front of
Monkwearmouth still remains. The church, now apparently sunk into a
hollow, is surrounded by poor and crowded tenements, built upon ballast
brought from the Thames. The medieval chancel is there, its restored
windows now filled with Kempe’s beautiful glass. The music of its
services is worthy of the church of John the Chanter. Only we regret the
loss of the Saxon Church as it once stood upon its hill overlooking
river and sea. Jarrow has been more fortunate; it still crowns the hill
above its wide slake--a landmark well known to all those who use the
waterways of the Tyne. It, too, has its points of interest, its Saxon
chancel and its Norman tower. Much, of course, is missing in both
places. But there is still more than enough to attract and to fascinate
the mind of the Englishman and the Christian, who looks back to the
glories of that good old time that gave to Northumbria and to the world
the life of the one man that was Venerable--the learning and the labours
of Bede.
THE PARISH CHURCHES OF DURHAM
BY WILFRID LEIGHTON
Architecturally, the parish churches of Durham are best described as of
the "homely order," and one may search the county in vain for an
oft-recurring and distinctive feature, such as the graceful spires of
Northamptonshire, or the splendid Perpendicular towers, which
distinguish so many of the churches of Somerset. In the country of
Benedict Biscop and the Venerable Bede it is natural that we should look
for other matters of interest than striking architecture, and
undoubtedly many of the churches carry evidence of a high antiquity,
though only perhaps a fragment of dog-tooth moulding breaking through
lath and plaster restoration of the eighteenth century.
Two churches, Jarrow and Monkwearmouth, are no less interesting for the
Saxon remains which they contain than for their association with the
early Christian Fathers of the North. Both these churches date from the
latter part of the seventh century. At the time of their erection
Theodore of Tarsus, to whom the division of the country into parishes is
generally attributed, was Archbishop of Canterbury; but it would not at
this early date be correct to describe them as parish churches, for it
was not until the decay of the brotherhoods to which they were attached
that they ceased to be other than the chapels of their respective
monasteries.
In another part of this volume full justice has been done to these
early churches, but some reference must be made here to the church of
Escomb, in the west of the county. It is perhaps of an equally early
date and a remarkably perfect example of a church of the period. Very
little is known of its early history, but after the Dissolution it was
regarded as a chapel-of-ease to St. Andrew’s, Auckland. In 1879 it had
fallen into disuse, a new church having been built at some distance. But
upon the "re-discovery" of the nature of the old building, in that year,
funds were at once raised for its repair.
The church consists of a square chancel, a nave, and a porch as a later
addition. The church has undoubtedly been built with stones from the
Roman camp of Binchester, many of which show the diamond broaching.
Professor Baldwin Brown is of the opinion that the chancel arch, which
is the most striking feature of the interior, was removed bodily from
the camp and set up in pre-Conquest times in its present position.
On the south side of the chancel there are two original windows, with
semicircular heads, cut out of single blocks, and jambs battering
inwards. There are two original windows on the north side with square
heads. The sills of these windows are thirteen feet from the floor
level, and another window in the west end is placed still higher. At
later dates the walls have been pierced with other windows, two in the
south wall of the nave, one in the west gable, one in the east end, and
one in the south wall of the chancel. Between the two original windows
on the south is a "Saxon" sundial. The original entrances were in the
north and south walls of the nave, and there is a later doorway in the
chancel. A fragment of an early cross is preserved in the church.
Contemporary with these churches there existed at Hartlepool a monastic
house said by Bede to have been founded by Heiu, the first Northumbrian
nun, and subsequently extended by St. Hilda, before her transition to
Whitby in 657.
Although continued after this date, its history during the period of the
Danish invasion is lost. The present Church of St. Hilda is mentioned in
the confirmatory charter to Guisborough Priory of Bishop Pudsey in 1195,
and in those of several of his successors, and was most likely included
in the original grant with the churches of Hart and Stranton, of which
it was a dependent chapel. In 1308 Bishop Bek, as a reward for the
continual devotion, charity, and hospitality of the Prior and convent of
Guisborough, granted them the indulgence, that in the church of Hart and
chapel of Hartlepool, service should, after that date, be perpetually
performed by a canon of Guisborough.
Statutes for the government of the church were drawn up by the
Corporation of Hartlepool in 1599, and appear in the Corporation
records, whence the following extract:
"Ytt ys ordeyned, that whosoever of this town dothe shott att or
within the churche or churche steple of thys town, with gun,
crosbowe, or anie other shott for the kyllinge of any dove, pigeon,
or anie other foule, shall paye, for every suche offence, to the
use of the town. 12.d."
In 1600 the number of "pues or stalls" was thirty-three.
The first church, though much restored, is the one which still remains,
and the finest of the parish churches in the North. Standing on high
ground, the impressive landmark formed by its massive tower and
crocketed pinnacles, over many miles of land and water, has been
referred to with admiration by every historian of the county.
"The church of Hartlepool differs from most ancient churches in
being throughout one design, carried out at one time.... It tells,
as authentically as any written document could, of the rapid growth
and prosperity which preceded its erection. In the enthusiasm to
which success gives birth, the merchants of Hartlepool said: ‘We
will build a church.’ From the first they contemplated a splendid
design, and this they executed worthily."--BOYLE.
The church stands to the north-west of the site of St. Hilda’s
Foundation. Its tower is its most striking characteristic. At an early
date the tower must have shown signs of weakness, and the enormous
buttresses which increase its picturesqueness so much were added. These
additions are generally ascribed to the year 1230, and the entrance
arch, with a very beautiful but much decayed chevron moulding, cut
through the south buttress of the west side, is of the same date. The
tower is of three stages, and the south-west corner forms a turret,
through which a staircase leads to the roof. The clerestory windows have
formerly been of three lights each, now built into one, and are very
fine. The original capitals remain, but all the shafts have gone.
The west, or main entrance, has been built up. The nave is supported by
five clustered pillars on each side, with pointed arches. In the wall of
the south aisle is a piscina. The greater part of the chancel is modern.
Several chantries were attached to the church before the dissolution of
the monasteries, but the monumental remains are few.
In the churchyard is a large tomb, which was formerly enclosed within
the walls of the ancient chancel, before the latter was taken down. It
is generally ascribed to the De Bruses, and the armorial shields on the
sides, each charged with a lion rampant, confirm the suggestion.
Durham possesses another very good example of Early English architecture
in the parish church of Darlington, dedicated to St. Cuthbert. It
consists of a chancel, north and south transepts, a nave with aisles,
and a central tower crowned by a spire. That it stands on a site of
great antiquity is proved by the discovery, in 1866, during restoration,
of fragments of three pre-Conquest crosses, which are now preserved in
the church. In the charter of Styr, son of Ulf, which is included in a
record called by Symeon, the "Ancient Chartulary of the Church," there
is given to St. Cuthbert "the vill which is called Dearthingtun, with
sac and soc," and Symeon again mentions Darlington as one of the places
to which the secularized monks of Durham were removed in 1083 by
William de St. Carileph. On the authority of Geoffry de Coldingham, the
erection of the church has been ascribed to Bishop Pudsey, and the date
to 1190-95.
The principal entrance is in the west front, set in a richly moulded
arch, with a trefoil-headed niche above. In the second stage of the
front is an arcade of five arches, and the third stage has three arches,
all with dividing shafts. The arches in the second stage are pierced
alternately with lancet lights. The walls of the aisle were greatly
altered about the middle of the fourteenth century, and all the
square-headed windows belong to this period, no features dating from the
original erection of the church remaining except the doorways. The north
doorway has been greatly restored, and the south doorway was originally
covered by a porch; it has a niche above. The clerestory has an arcade
of twelve arches pierced with four lancet windows on each side. Both
transepts and the chancel are of two stages, divided by string courses;
but the south transept is more enriched than the north, both internally
and externally. Buttresses divide the walls of the chancel into three
bays, and the walls and ends of the transepts are similarly divided into
two bays each. Those buttresses at the junctions of the transepts and
the chancel, owing to their great proportion, have much the appearance
of corner turrets. The spire and the higher stage of the tower are of
the same date as the walls of the aisles. Longstaffe says of the spire:
"On July 17, 1750, this beautiful spire, considered the highest and
finest in the North of England, was rent.... The storm occasioned
fifteen yards of the spire to be taken down and rebuilt in 1752....
Unfortunately the mason omitted the moulding at the angles of the new
part."
Incidentally it should be noted that Durham is one of the counties in
which spires are comparatively rare.
The tower is supported by four arches on clustered shafts, and the nave
is divided from its aisle by four arches on each side. The east wall of
the chancel is modern. Three sedilia of the Decorated period occupy the
usual position in the chancel. In one of the windows on the east side of
the south transept occurs the only instance of the dog-tooth ornament in
the interior of the church, and there is a piscina in both of the side
walls of the same transept.
Darlington is the only church in the county which retains a rood-loft.
On the south of the chancel is the vestry, which has been greatly
modernized. The only monumental effigy is that of an unknown lady with a
book in her hand. It dates from the early thirteenth century, and is
placed at the west end of the nave.
After the two churches last mentioned, the church at Sedgefield,
dedicated to St. Edmund the Bishop, but formerly dedicated to the
Virgin, is probably the finest in the county. The nave and chancel date
from the Early English period. The tower is very fine, of Perpendicular
date and of three stages, crowned by battlemented parapets and small
spirelets standing on angle buttresses. The Rev. J. F. Hodgson is of the
opinion that it was intended to crown the tower with an open lantern, as
at St. Nicholas’ Cathedral, Newcastle.
There are two transepts; the south contains the chapel of St. Thomas,
and in its east wall are two piscinas, one of which is trefoil-headed;
and in the south wall are two pointed recesses occupied by much
mutilated male and female effigies, the latter dating from the later
fourteenth century. The north transept contains the Chapel of St.
Katherine, and is now known as the Hardwick porch. Two of its ancient
windows still remain, and fix its date as 1328. The east window is
filled with Late Decorated tracery. The nave is divided from the aisles
by three pointed arches, supported by clustered pillars on moulded
bases. The capitals are richly carved and very interesting.
The font is octagonal and of Frosterley marble, dating from the end of
the fifteenth century, and charged on each side with armorial shields,
most likely carved in the seventeenth century. The stall work of the
chancel is ascribed to the latter part of the seventeenth century, and
the rich chancel screen to a slightly earlier date.
On the north side of the chancel is the grave cover of Andrew de
Stanley, first master of Greatham Hospital.
Two interesting brasses of skeletons in shrouds are preserved in the
vestry, and were originally inlaid in one slab. Another small brass is
in the south transept. It is considered to be one of the earliest in
England, and represents a lady in loose robe with tight sleeves and
wimple and hood. There is another brass to the memory of William Hoton,
engraved with a helmet and crest of three trefoils.
Of the five bells, one is of pre-Reformation date, bearing the
inscription "✠ TRINITATE SACRA FIAT HEC CAMPANA BEATA," and the arms of
Rhodes and Thornton.
The church at Staindrop, dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, was much
mutilated by restorations in 1849, but its sepulchral monuments to
members of the Neville family are unrivalled.
Parts of the walls of the nave are of pre-Reformation date, and two of
the original windows still remain. The north and south aisles were added
to the original structure in the twelfth century, when the nave walls
were pierced by three arches on each side, supported on cylindrical
pillars, with capitals carved in different foliage designs. During the
following century the plan of the church was altered, and an additional
bay added to the west end of the nave, north and south transepts thrown
out, and the tower erected. The tower was of three stages, probably
crowned by a wooden spire, taken down in 1408, when a fourth stage was
added. Being built on the original corbel-tables, and overhanging the
substructure, it gives the whole a very heavy appearance. About the
same time the original high-pitched roofs were lowered to the almost
flat roofs which now exist, and the clerestory of the nave built. Before
the date of the latter alterations extensive changes had been made in
the church during the fourteenth century, when Ralph, Lord Neville,
under licence of the Prior and convent of Durham, endowed three
chantries. The original south aisle and transept were removed, and the
present south aisle, which is much wider than the nave, erected. At the
south-east angle of the aisle a small porch or vestry projects, which
was intended for the use of the priests officiating in the chantries.
Shortly after these alterations, the symmetry of the church being
destroyed, a new north aisle and transept, of similar dimensions, but
much inferior work, were erected. The ancient vestry opening from the
chancel, with _domus inclusa_ above, is very interesting.
Staindrop is the only church in the county in which the pre-Reformation
chancel screen remains, but the rood-loft which surmounted it has been
destroyed. The font is octagonal, and of Teesdale marble, decorated with
armorial bearings, and may date from the latter part of the fourteenth
century.
The first of the effigies before referred to is that of a lady, and lies
in a recess in the south aisle. It is ascribed to Isabel de Neville,
wife of Robert FitzMeldred, Lord of Raby. "The costume is an excellent
example of the dress of a gentlewoman of Western Europe in the second
half of the thirteenth century and beginning of the fourteenth."
Sepulchral effigies of females of this early date are extremely rare.
The general resemblance of this effigy to that of Aveline, Countess of
Lancaster, in Westminster Abbey, who died in 1269, is very striking.
The second effigy in point of date is attributed to Euphemia, mother of
Ralph, Lord Neville, founder of the chantries and builder of the south
aisle, in which it lies in an enriched recess. The third, a female
effigy, is also in the same aisle, and though no doubt representing one
of the Neville family, its exact identity is a matter of some
controversy. It dates from the fourteenth century, and the remaining
effigy in the aisle--that of a boy--is of the same date.
A remarkably fine altar-tomb, with effigies of Ralph Neville, first Earl
of Westmorland, and his wives--Margaret, daughter of Hugh, Earl of
Stafford, and Joan, daughter of John of Gaunt--has been described as the
most splendid in the North of England.
The Earl is dressed in a rich suit of full armour, with collar of SS.,
and the ladies in kirtles, with jewelled girdles and sideless surcoats
and mantles. Their arms have been destroyed. The Earl died in 1426.
The remaining monument is to the memory of Henry Neville, fifth Earl of
Westmorland, who died in 1564, and his two first wives--Anne, daughter
of Thomas Manners, Earl of Rutland, and Jane, daughter of Sir Richard
Cholmondeley.
The monument is of oak, and ornamented with effigies of the Earl’s
children and armorial bearings. The Earl is dressed in armour, and an
inscription states that the tomb was made in the year 1560.
In addition to the churches already mentioned, the south and south-east
districts of the county are rich in churches, worthy, if space availed,
of more than passing notice.
At Barnard Castle the church dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin carries
evidence that it was in early times a large and important edifice, and
in the twelfth century consisted of chancel and nave, with north and
south aisles. Rebuilding and structural alterations were carried out
from time to time until the middle of the fifteenth century, when both
transepts were rebuilt. The vestry is probably of the same date, and the
chancel arch, which is very fine, slightly earlier. The tower is modern,
and replaced a fifteenth-century structure. The floor of the chancel is
much higher than that of the nave, and evidence of a similar difference
in levels is found at Lanchester Church. Two arched recesses, one of
which contains an effigy of a priest, are in the north wall of the north
transept, and a mutilated piscina is in the south wall of the same
transept. In this church there were four chantry chapels dedicated
respectively to St. Catherine, St. Helen, St. Margaret, and the Trinity,
and referred to in old records, but their exact position cannot now be
ascertained.
The church at Winston has several sepulchral brasses, but, with the
exception of the walls of the chancel, which contain two remarkable
single-light windows, and the arcade and north wall of the nave, is
modern.
Nearer to Darlington is the Church of St. Andrew at Haughton-le-Skerne.
The whole of the edifice is of one period, and dates from the second
quarter of the twelfth century. Its most striking feature is a massive
tower, surmounted by a battlemented turret of later date. The richly
carved woodwork of Restoration date is interesting. In the east wall of
the nave is a monumental brass, and a stone slab in the floor of the
tower commemorates the death of Elizabeth Naunton, Prioress of Neasham,
1488-89.
The only medieval pulpit in the county is in the Church of St. Michael
at Heighington. It is of oak, and carved with the linen pattern design
and flowing tracery, with an inscription on the cornice.
The church dates from the twelfth century, and considerable remains of
that date still exist.
At Aycliffe, the Church of St. Andrew is substantially a building of
Norman date. It now consists of a chancel, nave with north and south
aisles, south porch, and western tower, the latter and the south aisle
dating from the beginning of the thirteenth century. Remains of several
pre-Conquest crosses are in the church and churchyard.
Gainford Church, dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, is all of one period,
and with a few exceptions dates from the middle of the thirteenth
century. It contains several interesting brasses. The same may be said
of the Church of St. Edwin at Coniscliffe, which has a very interesting
carved slab above the south door.
The Church of All Saints at Hurworth contains several effigies, but was
almost entirely rebuilt in 1870. The Church of St. Mary at Egglescliffe
has portions of Early Norman date, but the chancel dates from the later
Perpendicular period, and has a fine east window of five lights. On the
south side of the nave is a fourteenth-century chapel, with a sepulchral
effigy of a man in rich armour in a niche in the outer wall.
St. Cuthbert at Redmarshall is a modest structure, but contains two
interesting alabaster effigies of Thomas de Langton and Sybil, his wife,
placed in a fifteenth-century chantry chapel on the south side of the
nave.
Both Norton and Billingham contain churches of great interest. The
former has portions of pre-Conquest date, and was one of the churches to
which William de St. Carileph removed the monks of Durham in 1083. The
church, dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, contains a nave and side
aisles, chancel, north and south porches, and central tower. The latter
originally rose no higher than the ridges of the main roofs, and formed
a chamber, the floor of which has been removed. Beneath the tower is a
very fine effigy of a knight in chain armour, surmounted by a crocketed
canopy. The chancel was rebuilt in the thirteenth century, and the upper
stage of the tower is probably of the same period.
At Billingham the church is dedicated to St. Cuthbert. The tower is of
pre-Conquest date, and has certain points of resemblance to the higher
stage of that at St. Peter’s, Monkwearmouth. Several fragments of
pre-Conquest crosses are built into the south wall of the tower, and the
church has three memorial brasses.
In Durham City, St. Oswald’s, the parish church of Elvet, has a
well-recorded history, and was the subject of an amusing dispute between
the Bishop Philip de Pictavia and the Prior and monks of Durham, arising
from a charter
[Illustration: NORTON CHURCH.]
of Henry II. confirming to the latter "Elvet, with the church of the
same town."
On the accession of Philip--the last vicar, Richard de Coldingham,
having recently died--
"Four of the monks from St. Cuthbert’s held possession of the
church, and lived constantly in it.
"The Bishop ... issued a command that the monks should quit the
church. This they refused to do; whereupon the Bishop employed as
many as thirty watchmen, who guarded all the doors and windows, so
that no food should reach the monks in the church. After two or
three days, two of the monks could endure the fast no longer, and
abandoned their charge. Their example was shortly followed by the
others.... Four days were occupied by negotiations, at the end of
which the Bishop confirmed the possession of the church to them
‘for their own proper uses.’"--BOYLE.
The church is of various periods, and has a very good clerestory with a
fine open-work parapet, and a tower of more than ordinary interest, with
a stone staircase in the thickness of the wall, roofed with thirteenth
and fourteenth century grave-covers.
St. Margaret’s and St. Giles’s are two city churches of interest. Both
have several pre-Reformation bells, and of the latter--
"an interesting fact in the history of this church is that St.
Godric, during the period he resided in Durham, was an attendant at
its services, and at length became doorkeeper and
bellringer."--BOYLE.
Pittington Church, dedicated to St. Lawrence, is one of the most
interesting churches in the central district of the county. Portions of
the western bays of the nave are of Norman date. In the twelfth century
great structural alterations were made to the original church, which had
consisted of a nave and chancel only. The tower belongs to this period,
and the wonderful north arcade pierced through the original north wall
of the nave. The arcading of the wall forms four bays, and a fifth was
built as an elongation to the east, the original chancel being taken
down and rebuilt. The pillars are alternately cylindrical, ornamented
with spiral bands, and octagonal with flutings. The arches are of two
orders, ornamented towards the nave with chevron mouldings, and resting
on octagonal cushioned capitals. During the thirteenth century the
church was enlarged by a south aisle being built. The tower arch is also
of this period. The date of the clerestory is uncertain. In 1846 the
chancel was taken down, and the south aisle entirely, and north aisle
partly, rebuilt, and the nave again lengthened. In the splays of an
early window in the north wall of the nave are remains of two wall
paintings.
"They are undoubtedly portions of a complete series of paintings
occupying the whole interior of the first Norman church.... They
represent two incidents in the life of St. Cuthbert--viz., his
consecration by Archbishop Theodore, and his vision at the table of
the Abbess Ælfleda...."--FOWLER.
There is an interesting grave-cover in the floor beneath the tower,
bearing an inscription to the memory of Christian the Mason, a
contemporary of Bishop Pudsey. Also an effigy attributed to the family
of Fitz-Marmaduke, Lords of Horden, and several interesting monumental
stones.
All the bells, three in number, are of pre-Reformation date.
The important Church of St. Michael at Houghton-le-Spring dates almost
entirely from the thirteenth century, but stands on the site of a much
earlier erection, of which a portion still remains in the north wall of
the chancel, containing a square-headed doorway and round-headed window.
The church, as now existing, consists of a chancel with north and south
transepts, nave with north and south aisles, south porch, and central
tower. In the north wall of the chancel is an arcade of eight lancets,
much restored, and opening from the south side is an unusual
two-storeyed erection, which, it is presumed, had some connection with
the ancient Gild of Holy Trinity and St. Mary, established in the church
in 1476.
The windows in the gables of the transepts are modern. In the east wall
of the south transept are three tall lancets and two in the
corresponding wall of the north transept. In a recess in the south wall
of the former is a roughly carved and much-weathered effigy of a man in
armour, dating from the thirteenth century, and a similar effigy of
later date and superior workmanship lies in the same transept, together
with the altar-tomb of Bernard Gilpin, "the apostle of the North," and a
brass to the memory of Margery, wife of Richard Bellasis of Henknoll,
dated 1587. Both the transepts contained chantry chapels before the
Reformation, and in both are piscinas in the usual position.
The arcading of the nave is very fine, and supported on clustered piers.
The east and west windows are Decorated insertions and contain good
tracery. The lower stage of the tower and its supporting arches are
contemporary with the main body of the church, the upper stage is modern
and with the present spire replaced the ancient spire of wood.
At Dalton, the Church of St. Andrew, is a very simple structure, but
contains an unusual sundial, consisting of carved stone figures on the
inside of the north wall of the nave, upon which the time is marked by a
sunbeam passing through a window.
St. Mary’s, Easington, has suffered much at the hands of restorers, but
still remains a most interesting church. The whole of the present
edifice, with the exception of the tower, which is of Norman work, dates
from the thirteenth century. The nave is separated from its aisle by
four pointed arches on either side resting on piers, alternately
octagonal and cylindrical. The clerestory is good and has four lancet
windows on each side. With the exception of the original round-headed
windows in the tower, all the windows are restorations. The present
entrance is at the south of the tower, the original entrance to the nave
having been built up. The woodwork of the chancel is interesting. There
are two fine male and female effigies of the Fitz-Marmaduke family in
the chancel, but their identity is uncertain. They date from the latter
part of the thirteenth century.
In the north-eastern quarter of the county there are the churches of
Jarrow and Monkwearmouth already referred to, and several other edifices
of ancient foundation, but so much restored and modernized as to retain
few of their original features.
[Illustration: BOLDON SPIRE.]
This may be said of the church at Whitburn, which contains a peculiar
seventeenth-century monumental effigy in wood. The Church of St.
Nicholas at West Boldon occupies a lofty site on the side of a hill, and
is visible for many miles over Jarrow and the low land round Hedworth.
The oldest portions date from the beginning of the thirteenth century.
In January, 1906, the nave and chancel roofs were destroyed by fire, and
several of the monumental inscriptions badly scorched. The Church of St.
Hilda, at South Shields, occupies a site of great antiquity, but was
entirely rebuilt in 1810.
The Church of St. Mary, Gateshead, is of more general interest, but has
been greatly restored. The tower was rebuilt in 1740. The roof of the
nave is good, and of Perpendicular date. Several pre-Reformation
grave-covers are built into the walls, two of special interest being in
the porch. A number of quaint extracts from the parish books are given
by Surtees:
1632. Paid for whipping black Barborie 6d.
1649. Paid at Mris Watsons, when the Justices sate to examin the
witches ¾; for a grave for a witch 6d; for trying the witches £1.
5. 0.
1671. Paid for powder and match when the Keelemen mutinyed 2/-.
1684. For carrying 26 Quakers to Durham £2. 17s.
In the north-west of the county, Ryton Church (Holy Cross), dates from
the thirteenth century, and is all of one period. It consists of a
chancel, nave with north and south aisles, western tower with spire, and
south porch. In the chancel is a square-headed piscina in the usual
position, a priest’s doorway, and a low side-window, now built up. In
the north wall is an ambry. The arcades of the nave are of three arches
each, the easternmost pillars on each side being octagonal, the others
cylindrical. The corbel-table of the tower is of interest, several of
the corbels being carved in foliage designs. The wooden, lead-covered
spire is contemporary with the tower. Within the altar-rails is a fine
sepulchral effigy in marble of a deacon.
Returning again to the central districts, the Church of St. Mary and St.
Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street is the successor of an early wooden
edifice, which sheltered for the greater part of two centuries the
remains of the latter saint, before the Danish invasion of 995 caused
his guardians--for better security--to remove their charge to Ripon.
Egelric, fourth Bishop of Durham, decided to rebuild the church of
stone, but it is doubtful if any remains of his church are incorporated
in the present building. The date of the erection of the latter is
uncertain.
The oldest portions of the present church are the north and south walls
of the chancel, and in the south wall are inserted three windows, dating
from the thirteenth century, and evidently contemporary with the three
eastern bays of the arcade of the nave. The remaining bays of the nave
and the tower are later additions, and the graceful spire still later,
dating from the Early Decorated period.
At the time of the Reformation there were two chantries in the church,
one being in the south aisle, at the east end of which there is a
trefoil-headed piscina and square ambry. At the west end of the north
aisle, partly within and partly without the church, is an interesting
two-storied erection, containing four chambers, which must have, at one
time, been an anchorage. The church is chiefly remarkable for the series
of fourteen monumental effigies of presumed members of the Lumley
family. Eleven, however, were the work of sculptors employed by John,
Lord Lumley, at the end of the sixteenth century, and two were removed
by him from the graveyard of Durham Abbey, under the mistaken impression
that they represented two of his ancestors.
"The first effigy, evidently imaginary, represents Liulph in a coat
of mail.... Above this venerable personage is a long inscription
commemorating the whole family descent.
"Next to Liulph lies Uchtred, in a suit of chain armour....
"The third effigy, William, son of Uchtred, who first assumed the
Lumley name, is probably genuine. He appears in a full suit of
chain armour, over which is a surcoat, with the drapery hanging in
easy folds below the girdle. The legs are crossed, and rest on a
lion. A shield on the left arm. The head rests on a cushion.
"The second William de Lumley appears in plate of a much less
genuine description....
"And the third William is like unto him, save that his legs be
straight and his hair wantonly crisped.
"And Roger is like William, but sore mutilated.
"Robert de Lumley, extremely like Roger....
"Sir Marmaduke Lumley, in mail....
"Ralph, first Baron Lumley ... one of those removed from the
cemetery of the Cathedral Church of Durham, a close coat of mail,
the visor ribbed down the front with two transverse slits for the
sight, the breast covered with the shield, the sword unsheathed and
upright, the point resting against the visor, the legs straight,
resting on a couchant hound.
"Sir John Lumley, almost minutely resembling the last.
"George Lord Lumley. An effigy, recumbent like his predecessors....
The dress is probably intended for the robes of the baron.
" ... Sir Thomas Lumley, Knight. The figure is in mail....
"Richard, Lord Lumley....
"The last effigy, John, Lord Lumley, in robes...."--SURTEES.
In the church is also a thirteenth-century effigy of a bishop,
representing St. Cuthbert.
St. Mary the Virgin, Lanchester, is a very interesting church, and has
portions of Norman date. It consists of a chancel, nave with north and
south aisles, and south porch, western tower, and a vestry. The chancel
dates from the thirteenth century, and there is a very fine piscina in
its south wall. The chancel arch dates from the middle of the twelfth
century. The vestry opens from the chancel by a very fine doorway, with
a cinquefoil arch. The arcades of the nave have four bays on either
side, with cylindrical pillars and pointed arches. The south aisle and
porch date from the beginning, and the north aisle from the end, of the
fourteenth century.
There is a brass in the chancel to the memory of John Rudd, and an
effigy of a priest lies in a recess in the south aisle. During the
episcopacy of Bishop Bek the church was made collegiate with a Dean and
seven Prebendaries, and portions of the woodwork of their stalls are
still preserved.
The church at Brancepeth (St. Brandon) has parts dating from the
thirteenth century, and is an interesting edifice. The panelling and
general internal fittings of the church are of a most elaborate nature.
Over the chancel arch is some remarkable screen work, carved in oak and
painted white. The chancel screen and stalls date from the time of John
Cosin, who was rector of Brancepeth before being raised to the Bishopric
in 1661, but have the appearance, in common with much of his work at
Durham Castle, of belonging to a much earlier period.
There are several sepulchral effigies to members of the Neville family
in the church.
St. Michael’s, Bishop Middleham, is a thirteenth-century church and all
of one period. Whitworth church was entirely rebuilt in 1850, and is
only interesting for the remarkable male and female sepulchral effigies
in the churchyard.
At Bishop Auckland, St. Helen’s has a chancel arch and two bays of the
arcades of the nave of Late Transitional work, a very short period
separating them from the western bays of the nave. The chancel is of
thirteenth-century date, and the aisles are prolonged to engage the
greater part of it, forming chantry chapels. The clerestory has three
two-light, Late Perpendicular windows on each side, and at the west end
is a round-headed window of earlier date, but evidently an insertion in
its present position. The east window consists of three lancets under
one arch, the spandrel spaces being pierced. The south doorway is of
Perpendicular date, and the porch, a later addition, has in common with
St. Andrew’s, Auckland, a chamber above. There is a brass of
fifteenth-century date in the church.
The Church of St. Andrew’s, Auckland, is a fitting edifice to close this
brief account of the parish churches of Durham. Its site has from the
earliest times of Christianity in the North been occupied by a church,
and there is strong evidence that it was the home of a collegiate body
formed of monks removed from Durham by Bishop William de St. Carileph.
This establishment was reorganized by Bishop Bek in 1292, and great
alterations were made in the fabric of the church at the same time.
The church consists of a chancel, north and south transepts, nave with
north and south aisles, and western tower. It dates from the thirteenth
century, and there is evidence that it succeeded a building of Norman
date, which was itself either an enlargement of, or a successor to, the
first building.
The church has many points of great interest, and perhaps the most
striking features of the interior are the arcades of the nave. These are
of five bays each, with richly moulded arches, resting on alternate
octagonal and clustered piers. The north transept was almost entirely
rebuilt during restoration, but the new work is a copy of the old,
which, however, did not date from the original church, but was one of
the alterations of Bishop Bek, before referred to. The east wall of the
chancel is also his work. In 1417 a higher stage was added to the tower,
and the clerestory of the nave is of still later date.
The chancel stalls are the work of Cardinal Langley and very effective.
There are two monumental effigies in the church, one of a Knight in
armour, the other of a lady; both apparently date from the end of the
fourteenth century. There are also three brasses.
MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTIONS OF THE COUNTY OF DURHAM
BY EDWIN DODDS
The earliest-known burial-place in the county of Durham has no
monumental inscriptions in it. It is a barrow opened at Copt Hill, near
Houghton-le-Spring, which contained Neolithic remains, and it is
interesting inasmuch as it has also vestiges of burials made again after
the lapse of many years, when the Bronze Age had superseded the period
in which men warred and worked with weapons of stone only. There is no
memento known of the Paleolithic Age in the county, and only thirteen
places of burial used by Neolithic man have been investigated. Of the
Bronze Age about a dozen burial-places have been examined, many of them
containing those small rudely fashioned earthenware vessels, from three
to six inches high, roughly ornamented with simple lines and dots, which
are known as "food-vessels" and "incense-cups."
Of the monumental inscriptions left by the Romans, two of the most
interesting were found near the Roman station in South Shields. One of
them is an elaborately carved slab, four feet long, which bears the
figure of a woman seated, with a work-basket at her left hand and a
jewel-case at her right; she seems to be occupied in needlework. Below
is the Latin inscription: "To the Divine Shades of Regina, of the
Catuallaunian Tribe, a freed woman, and the wife of Barates the
Palmyrene. She lived thirty years." Below this is a line in Syriac:
"Regina, the freed woman of Barate. Alas!" The district of Catuallauna
is said to have extended from Gloucestershire to Lincolnshire. It is
strange that affinity of souls should have brought together as man and
wife a merchant from Syria and a slave from the centre of England.
Another Roman gravestone from South Shields, found in 1885, reads: "To
the Divine Shades of Victor. He was by nation a Moor: he lived twenty
years: and was the freed man of Numerianus, a horseman of the first ala
of Asturians, who most affectionately followed [his former servant to
the grave]." This stone probably dates from about A.D. 275; it bears the
half-recumbent figure of a man on a couch, with a canopy above and the
inscription below. At Binchester, near Bishop Auckland--the Vinovia of
the Romans--a plain slab with ansated ends was found inscribed: "Sacred
to the Divine Shades. Nemesius Montanus the Decurion lived forty years.
Nemesius Sanctus, his brother, and his coheirs, erected this in
accordance with the provisions of his will." This slab was also probably
carved and set up in the third century. In Roman epitaphs no mention of
death is ever made; it is stated that the person commemorated had lived
so many years, but the fact that he died and the date of his death is
not recorded.
Of Anglo-Saxon memorial crosses there are a large number in the county
of Durham, all of them of great interest, and some of beautiful
workmanship. The most notable are those at Aycliffe, Billingham,
Chester-le-Street, Coniscliffe, Darlington, Dinsdale, Durham (where, in
the Dean and Chapter Library, there is a fine collection both of
original stones from several places and of facsimile copies), Elwick,
Escomb, Gainford, Great Stainton, Haughton-le-Skerne, Hurworth, Kelloe,
Norton, Sockburn, and Winston-on-the-Tees. None of them are perfect;
most of them are fragments of monuments which have at some time been
broken up and used as building stones.
[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON STONE AT CHESTER-LE-STREET.]
The cross at Kelloe is made up of pieces now carefully joined together;
it is a very fine example. Most of these crosses have the characteristic
knot-work ornament, and many of them have human figures, crucifixions,
monsters, warriors, animals, and birds, carved upon them, the sculpture
and design being of the Anglian school. Very few of them have any
lettering. One at Chester-le-Street has EADMUND in mixed Runic and Roman
letters, but this may be an addition by a later hand. The hog-backed
stones of this period, of which some very fine specimens were discovered
at Sockburn in 1900, bear similar knot-work ornaments. In 1833 a
burial-place at Hartlepool, and in 1834 one at Monkwearmouth, were
discovered; they both yielded memorial stones, small in size, but of
great interest. A stone from the latter place, now in the British
Museum, bears the name TIDFIRTH in Runic characters. Tidfirth was the
last Bishop of Hexham, and was deposed about the year 821. The stones
found at Hartlepool are known as pillow-stones; they are almost square,
and only from 9 to 12 inches across by about 2 inches thick. Only seven
of them have been saved. They all bear a cross, sunk in some stones and
raised on others, and several of them have short inscriptions in Saxon
minuscules. One reads: "ORATE PRO EDILUINI ORATE PRO UERMUND ET
TORTHSUID."
Those effigies, or early statues, generally recumbent, and made
sometimes of wood, but more often of stone, which were placed in
churches from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, are to be found in
many places in the county, sometimes decently and carefully preserved in
the church, sometimes left to weather and decay in the churchyard, or in
the rectory garden. Among the more noticeable of them are the following:
At the west end of Staindrop Church is the "altar-tomb of alabaster,"
with an effigy of Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmorland, in plate
armour, and with figures of his two wives, one on either hand. Surtees,
in his _History of Durham_, describes it as "this noble tomb, which is
in the purest style of the best age of sepulchral monuments." Its date
is probably about 1425. There is in the same church another tomb with
effigies, in wood, of the fifth Earl of Westmorland and his two wives;
it is dated 1560.
Barnard Castle Church has an effigy of a priest attired in chasuble,
stole, dalmatic, alb, and amice. The inscription is in Lombardic
lettering, and reads: "ORATE PRO AIA ROBERTI DE MORTHAM QNDM VICARII DE
GAYNFORD." This Robert de Mortham founded a chantry at Barnard Castle in
1339.
At Bishopwearmouth there was formerly the effigy of Thomas Middleton of
Chillingham, the founder of the family of Silksworth. It represented
Middleton in complete armour, with his hands raised. It bore the
inscription: "Hic jacet Thom’ Middylton Armiger -- -- -- MCCC." At one time
this statue lay on an altar-tomb in the north aisle of the church; later
it was placed upright against the wall of the aisle; later, again, it is
recorded that it lay, broken into two pieces, in the porch; to-day it
cannot be found.
In the Church of St. Giles, in the city of Durham, there is a wooden
effigy in complete armour, which is supposed to represent the first
John Heath, of Kepier, who was buried in the chancel of that church in
1590.
The Lumley monuments are a collection of fourteen effigies which lie in
the north aisle of Chester-le-Street Church. They were placed there by a
Lord Lumley about 1594. They represent the Lords of Lumley from Liulph,
who lived in the days of William the Conqueror, down to the John, Lord
Lumley, who fought at Flodden Field in 1513. Probably only three of the
fourteen monuments are genuine; the others were either manufactured or,
more probably, collected from other places.
The old chapel at Greatham was pulled down in 1788. In a recess in the
south wall of the transept there was a wooden effigy of an ecclesiastic.
During the rebuilding of the chapel a stone coffin containing his bones
and a chalice of pewter was found near the foot of the wall.
In the Pespoole seats in the south aisle of Easington Church there is an
elegant recumbent figure of a woman, carved in Stanhope marble. On it
are carved the three popinjays which were carried on the coat of arms of
the ancient owners of Horden. At Heighington Church there are two female
effigies, one of which has been very fine, but they are both much
weathered and decayed; they are probably of fourteenth-century date. In
the same church there is a medieval pulpit, the only one remaining in
the county. It is of oak, and on it there is inscribed in black letter:
"orate p’ aiabz Alexandri flessehar et agnetis uxoris sue ." To
commemorate oneself by giving a pulpit to the church seems a practical
and useful form of memorial. As this is the only medieval pulpit the
county has left, it seems likely that its preservation is due to the
inscription it bears.
When Neasham Abbey, in the north of Yorkshire, fell into ruin, two of
its effigies were moved over the Tees to the church at Hurworth. One of
them was a remarkably fine figure of a knight in armour, his head
covered with a coat of mail, his body clad in a shirt of mail, over
which there is a surcoat. His shield has "barry of eight, three
chaplets of roses." The armour is of the style in use in the early part
of the fourteenth century, and the effigy probably represents the Robert
FitzWilliam who was Warden of the Marches in the time of the just King
Edward I., and who died in 1316.
In Lanchester Church, under an arch in the wall of the south aisle, lies
a recumbent effigy of a canon secular, his raised hands clasping a
chalice. This is believed to represent Stephen Austell, Dean of
Lanchester, who died in 1464. In Monkwearmouth Church, under a canopy
which bears the shields of the Hiltons and Viponds, there is a very
interesting effigy of a knight in plate armour of the early part of the
fifteenth century. This is probably the Baron William Hilton, who built
Hilton Castle on the Wear, with its wonderful armorial front. He died in
1435. At Norton, near Stockton, there is a magnificent effigy of a
knight in chain armour; over the head there is a rich canopy of
tabernacle-work; the hands are raised and the legs are crossed, the feet
resting on a lion. It is sometimes assumed that this representation of a
knight with his legs crossed one over the other indicates that the
person portrayed was a Crusader, but there are many cases where the
attitude is used in which it is known that the effigy was that of one
who could not have taken any part in those Holy Wars. This monument is
further noticeable as it is one of the very few which give us even a
slight hint as to the personality of the sculptor; it bears what is
believed to be his mark in the shape of a small squiggle, which looks
like a short length of chain, in front of which is the letter "I," and
it is supposed that this punning rebus means that the effigy is the
handiwork of one John Cheyne. It would be very interesting to know who
commissioned Cheyne to carve this monument, for another curious feature
in it is that the shield of the knight bears six coats of
arms--Blakeston, Surtees, Bowes, Dalden, Conyers, and Conyers--which
mean that the knight was a Blakeston of Blakeston. But the Blakestons
bore these arms in the sixteenth century, probably not later than the
year 1587, whereas the armour of the effigy is of the time of Edward I.,
1272-1307. Boyle suggests that probably the monument is to one of the De
Parks, and that a Blakeston took it, scraped off the De Park arms, and
put on his own coat. Whatever its vicissitudes may have been, it remains
a noble piece of work.
In Redmarshall Church, in the Claxton Porch, there are effigies of
Thomas Langton de Wynyard and of Sibil Langton, his wife. They are
admirably carved in a rather soft alabaster, and the delicacy and
clearness of detail in the costumes is very remarkable. The lady’s hair
is dressed in the extraordinary horns which were fashionable in the days
of Henry V. She wears a long, loose kirtle, with a surcoat and mantle;
round her neck is a string of pearls, and round her waist is a jewelled
belt. The knight wears a suit of plate armour, probably of Italian make,
the fashion of which suggests that the effigy was carved several years
after the death of Thomas de Langton in 1440.
Effigies of men who had devoted themselves to a religious life, but who
died before attaining the order of priesthood, are very rare. There is
one of a deacon within the altar-rails of Ryton Church, carved in green
marble from Stanhope.
Whitburn Church holds a singular effigy of comparatively late date.
Attired in the full stiff dress of the time of William and Mary lies a
plump, elderly gentleman. He wears a full periwig, a neckcloth with
square ends, a coat with large buckramed skirts and wide sleeves, rolled
breeches, and square-toed laced shoes ornamented with immense bows of
ribbon. His head rests on a pillow, and his right hand holds a book,
which is open at the text, "I shall not lye here, but rise." There is a
skull between the feet. On the uprights of the tomb the same figure is
carved in bas-relief, kneeling, and on each side of him is a lady in
the dress of the same period. A tablet on the wall states that this is
"the burial-place of Mr. Michael Mathew of Cleadon, and his wife, who
had issue three sons and two daughters, of which only Hannah survives."
BRASSES.--In many of the older churches of the county there are
remaining the stone matrices which formerly held monumental brasses, but
in most cases the brasses themselves have disappeared, the sanctity of a
church, and the contiguity of a Table of the Ten Commandments not having
prevailed against the temptation to steal a substance so portable and so
readily saleable as brass.
In the floor of the chapel at Greatham Hospital there is a large slab of
stone, 90 by 43 inches in size, with an inscription in brass Lombardic
letters round the edge commemorating William de Middleton, a master of
the Hospital in 1312. On the wall is another inscription, in raised
black-letter with chasing, asking for prayers for the souls of Nicholas
Hulme, who was master in 1427, of John Kelyng, 1463, and of William
Estfelde, who died in 1497.
At Sherburn Hospital there is a small brass let into the chancel steps,
which reads: "THOMAS . LEAVER . PREACHER . TO KING EDWARD . THE . SIXTE.
HE . DIED . iN . iVLY . i577."
In the church at St. Andrew’s Auckland there is a finely cut brass with
the figure of a priest, of which the head is, unfortunately, missing.
There is no inscription, but the date of it is probably about 1400. In
the same church there is a unique brass, small in size, but about ½ inch
thick; it bears a small Greek cross with a backing of plant decoration,
and it has three lines of inscription across the plate and a legend
round the margin. It is dated April 8, 1581, and was put up to the
memory of Mrs. Fridesmond Barnes, who was the wife of the second
Protestant Bishop of Durham, Richard Barnes. We know the cost of this
brass, for in the Bishop’s accounts there is the entry, "To the
gould-smyth at Yorke for a plate to sett over Mrs. Barnes, 32ˢ."
At St. Helen’s Auckland there is a brass which portrays the figure of a
man in a long tunic edged with fur; his wife lies by his side, and below
are figures of his sons and daughters. The inscription is lost, but the
date of it is probably about 1460.
In Sedgefield Church there is a curious brass giving the crest of
William Hoton, 1445, with a black-letter inscription below: "Hic iacet
will[=m]s Hoton . qui . obijt . xviº die Septebr’ Anno . dni . Mill[=m]o .
ECCCº . xlvº . cui’ aie ppicietur de’ ame’ ." In the same church there are
two of the objectionable brasses which were not uncommon in the
fifteenth century, which portrayed skeletons in shrouds.
Chester-le-Street Church has a very pleasing brass, giving the
full-length figure of a woman attired in the costume of the first half
of the fifteenth century. The lines of the composition are simple and
bold, and the effect is very graceful. The brass has no inscription, but
it is known that it was put up to the memory of Alice Salcock of Salcock
in Yorkshire, who married William Lambton, and who died in 1434.
At Dinsdale, on the southern margin of the county, close to the River
Tees, there is in the church a late, small, but beautifully worked
brass, only about 11 inches by 8 inches in size. It bears the coat of
arms of eight quarterings, and records the merciful benefactions to the
poor of the parish of Dinsdale of Mary, the wife of Thomas Spennithorne.
She died in 1668, and was buried at Spennithorne.
In the magnificent cathedral of Durham most of the sepulchral monuments
were destroyed either at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the reign
of Henry VIII., or when the cathedral church was used as a prison for
Scotch prisoners of war after the Battle of Dunbar in 1650. In 1671
Davies wrote his book on _The Rites and Monuments of the Church of
Durham_, with the motto _Tempora mutantur_--on the title-page, giving a
sad description of the past glories of the church. "Lodovic de bello
Monte, Bishop of Durham," he says, "lieth buried before the high Altar
in the Quire, under a most curious and sumptuous Marble stone, which he
prepar’d for himself, before he died, being adorned with most excellent
workmanship of Brass, wherein he was most excellently and lively
Pictur’d, as he was accustomed to sing, or say Mass." This Bishop de
bello Monte, or Beaumont, died at Brantingham, near Hull, in 1333. His
gravestone, which was said to be the largest in England, still lies
before the high-altar in Durham Cathedral, but the "most excellent
workmanship of Brass" has utterly disappeared.
In Hartlepool Church there is a brass with the figure of a lady in a
large hat, with ruff and farthingale; on another brass below it is the
inscription:
HERE VNDER THiS STONE LYETH BVRiED THE BODiE OF THE
VERTVOUS GENTELLWOMAN IANE BELL, WHO DEPTED THiS LYFE THE
. vi. DAYE OF IANVARIE 1593 BEiNGE THE DOWGHTER OF LAVERANCE
THORNELL OF DARLINGTON GENT & LATE WYFE TO PARSAVAL
BELL, NOWE MAiRE OF THIS TOWEN OF HARTiNPOOELL. MARCHANT
whos vertues if thou wilt beholde
peruse this tabel hanginge bye
which will the same to thee vnfold
by her good lyfe learne thou to die.
In Haughton-le-Skerne Church there is a curious figure on a brass,
representing a lady, who holds a baby on each arm. She was Dorothy, the
wife of Robert Perkinson of Whessey, and she died, with her twin sons,
in 1592.
At Houghton-le-Spring there is a brass to the memory of Margery, wife of
Richard Bellasis. It pictures the kneeling figure of a woman with her
eight sons and three daughters behind her. The Bellasis coat of arms is
on the brass: the date is 1587.
In Sedgefield Church there is a rudely engraved, early brass, probably
cut about the year 1300. It shows a small female figure, kneeling, and
it has a coat of arms on both sides of the figure. From the shape of
the two coats of arms, and from the conventional treatment of the
features of the face, which is more carefully executed than the rest of
the figure, it is believed that this is one of the oldest sepulchral
brasses now remaining in England.
The tombstone to Dean Rudde, which lies in the floor of the chancel of
Sedgefield Church, still carries its inscribed brass. The stone is a
very large one. The black-letter epitaph is so much worn by the tread of
the feet of many generations that it can only be read with some
uncertainty. It seems to run:
Orate p aīa [=m]ri Jo[=h]is Rudde in decretis baccalarii quond[=m]
decani hui’ loci qui obiit xxix die decēbr’ Anno d[=n]i Mº CCCCº
lxxxx cui’ āīē ppiciet de’ amen.
This John Rudde gave to the church of Esh the only medieval service-book
belonging to any church in the diocese of Durham which is now known to
exist. It is in the library of the Roman Catholic College of Ushaw, near
Durham.
The beautiful memorials to the dead which were known as grave-covers
were used in England and Ireland from the ninth to the sixteenth
century. Though they are abundant in the county, Durham cannot boast of
the possession of specimens equal in merit to those found in some
other parts of England. At Sedgefield Church there is a fine
thirteenth-century grave-cover with a double, eight-rayed cross; it has
the rare feature of a double row of dog-tooth ornament at the head; and
it is the only stone known in the county which has the whole surface
covered with a tracery of foliage. It is, unfortunately, much weathered.
Built into the tower of the same church, and only partly visible, is
another richly ornamented cover, dating probably from the middle of the
fourteenth century, the foliated ornament being more naturally shown, or
less conventionalized, than in earlier examples. It bears a sword and a
cross moline on a small shield.
The symbolism used on grave-covers is not well understood. A key is said
to indicate a woman, a sword a man; shears sometimes represent a woman,
sometimes a wool-stapler; a chalice or a book, or both, are placed on
the gravestone of a priest or other ecclesiastic. Craftsmen are often
indicated by some sign of their business, as a square for a mason, a
horseshoe or a hammer for a smith. Sometimes a merchant uses his
trade-mark much as an armigerous person uses his coat of arms. Built
into the south porch of St. Mary’s Church in Gateshead there are two
large grave-covers bearing incised crosses. One of them, a
fourteenth-century slab, has at one side of the stem of the cross a key,
and at the other side a fish. Most authorities think that the fish is
the mystic symbol of our Saviour, which was so dear to the early
Christians, and which is frequently found on the gravestones in the
catacombs at Rome; but other antiquaries consider that the stone is to
be more literally interpreted, and that it covered the remains of a
fish-wife.
The earlier grave-covers were stone lids for stone coffins, but after
the use of stone coffins was discontinued, and wooden coffins were
substituted, the remains of the dead were often covered by these carved
stone slabs. The larger part of them are uninscribed, but grave-covers
with a few lines cut on them are by no means uncommon. At Gainford there
is a perfect grave-cover of the fourteenth century which bears a chalice
and three floreated crosses, one large and two small. It has been
suggested that these prove this to have been the burial-place of an
ecclesiastic and two children, for burial in a monk’s frock or in the
grave of a priest was long considered by all classes of people to be
desirable. This stone, though it is of early fourteenth-century period,
bears an inscription to Laurence Brockett, Regius Professor of Modern
History at Cambridge, who died in 1768. His executors seem to have
thought that an old gravestone was just as good as a new one.
Of quaint sepulchral inscriptions there are many in the county. The one
in Monkwearmouth Church to the memory of a Mrs. Lee is on a small marble
tablet on the vestry wall. It reads:
HEERE VNDER LYETH Yᴱ BODDYE OF MARY LEE
DAVGHTER TO PETER DELAVALE LATE OF
TINMOVTH GENT SHEE DIED IN CHYLDBED
YE 23 OF MAY 1617
HAPIE IS Yᵀ SOVLE Yᵀ HEERE
ON EARTH DID LIVE A HARMLESS LYFE
& HAPPIE MAYD Yᵀ MADE
SOE CHAST AN HONNEST WIFE.
It is strange that a lawyer "of ability and integrity" should not be
able to make himself a sound will. In Greatham Chapel there is an
inscription: "In memory of Ralph Bradley, Esq. an eminent Councillor at
Law, born in this parish, who bequeathed a large fortune, acquired in a
great measure by his abilities and integrity, to the purchasing of books
calculated to promote the interests of virtue and religion, and the
happiness of mankind. He died the 28th day of December 1788, in the 72d
year of his age...." Below, on a copper plate, is: "By a decree of
Edward Lord Thurlow, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, on the 2ᵈ
day of August 1791, the charitable intention mentioned above was set
aside in favour of the next of kin."
In Stockton Church we may read that on "Wednesday the 19th of May 1773
was here interred the body of Mrs. Sarah Baker ... aged 59. Do thou
reflect in time; death itself is nothing, but prepare to be you know not
what, to go you know not where."
At Houghton-le-Spring stands the massy altar-tomb of the great Bernard
Gilpin, "the apostle of the North," that sweet-natured, fearless, and
humble-minded man who so narrowly escaped a martyr’s death at the stake.
The tomb bears his coat of arms and the following:
BERNERD OBIT QVA
GILPIN RE [A bear with a crescent on its side, RTV DIE M
CTOR HV leaning against a tree.] ARTII AN.
IVS ECCLIÆ DOM. 1583.
See here his Dust shut up whose Generous mind
No stop before in Honours path could find.
Truth Faith and Justice, and a Loyall Heart
In him Showd Nature, which in most is Art.
In the same church of Houghton-le-Spring there is the following epitaph:
"Here Lyes interr’d the Body of Nicolas Conyers Esqʳ. High Sheriff of
this County Chiefe of yᵉ Family of Conyers of the House of Boulby in
Yorkshire. He dyed at South Biddick Mar: 27 A.D. 1689 his age 57." Below
is his crest.
At Houghton Hall Robert Hutton, a zealous Puritan and a Captain in
Cromwell’s army, was buried in his own orchard, where his altar-tomb is
inscribed: "HIC JACET ROBERTVS HVTTON ARMIGER QVI OBIIT AVG. DIE NONO
1681 ET MORIENDO VIVIT."
In the Galilee Chapel at the west end of Durham Cathedral there is a
stone on the floor inscribed:
JOHN BRIMLEIS BODY HERE DOTH LY,
WHO PRAY SED GOD WITH HAND AND VOICE;
BY MUSICKES HEAVENLY HARMONIE
DULL MINDS HE MAID IN GOD REJOICE.
HIS SOUL INTO THE HEAVENS IS LYFT
TO PRAISE HIM STILL THAT GAVE THE GYFT.
This Brimley was master of the Song School at Durham Cathedral.
That mighty builder, Hugh Pudsey, who was Bishop of Durham from 1153 to
1195, seems to have had a fellow-worker who pleased him in the person of
Christian the Mason, whose grave-cover is at Pittington. One wonders
whether it was after Christian had built for the Bishop the stout
fortifications of Durham Castle, or whether it was when he had finished
the beautiful Galilee Chapel of the cathedral, that Pudsey gave him, as
we know he did, forty acres in the moor at South Sherburn, besides other
lands, "quit of all rent whilst he should remain in the service of the
bishop." Pudsey’s own tomb in Durham Cathedral is broken and dispoiled,
but Christian the Mason’s grave-cover at Pittington can still be read:
✠NOMEN ABENS CRISTI TVMVLO TVMVLATVR IN ISTO
✠QVI TVMVLVM CERNIT COMMENDET CVM PRECE CRISTO,
which may be interpreted: "One having the name of Christ is buried here.
Let him who beholds the grave commend himself with prayer to Christ."
In the churchyard of St. Hild’s at Hartlepool, about 6 feet from the
east wall of the modern chancel, there is an old altar-tomb covered with
a very large slab of bluish stone. If it has ever been inscribed the
lettering is now utterly weathered off, but it has the lion of Bruce on
the uprights at the sides still faintly visible. This is the
resting-place of the fathers of Robert Bruce. They owned Hart and
Hartlepool for many generations before Robert Bruce claimed the crown of
Scotland in 1306. His lands in the county of Durham were then seized and
given to the Cliffords. In Easington Church there is an effigy of a lady
in thirteenth-century costume, which probably represents Isabella, first
wife of John Fitz-Marmaduke. She was the daughter of Robert de Brus of
Skelton, and the sister of Robert Bruce, King of Scotland.
Coming last to the ordinary inscriptions on the tombstones and
headstones of our churchyards, one of the first things that strikes an
observer is the large number of cases where, though the stone remains,
the inscription is wholly or partly weathered off and lost; such cases
are an occasion of woe to the genealogist. In looking through a country
churchyard it will often be found that 10 per cent. of the stones are
unreadable. This is generally because a soft and unsuitable stone has
been used. Some slate-stones stand well; limestones and marbles only
last while they are in a church, rain and slight traces of acid in the
atmosphere soon disintegrate them out of doors. Granite will probably
endure very long, but it has been little used in Durham churchyards, and
only since about 1860. Sandstones are most generally used, and some of
these, of a close-grain and of a dark colour when old, stand exceedingly
well. The fell sandstones, or hassells, used in the west of the county,
are almost as hard as granite. They are very difficult to cut, so the
lettering on them is often quite shallow; but stones 200 years old are
quite unaffected by weather. Soft sandstones, which are easily cut,
either crumble and decay gradually, or in some cases they scale off in
flakes and perish very quickly. It is common to see two stones of about
the same date, standing side by side, one of which is sound and clear,
while the other cannot be read. Frequently one finds a stone where,
owing to differences of hardness, one part of the inscription is sharp
and legible, while other parts are completely gone.
Along the parishes on the coast of the county the wanderer cannot fail
to be struck with the constant repetition of the words, "Lost at sea,"
and if he should turn to the registers of these parishes and read the
many entries like, "A woman at ye sea side found drowned," "A man cast
upon our sands by the sea," "Foure Duchmen wth a woman and a childe
being drowned by shipwrack were buried in this Churchyard," he will
learn what a heavy tithe the sea takes from the land, and how high is
the price that man pays for the sovereignty of the sea.
Punning epitaphs are, fortunately, not numerous in the county. Here is
one, from Stockton, to the memory of two masons, "Ralph Wood, who
departed this life Oct. 22, 1730, in the 67th year of his age. Here
lieth the Body of Ralph Wood, aged 67, 1743.
"We that have made tombs for others,
Now here we lie;
Once we were two flourishing Woods,
But now we die."
THE CASTLES AND HALLS OF DURHAM
BY HENRY R. LEIGHTON
Although the county of Durham is not studded with castles and peels like
its northern neighbour, nor decked with many ancient homes in a still
picturesque and habitable condition, like the moors and valleys of York,
it is still fairly rich in buildings of historic and antiquarian
interest.
The banks of the Wear alone, if followed from the source to the mouth,
may be compared to some miniature Rhine in picturesqueness. The
mountainous scenery of Weardale, and the frequent woods and plantations
that ornament the banks of its lower reaches, the castles of Stanhope,
Witton, Auckland, Brancepeth, Durham, Lumley, Lambton, and Hilton,
rising in a stately succession, to say nothing of the glorious old
cathedral, the monastic ruins of Finchale, and the grey old tower of
Wearmouth, make a panorama unrivalled in its way. It may, however, be
remarked in all fairness that almost every English stream can tell a
similar story, and for a vision, in homely and familiar buildings, of a
glorious past our England stands unrivalled.
The first-named of the above mansions, Stanhope Castle, stands upon the
site of a fortified house existing in the time of Bishop Anthony Bek.
The present building is, however, a Georgian structure erected about a
century ago by Cuthbert Rippon, M.P. for Gateshead. The old home of
[Illustration: WITTON CASTLE IN 1779.]
the Fetherstonhaughs, so long associated with this district, Stanhope
Hall, is an Elizabethan mansion with several panelled rooms, and is now
divided amongst a number of tenants.
Witton Castle, erected by the great baronial house of Eure, stands on
the south side of the river, not very far from Witton-le-Wear. It was
erected somewhere about 1410, for in that year Bishop Langley granted a
pardon to Sir Ralph Eure for having commenced to embattle his
manor-house at Witton. It originally consisted of a square bailey,
surrounded by an outer wall, with a projecting keep on the north side.
The keep has been considerably altered at various periods. It is oblong
in shape, with corner turrets rising above the roof. The basement
consists of one barrel-vaulted apartment, with adjoining chambers in the
north-west, south-west, and south-east turrets; the entrances to two of
these were originally fastened on the outer side. The first floor is the
great hall, and has doorways leading into chambers in the turrets.
Another door in the north-east corner leads to a newel staircase
ascending to the battlements. The room immediately over the east end of
the great hall has a doorway opening into a small mural chamber,
originally a latrine, in the north-east turret. This floor has a passage
in the thickness of the west wall. The parapets are reached by the
staircase already referred to. The turrets at the north-east and
south-east corners project like angle buttresses, and the latter has two
figures in armour, similar to those at Hilton Castle, standing on the
parapet. The north-west turret is larger, and its sides are parallel
with the walls of the keep. The south-west turret is still larger, and
it projects beyond the south front, having its west wall continued in
line with that of the main building. All the turrets have crenellated
parapets. The eastern turrets have their alternate sides machicolated on
double corbels.
The outer wall has two gateways, one on the east, and the other on the
west side, leading into the courtyard. Both are defended by machicolated
galleries above, the parapet being carried outwards on double corbels.
The whole wall is defended by a broad battlement with a high parapet
round the top. There are embrasures at intervals, each originally
defended by movable shutters; a round socket on one side, and a slot on
the other, remain to show where the pivots moved. A number of round
holes in the walls were intended to support woodwork on which platforms
could be erected, thus enabling the garrison to strike at attackers
below.
Each angle of this outer or curtain wall was originally strengthened by
a bartizan. Three of these were circular, but one, that at the
north-west corner, was pulled down in the early days of last century.
The fourth bartizan, that at the south-west corner of the wall, is
almost square in shape, with the outer walls projecting and resting on
corbels. It contains a guardroom, with a fireplace, and two doors
opening on to the adjoining battlements. The south-east bartizan also
contains a room, circular in shape, with a loopholed wall. About a
century ago the castle was unfortunately damaged by fire. It was
afterwards restored by Mr. J. T. H. Hopper, the owner.
Tracing the river eastwards, the ancient home and palace of the Bishops
and Lords Palatine stands close to the river and to the east of Auckland
town.
Robert de Graystanes, one of the early chroniclers, states that Bishop
Anthony Bek erected the manor-house at Auckland, but from several
entries in the Boldon Book it is evident that the Bishops had a
residence there at the time that record was drawn up.
The existing buildings are extensive, and are approached from the
market-place through a castellated gateway. One of the most prominent
and interesting features is the chapel, which was originally the great
hall. It was adapted for its present purpose and consecrated by Bishop
Cosin. Prior to the great Civil War, there were two chapels, variously
referred to, and as early as 1338, as the major and the minor. One of
these was over the other, and they stood to the south of the castle
proper, near to a postern which opened on to a road outside the park.
When for a while the Episcopal Church was abolished by a Puritan
Government, and the old story of spiteful spoliation began, Auckland
Palace was sold to Sir Arthur Heslerigg for £6,102 8s. 11½d. This
redoubtable worthy appears to have dismantled a considerable portion of
the buildings. He blew up the chapels,[11] and commenced to alter the
place to suit his own ideas.
It seems probable that Sir Arthur left his projected buildings in an
unfinished state, for when Bishop Cosin came to his diocese at the
Restoration, he wrote that the castle "had been pul’d down and ruined."
The Bishop commenced an extensive restoration, and a number of
interesting letters and agreements have been preserved showing the
progress made.
As it now stands, the chapel is divided into nave and aisles by arcades,
each of four bays. The supporting pillars are clearly those described by
Leland, who, speaking of the great hall, says: "There be divers pillars
of black marble speckled with white." Each pillar consists of four
clustered cylindrical shafts, two being of Weardale marble, and two of
freestone. The four pillars nearest the west are banded half-way up, and
the capitals of the two western pillars are carved with foliage, the
north-western showing also the spiral scroll or volute. The capitals of
the other pillars and the bases of all are moulded, the latter resting
on square plinths.
The arches are richly moulded, and have labels terminating in carved
ornaments. They rest at the east end on responds of three clustered
shafts, two of marble, and one of freestone, with moulded capitals and
bases. At the west end the arches rest on highly ornamental corbels.
Each of the latter consists in its lower portion of two carved heads,
the northernmost being of Bishops wearing mitres, and the southern of
crowned Kings. From within the mitres and crowns rise dwarfed shafts
with Late Transitional foliage carved on the bells. Each capital is
surmounted with a square moulded abacus, on which rest the bases of a
triplet of dwarfed, clustered shafts corresponding to those in the piers
of the arcades. In the spandrels between the arches, on both sides, are
carved corbels; those on the inner side carry single cylindrical shafts
surmounted by moulded capitals, and originally carried the pendant posts
of the roof. The outer corbels supported the rafters of the aisle roofs.
There is now but little doubt that this portion of the building was
erected by Bishop Pudsey.
Bishop Hatfield made further improvements, inserting the windows still
existing. At a much later period, as already mentioned, Bishop Cosin
altered and restored the castle, which he appears to have made his
favourite residence. He certainly took great delight and pride in
improving his country home. Most of the fine woodwork in the chapel is
his work--the roof, mouldings, and the great screen at the west end
being particularly noteworthy.
Since his time the chapel has been but little altered. Bishop Van
Mildert refloored it, and Bishop Lightfoot erected a new reredos, and
filled most of the windows with stained glass.
The other portions of the castle have been considerably modernized, and
bear but little resemblance to Pennant’s picture of it. The room which
he describes as "below stairs," and having painted on the old wainscot
"the arms of a strange assemblage of potentates, from Queen Elizabeth,
with all the European princes, to the Emperors of Abissinia,
Bildelgerid, Carthage, and Tartaria, sixteen peers of the same reign,
knights of the garter, and above
[Illustration: LUMLEY CASTLE.]
them the arms of every bishoprick in England," is now used as the
housekeeper’s storeroom.
The wing containing the servants’ hall (on the ceiling of which is a
plaster shield of Bishop Tunstall’s arms) and the dining-room was
commenced by Bishop Ruthall, and completed by the former prelate. The
arms of both Bishops appear on the exterior of the building. Adjoining
this wing to the west is another of some length, still known by the
curious name of _Scotland_, and undoubtedly erected by Tunstall. No very
satisfactory reason has been offered for the derivation of its name.
Brancepeth Castle stands within a mile from the River Wear, a little to
the south of the village of the same name. There was undoubtedly a
castle there in the twelfth century, towards the end of which it passed,
by the marriage of Emma, widow of Peter de Valoignes, and only child of
Bertram de Bulmer, to Geoffrey de Neville, from the former to the latter
family.
The present castle is stated by Leland to have been erected by Ralph,
first Earl of Westmorland. It was defended north and east by a moat;
south and west the walls rise from a rock nearly forty feet in height.
The original gateway, defended by a portcullis and flanked by square
towers, stood on the site of the present gate, and was approached from
the north. It has been destroyed. It opened directly into the courtyard,
south-west of which are the residential parts of the castle.
There were, when Hutchinson wrote, four towers, closely conjoined. Three
of these remain, containing respectively the dining-room, saloon, and
the baron’s hall. The destroyed tower stood north of the last mentioned,
but was not so high. It contained three stories, and was probably, as
Mr. Boyle has suggested, the great hall.
The projecting angles of the towers are surmounted by small turrets,
eight in number, the arrangement consisting of two sides rising directly
from the sides of the buttresses on which they are built, whilst the
other two are machicolated, the parapets resting on corbels.
Two other towers now standing at either end of the billiard-room are
respectively used as the chapel and the library. The castle possesses a
number of other interesting features.
Amongst the pictures is one by Hogarth, painted for the first Viscount
Boyne, and representing several members of the _Hell-fire Club_. They
are supposed to have assembled in a wine-cellar, and resolved not to
part until its contents have been consumed. Sir Philip Hoby is depicted
sitting on a cask of claret. Immediately behind him, with his hand held
up, is Mr. De Grey, and below him is Lord John Cavendish, who has drawn
a spigot from the cask to let the wine flow into a bowl. Lord Sandwich
is kneeling down, holding a bottle to his mouth. Lord Galway lies
extended on a form, in such a position that the liquor from a cask above
him is flowing into his mouth. The arrangement of the four central
figures is a clever imitation of a statue of _Charity_ shown in the
cellar.
There is some fine armour in the present and modern great hall, amongst
others a suit richly inlaid in gold, and traditionally said to have been
taken from the Scottish King after the Battle of Neville’s Cross,
although really it is of Elizabethan date.
The existing castle in Durham City, long the principal seat of the
Episcopal Princes, largely helps, with its frowning walls and grim
battlements, standing side by side with the cathedral, to make Durham
one of the most picturesque cities in this country.
The castle is approached from the north-west corner of the Palace Green,
a short avenue leading to the gateway, which was modernized by Bishop
Barrington. The iron-bound gates were placed there by Bishop Tunstall,
and one of them contains a wicket which is the subject of one of
Spearman’s amusing anecdotes. He states that Bishop Crewe had been
pressing Dr. Grey, Rector of Bishopwearmouth, and Dr. Morton, Rector of
Boldon, to read King James’s declaration for a dispensing power in their
parish churches. Both declined and began to argue against it, when the
Bishop appears to have lost his temper. He told Dr. Grey that his age
made him dote, and that he had forgotten his learning. "The good old
Doctor briskly replied he had forgott more learning than his Lordship
ever had. ‘Well,’ said the Bishop, ‘I’ll forgive and reverence you, but
cannot pardon that blockhead Morton, whom I raised from nothing.’ They
thereupon took their leave of the Bishop, who with great civility waited
upon them towards the gate, and ye porter opening ye wikett or posterne
only, ye Bishop said, ‘Sirrah, why don’t you open ye great gates?’ ‘No,’
says ye Reverend Dr. Grey, ‘my Lord, wee’le leave _ye broad way_ to your
lordship, _ye strait way_ will serve us.’"
The gateway leads directly into the courtyard. A door and flight of
steps in the wall to the left leads into the Fellows’ Garden, formerly
the private garden of the Bishops, through which they could enter Bishop
Cosin’s library.
Crossing the court to the left, the first building approached is partly
of early Norman date, with additions by Bishop Fox, and a later
restoration by Bishop Cosin, whose arms, impaling the see, are upon the
front. It is now used entirely as students’ quarters.
A portico farther along the court leads into the great hall, erected by
Bishop Anthony Bek. The hall measures 101 feet long by 35 feet wide, and
was restored somewhere about 1850.
The window at the north end was filled with stained glass in 1882 to
commemorate the jubilee of the University.
The walls are hung with paintings, and include:
1. A collection of thirteen portraits of English Archbishops and
Bishops, said to have been made by Bishop Cosin.
2. Ten pictures of the Apostles, which were taken at St. Mary’s, in
Spain, in the expedition under the Duke of Ormond, and purchased by the
Dean and Chapter in 1753.
3. A number of portraits of prebendaries and professors.
4. Portraits of Charles I., Bishop Cosin, and Charles II.
On the same wall as the last-mentioned portraits the banners of the
Durham local volunteer companies, raised to defend the country at the
time of Napoleon’s threatened invasion, are suspended.
A door at the north end of the hall leads to Bishop Cosin’s great
staircase, which is most handsomely carved.
At the foot of the staircase a corridor, the woodwork of which
originally formed part of the same Bishop’s choir screen in the
cathedral, may be entered.
The staircase itself, however, leads more directly to Bishop Tunstall’s
Gallery, and to several apartments, from one of which a door opens upon
the terrace on the north side of the castle.
Tunstall’s Gallery contains several objects of interest, and the walls
are covered with sixteenth-century tapestry.
Here also is the magnificent Norman doorway erected by Bishop Pudsey as
the entrance to his lower hall. From its position and the weathering of
the stonework, it is supposed to have originally been approached by a
stairway from the court; the case at the top must have been roofed with
open arcades at the sides.
The present Senate-room of the University contains some good tapestry,
illustrating the life of Moses, and dating from the sixteenth century.
This room also contains a handsome carved fireplace, armorially
decorated, and evidently the work of Bishop James. In the centre are the
Royal Arms, Garter, and Motto. On either side are the arms of the
Palatinate impaling the Bishop’s dolphin and cross-crosslets, with the
James’s motto, "Dei Gratia Sum quod Sum."
[Illustration: HILTON CASTLE WEST FRONT.]
The adjoining anteroom contains several paintings, including portraits
of King James II. and his Queen, Mary of Modena.
Leaving the county town behind, the picturesque outlines of Lumley
Castle may be seen for some miles from the train journeying to
Newcastle. It is situated about a mile from Chester-le-Street, but on
the opposite bank of the Wear. The place is first mentioned by Styr, the
son of Ulf, in a list of gifts made to St. Cuthbert.
The castle is supposed to have been erected by Sir Ralph Lumley, who
obtained licences from Richard II. and Bishop Skirlaw to embattle his
house of Lumley. It is in arrangement a square courtyard, surrounded by
a quadrangle. Two of the fronts, the south and north, measure 65 yards 1
foot in length, the other two 58 yards and 1 foot. Oblong towers, of
greater height than the main portions of each front, from which they
project, strengthen and guard each corner. The most exterior angle of
each tower is capped by a buttress.
The west front is the oldest existing portion of the castle, and is
supposed to have been the Lumley manor-house, before Sir Ralph extended
and added to it.
Originally the east side of it, that looking into the courtyard, was the
principal front, and in its centre the gateway, flanked by
semi-octagonal turrets, may still be seen. The front of the gateway is
formed of two arches, the outer segmental headed, and the inner one
pointed. Between these is the groove wherein the portcullis ran. The
arch leads to a vaulted passage which entered the original courtyard. On
the north side of the passage is a pointed doorway, leading into a
narrow corridor, having a latrine at its east end, and connected
originally with the gatekeeper’s room.
The present gateway is in the centre of the east front, and has
incorporated with it an earlier round-headed archway, with
semi-octagonal jambs and moulded imposts. On either side of it is a
square turret, surmounted by octagonal machicolated parapets, the
alternate sides of which are embrasured.
The turrets are joined by a machicolated gallery, defended by a
battlemented parapet. Above the door are six sculptured coats of arms.
Between the two highest, Neville and Percy, is the royal coat of Richard
II. Below is the Lumley coat, having on the sinister side the arms of
Grey, and on the dexter the coat of Hilton. The shields are all
surmounted by the respective family crests.
A room on the south side of the gateway contains in its centre a flag,
which on being raised leaves open the entrance to a vaulted chamber
about 10 feet square and some 16 feet deep. From the existence of a
latrine, and a little ventilation from a small unglazed loophole looking
into the courtyard, it seems to have been intended as a safe place for
the custody of prisoners.
In the north-east tower are two rooms, divided by a modern partition,
and showing evidence that they originally formed the private chapel of
the family. The south-east tower contains on its second floor the state
bedroom, in which King James I. is said to have slept when he visited
Lumley.
In the north-west tower is the famous kitchen, which Howitt described as
"one of the most stupendous, lofty, and every way remarkable kitchens in
the kingdom." The south-west tower contains the banqueting-hall,
celebrated for its very fine stuccoed ceiling, part of the work
initiated by Richard, second Earl of Scarborough.
Between the towers on the west side the main building forms the baron’s,
or great, hall, which probably remained unaltered from the time of Sir
Ralph to the early days of the century before last. The fireplace is the
work of John, Lord Lumley, and is decorated with the family arms,
impaling FitzAlan. Here also is a large equestrian statue, representing
Liulph, a traditional ancestor of the house. There are also a series of
interesting family portraits.
Not far from Lumley, Lambton Castle stands on the northern and opposite
bank of the river. The original home of the Lambton family was, however,
on the same bank as Lumley. According to an old view, it was a double
house of stone, with flanking, gabled wings, and the grounds laid out in
parterres and terraces. It remained the residence of the family, until
it was dismantled in 1797 by William Henry Lambton, who had adopted
Harraton Hall as the family seat.[12]
The present Lambton Castle[13] stands on the site and incorporates
portions of the original building of Harraton Hall, a manor-house
erected about the year 1600. Very considerable additions were made to
this hall by William Henry Lambton, grandfather of the late Lord Durham,
from designs by the elder Bonomi, in the Italian style. The first Lord
Durham also made considerable alterations and additions to the building
from plans furnished by Bonomi, the general appearance of the mansion
being entirely changed. The south front is in the Tudor style and
castellated, and the north is Norman.
The great hall is panelled, and the windows are glazed with richly
stained glass, containing a representation of "Ye Legend of the Worme of
Lambton," and also the heraldic emblems of the family. The dimensions of
the hall are 94 feet by 36 feet, being larger than St. Stephen’s Hall,
Westminster. The principal staircase leading out of the hall,
communicating with the upper apartments, is 24 feet wide and 36 feet
high. East of the hall is the dining-room and west is the drawing-room,
abutting on the terraces of the west lawn.
Owing to the subsidence of the hill on which the castle stands, through
some old colliery workings underneath falling in, the castle had become,
when the second Earl succeeded to the estates, insecure. To meet this,
and strengthen the foundations, the workings, two seams deep, round the
castle, to the extent of 4½ acres, were filled up with débris. Three
seams lower still were bricked up, over 10,000,000 bricks being used,
and in several instances in the fourth seam the brickwork exceeded 30
feet in height.
Hilton Castle, like Lambton, stands on the north bank of the River Wear,
on a gentle slope commanding an extensive view of the valley to the
west.
The present building, a melancholy-looking tower, is only the gatehouse
of the original castle. It is first mentioned in the inquisition
post-mortem of William de Hilton in 1435, when it is described as "a
house constructed of stone, called the Yethouse." The intention of the
original builder, the William just mentioned, was evidently to erect an
extensive mansion on a similar scale, but there is sufficient evidence
to show that he never completed the work.
That there were other buildings probably surrounding a courtyard is
proved by various inventories. In 1559, after the death of Sir Thomas
Hilton, an inventory of his effects mentions the great chamber, the
green chamber, the middle and new chambers, the gallery, the wardrobe,
the parlour, the chamber over the hall door, and various out-buildings,
such as the brewhouse, buttery, and the barns. The tower is mentioned
separately, and the term evidently applies to the existing building.
These surrounding buildings were probably removed by John Hilton, who
early in the eighteenth century built
[Illustration: OLD TOWER AT RAVENSWORTH CASTLE.]
a large wing in the Italian style against the north end of the
gatehouse. This erection was three stories in height, having pedimented
windows in the two lower floors, and square-headed windows in the story
above. John Hilton also, to some extent, spoiled the ancient gatehouse
by inserting a number of similar pedimented windows in it. His son, the
last of the male line to own Hilton, and also named John, added a
similar south wing. Both these wings were castellated--at any rate, on
the east front.
The castle passed by descent to the Musgraves, and afterwards by
successive sales to the Bowes and Briggs families, and again within the
last year or two to the Monkwearmouth Colliery Company.
As it now stands, the tower presents a bold and picturesque outline. It
is divided, on the west front, into three bays by projecting,
square-shaped turrets. The main entrance is through the central bay,
over which is a fine array of heraldry. Immediately beneath the arcade,
the elaborately carved and projecting canopies of which fell in 1882, is
a banner and staff of the Royal Arms of France and England _temp._ Henry
V. Beneath the banner are the arms of Neville, Vesci, and Percy, and
amongst other coats represented are those of the families of Lumley,
Grey, Eure, Washington, Felton, Heron, Surtees, and Bowes. On the
right-hand turret, close to the entrance, beneath a canopy, is a large
banner of the Hilton arms. The east front shows a curious sculpture of
the family badge, _a roebuck collared and chained_. Below is the family
coat, accompanied with their curious crest--_the head of Moses, horned
with triple rays_.
The battlements are exceedingly picturesque and decorated with numerous
statued figures, one of which apparently represents the slayer of the
Lambton Worm.
The ancient family chapel stands in a semi-ruinous condition a little to
the north of the castle.
Ravensworth Castle was erected towards the end of the thirteenth
century, and has belonged successively to the Fitz-Marmadukes, Lumleys,
Boyntons, Gascoignes, and Liddells. It originally consisted of four
towers, one standing at each angle of a courtyard and joined by curtain
walls. Two of these towers still stand and form part of the present
castle, which was erected shortly after 1808, from designs by Nash. It
may be added that the castle was formerly known as Ravenshelm,
Ravensworth being the name of the adjoining village. Not far from the
castle, and near to the road leading to the north entrance, is an old
cross commonly known as the "Butter Cross." It is stated that the
country people left their produce here for the citizens of Newcastle to
take when that city was infested by the plague in the sixteenth century.
[Illustration: THE CROSS AT RAVENSWORTH.]
A few miles to the west, Gibside, a seat of the Earl of Strathmore,
stands in an exceedingly picturesque position. A terrace at the back of
the house stands above a sheer descent to an exceedingly wild glen. The
older portions of the building were erected by Sir William Blakiston,
who had inherited the estate from his grandmother, an heiress of the
Marley family, in the reign of James I. Over the entrance are the Royal
Arms, and the arms of Blakiston and Marley quarterly with the initials
W. I. B. for Sir William and his wife Jane Lambton. There is also an
interesting sundial inscribed with the motto _Ut hora, sic vita_. The
old drawing-room has a large fireplace, with figures of Samson and
Hercules at either side, and above a further heraldic display of the
family alliances.
There are four baronial mansions lying between the Wear and the Tees.
Barnard Castle, once a residence of the princely house of Baliol, has
for long years been a ruin.
Originally erected by Bernard de Baliol, son of Guy de Baliol, Lord of
Bailleul en Vimeu in Picardy, and founder also of Baynard’s Castle in
London, it passed on the attainder of his descendant John Baliol,
sometime King of Scotland, in 1296 to Bishop Bek. A few years later
Edward I. severed the Durham fees of Bruce and Baliol from the control
of the Palatinate and granted Barnard Castle to the Beauchamps. By
marriage the estate passed to the Nevilles, and by marriage again to the
Crown. Later it passed to the Vanes, who hold it still. The castle,
which was of some size and great strength, stands in a commanding
position above the River Tees. A great portion of the remaining
buildings dates from Norman times. One of the towers is still known as
the Brackenbury Tower, evidently deriving its name from the family of
the famous Constable of the Tower of London. The castle is also
associated with Richard III., whose badge of "the hog" occurs in one of
the rooms.
Not far from Barnard, Streatlam Castle stands in a valley between that
town and Raby. It has remained the property of the descendants of the
owners in the twelfth century to this day, although it has passed by
marriage successively to the Traynes, Boweses, and Lyons. The existing
castle includes some portions of the structure erected by old Sir
William Bowes. This Sir William is stated on the death of his young wife
Jane, daughter of Lord Greystock, under the age of twenty, to have gone
to the wars in France, where for some years he was Chamberlain to the
Regent, the Duke of Bedford. Sometime about 1450 he pulled down the
older castle at Streatlam, and erected a new one from designs he had
brought from France. His arms are on the north front of the castle,
which has been altered frequently since his time. A good portion of it
was pulled down by William Blakiston Bowes, who died in 1721, leaving
his alterations incomplete.
Raby Castle, one of the finest baronial piles in the North of England,
and for many centuries the great seat of the princely house of Neville,
would require, to deal with it in justice, more pages than a volume of
limited space can afford. A few of its leading features must, however,
be mentioned. Portions of the present building were erected by Ralph,
Lord Neville, one of the commanders at Neville’s Cross, who died in
1367. His son John carried on the work, and in 1378 obtained a licence
from Bishop Hatfield to embattle and crenellate his manor-house at Raby.
In aspect the castle consists of buildings forming a rough square, with
towers projecting from three of the corners, the whole enclosing a
courtyard. The four outer sides face the cardinal points. Some distance
from the main building, a wall 30 feet high with a deep moat on its
outer side entirely enclosed it. The main entrance is guarded by a large
tower thrown forward in a flanking position, rendering the approach
exceedingly difficult to an opposing force. This building is known as
Clifford’s Tower. At the south end of a curtain wall running southwards
stands the Watch Tower, which has, however, been considerably
modernized. Adjoining the great gatehouse,
[Illustration: STREATLAM CASTLE.]
which is the work of at least two builders, is the tower which Leland
says bears the name of Joan, wife of the first Earl of Westmorland. East
of Joan’s Tower is another stretch of curtain wall now containing the
drawing-rooms, and terminating at Bulmer’s Tower, an interesting
building in shape an irregular pentagon. On the upper story of this
tower is the badge of the builder, a large Old English b , doubtless like
the bull, their other badge, derived from the Bulmers.
A block of modern buildings adjoining the Bulmer Tower adjoins a tower,
from which a corridor enters the great hall, 90 feet long and 35 feet
wide. Close to the hall is the kitchen, which has been preserved in all
its original quaintness. Over a passage leading from the east side of
the great hall is the chapel. A short curtain wall connects this portion
of the building with the Mount Raskelf Tower, evidently named after a
manor owned by the Nevilles in Yorkshire. It is rather curious to
observe that the Christian names Ralph and Henry, which occur so
frequently in old northern families, are the predominating names
respectively of the great houses of Neville and Percy.
Walworth Castle, a large, picturesque old house, was erected by the
Jenisons in or about the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The north front,
flanked by two projecting wings, has a centre three stories high
terminating in a balustraded parapet. The south front has a circular
tower at each end. The windows were originally decorated with fine old
painted glass of heraldic design, which has been almost entirely
destroyed in modern times. Some fragments have, however, been gathered
together and are preserved in a window in the corridor. Here King James
I. was entertained and slept on his progress to the South in 1603.
Inferior to the larger houses, there were in the county several
buildings of great strength coming under the same head as the
_peel-houses_ or _towers_ on the borders.
One of these, now only represented by a few portions of the outer walls,
was Dalden Tower. The buildings appear to have formed a tower rather
longer than square, standing on a slight mound. The walls were of
rubble, 5 feet thick. In the east wall there is a square-headed niche,
surmounted by a pediment within an ogee-headed arch, the space within
which is filled with tracery. Two blank shields are upon a cornice over
the pediment. The niche seems to point to the room once adjoining having
been the private chapel. On the inner side of the curtain facing the
west wall there appears to have been a cell with a loophole.
A more recent manor-house was built about the reign of James I.,
adjoining the tower on the east, and portions of it are built into the
present farmhouse. For some generations it was a seat of the Royalist
family of Collingwood, and, at an earlier date, of a branch of the great
house of Bowes. It was a lady of this family, Maud, wife of Sir William
Bowes and heiress of Sir Robert Dalden, who possessed within the old
walls a curious library. In her will, made in 1420, she left to Matilda
Hilton _one Romaunce-boke_, to Dame Eleanor Washington _the boke with
the knotts_, to Elizabeth de Whitchester a book that is called
_Trystram_, and to her god-daughter Maud, daughter of the Baron of
Hilton, _one Romaunce boke is called the Gospells_. Surtees pertinently
writes: "Did a romance ever actually exist under this strange title? or
had the lady of Dalden met with one of Wicliffe’s Bibles, and conceived
the Gospels to be a series of fabulous adventures, in which our Saviour
and His Apostles were introduced to act and to moralize like the goodly
personages who figure in the ancient mysteries, or in _Les Jeux du Roi
René d’Anjou_"?
Farther to the south an old tower, oblong in shape stood at Little Eden.
It was, however, taken down in the early days of last century by Mr.
Rowland Burdon, who erected the present castellated house at Castle
Eden. At Dinsdale, on the banks of the Tees, the remains of the ancient
home of the Surtees family were excavated by the late Mr. Scott Surtees,
and showed that a large gatehouse of late twelfth-century work, with
vaulted chambers and a newel stair, had once stood there.
The later manor-house of the Place family retains some portions of the
older building. With thick walls and low rooms with heavy beams and
rafters, and an old oak staircase with a wicket, it still remains a
picturesque fragment of former days. A stone originally fixed over a
gateway destroyed shortly before Hutchinson compiled his history is now
let into the wall on the left of the farmhouse door, and bears the arms
of Place quarterly with Surtees.
The home of the Surtees’s neighbours, the allied and equally noble house
of Conyers, was at Sockburn, situated on the same sweep of the Tees.
Traces of the foundations of gardens and orchards alone point out the
site of the old house, where Dugdale in 1666 had noted the family
emblazonments in or on the building--the arms of Conyers, Vesci, Scrope,
Neville, Dacre, FitzHugh, Lumley, and of the Royal Family. Surtees
suggests that seven of the coats seem to have formed a rich armorial
window, and that amidst them ran the motto, "REGI SECVLOR I’ MORTALI I’
VISIBILI SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA I’ SECVLA SECVLOR." When the historian
wrote, "one old decaying Spanish chestnut" seemed alone to connect the
deserted spot with some recollection of its ancient owners. Of the old
house not one stone remains. A new house was erected about a century ago
by the baronet family of Blackett, who for some generations have owned
the manor. Here the far-famed Conyers falchion is preserved. The sword
dates from the thirteenth century, and has a blade 2 feet and 5½ inches
long. The handle is partly covered with ash, and has on the pommel two
shields, the three lions of England, and an eagle displayed. The cross
is engraved with decorative foliage of the period.
One of the most interesting specimens of the older fortified residences
was Ludworth Tower.[14] The building, which consisted of a
three-storeyed oblong tower of common limestone, stands near a brook, on
a low hill, at the head of the valley in which Shadforth village lies. A
lower vaulted room up till recently still contained a large open
fireplace and hearthstone. The only entrance was by a small arched door
leading to a spiral stone staircase, projecting from the north-west
angle of the tower. Remnants of a curtain wall exist to the east, and on
the west the adjoining ground has apparently been levelled by hand.
The whole appearance of the building, which has, unfortunately, in
recent years[15] been allowed to fall into a ruinous condition, was dark
and gloomy in the extreme. The date of its erection is fixed by the
licence obtained in 1422 by Sir Thomas Holden to embattle his
manor-house of Ludworth.
At Bellasis, or Belasyse, another old house, with stone walls of great
thickness and moated, is now occupied by a farmer.
Hollinside, an old mansion, associated with the Hardings, of whom Ralph
Harding the chronicler was a noteworthy member, still stands in ruins on
a bank above the River Derwent. Originally three stories in height, and
with two wings forming the three sides of a narrow court. The fourth and
east side is arched over and surmounted by a tower. On the west side a
turret projects in line with the south wall. The interior presents
several interesting features, and an outbuilding contains a large
fireplace.
Passing from the great homes of the county, and the older fortified
towers, we come to the time when, with the greater security accorded to
the minor gentry,
[Illustration: RABY CASTLE IN 1783.]
numerous manor-houses and country granges began to rise.
Even at this time, spoiled as the county is for residential purposes, it
requires no strong effort of the imagination to picture the county as it
was in later Tudor times. The Bishops, greater than ever through the
collapse of the Nevilles, still appointed their foresters, and doubtless
often made the dales resound with all the view-halloo of a gay hunt.
Durham City became a stronghold of great ecclesiastical families, the
sons and daughters of the prebendaries intermarrying with one another,
and the descendants of successive Bishops allied themselves by cross
marriages. In the country better farmsteads became erected, and
throughout the shire the landowners began to erect more commodious
residences. It is, with one or two exceptions, from this period that the
older halls and manor-houses still in existence date. It must not be
forgotten that there were at this time no great landowners in the county
in the sense that we now understand the term, and almost every village
had its own predominating squire.
A few houses still remain, not so strongly built as the peel-towers, yet
well adapted to defence. Holmside Hall is one of these. Once one of the
principal seats of the great House of Tempest, it was forfeited by
Robert of that name, who, with his son Michael, had joined the Earls in
their rebellion, and therefore appears in Hall and Humberston’s Survey
as a "capital messuage, with all the housings built of stone and covered
with slate, with the orchards and gardens, within a park containing
three acres." Now sufficient remains to show that once the buildings
were ranged round a court and surrounded by a moat. The north side was
faced by the chapel containing a still perfect west window of two
trefoil-headed lights under a square label, with the cinquefoil of the
Umphrevilles and two blank shields in the spandrels. Above the window "a
mutilated figure is fixed to the wall, with a full-moony face, and a
kind of round helmet," of which Surtees writes: "I should almost
conjecture this to be a rude piece of Roman sculpture, removed from the
station, which may possibly have furnished the coins and squared stones
used in building this chantry."
The house itself is a curiously confused building of many different
periods of architecture. The original gables were pulled down and the
house enlarged to the south. The windows are mullioned and narrow and
guarded with iron bars.
After the Tempests’ fall the estate became the property of William
Whittingham, the bigoted Calvinist Dean, whose name deserves perpetual
execration as the destroyer of much that was old and beautiful in Durham
Abbey. It is possible that in the austere gloom that even now pervades
the old house at Holmeside, he might find something sympathetic with his
own strange faith.
The Isle, another Tempest residence, stands on low ground, surrounded by
marshes caused through risings of the Skerne. It is a picturesque place,
with projecting gables and narrow mullioned lights. It was the residence
of Colonel John Tempest, first M.P. for Durham County, and still belongs
to the Marquess of Londonderry as representative of his family.
Sledwish Hall, standing lonely and sequestered, is a place of "ghastly
grey renown." Upwards of a hundred years ago the bones of an infant were
found interred in a stone coffin in the field adjoining. The house, too,
like most of these old mansions, is supposed to contain secret passages
and rooms. Portions of the present building, more particularly the south
front, date back to Plantagenet times, but the house as it now stands is
an interesting specimen of Tudor architecture. It was rebuilt by John
Clopton, Queen Elizabeth’s Receiver, his great work being the ceiling in
the Orchard Chamber. This is divided into compartments by deep
mouldings, ornamented by numerous crowned roses, fleurs-de-lis, and
pomegranates. In the centre is a shield bearing his family arms, a
quarterly shield, first and fourth, _paly a lion rampant_, and second
and third _a cross pattee fitchée_, over all a crescent for difference.
The arms are reversed through the artist having formed his mould without
considering that the impression was the final result. Two other shields
impressed from the same mould bear the initials E. C. (evidently for the
builder’s wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Ralph Ashton of Great Lever, in
Lancashire), the date 1584, and "a _tun_ with a rose _clapt on_."[16]
Above this shield is a rose surrounded by three crowns. At the four
corners of the room are large decorative groups; two are falcons with
pomegranates, the third is a swan, and the fourth a boar under an
oak-tree devouring an acorn. A deep cornice running round the whole
ceiling is decorated with repeated devices of the Royal lion and the
Welsh dragon supporting the crowned rose, the whole evidently symbolic
of Good Queen Bess. There are several other good rooms, and a large
chimney at the south-west is supported outside by three double brackets.
There are several other interesting mansions in this district. At
Cleatlam the old mansion of the Ewbankes still stands, gable-ended, with
mullioned windows. It was sold by them in the troublous times of the
great Civil War to the Somersets of Pauntley in Gloucester, and later
was a seat of the Wards. Another old home of the Ewbanke family was
Staindrop Hall, at the east end of the village of that name. The family
arms, _three chevronels interlaced and on a chief three pellets_, are on
one of the ceilings. Still another old house, once belonging to the same
race, was Snotterton Hall, which stood about a mile to the west of
Staindrop. Here the walls were embattled with crocketed pinnacles at the
corners, and the windows were triple mullioned lights under square
labels. Over the entrance the arms and crest of the Bainbridges, who
sold the estate to the Ewbankes in 1607, were sculptured. A portion of
the house which was pulled down in 1831 is preserved in the present Raby
Grange.
Westholme Hall is another existing good specimen of Jacobean
architecture. It consists of a main building, with two gabled wings and
mullioned windows. The date 1606, and the name IOHN DOWTHET on a
chimney-piece in the hall, points to its erection by the Douthwaites,
who purchased the estate from the Boweses in 1603. Erected about the
same period, Gainford Hall still stands at the west end of the village.
It, too, has gable ends and mullioned windows, and several of the rooms
are wainscotted. One of the latter has a stuccoed border of flowers and
fruit. Over the door is the three-garbed chevron of the Cradocks and the
inscription IOHN : CRADOCK 1600.
At Bishop Middleham a large old gable-ended house has a doorway with
jambs and a pediment of carved freestone. It stands on the west side of
the road leading to the church, and was originally the property of the
Wards, one of whom was Master of Sidney-Sussex College at Cambridge. In
1738 it was the residence of Thomas Brunskill, whose daughter or
granddaughter married Edward Watson, of Ingleby Greenhow, in Yorkshire.
Another picturesque fragment of the past is the old house now standing
at the western end of Thorpe Thewles village. It is built of brick, with
low rooms, and is locally stated to have been visited by Queen Anne. The
tradition may possibly be a survival of one of our sovereigns’ passage
through the county, but it is impossible that any crowned head can ever
have rested in this old mansion. A few fields away a wing of the once
great house at Blakiston still stands. It alone remains to show where
the birthplace of one of our great old families once stood, and is the
only remnant of the later home of the loyal house of Davison, two of
whom were slain at the storming of Newcastle in 1644.
Cotham Conyers, or Cotham Stob, derives its affix name
[Illustration: GAINFORD HALL.]
[Illustration: THE OLD HALL AT THORPE THEWLES.]
from its erstwhile owners, the Conyers, and is another old gable-ended
manor-house. It stands, surrounded by elms, near to a brook. The rooms
are wainscotted, and over the fireplace in one of the rooms there was a
hunting scene on the panel, depicting a stag at bay. One of the upper
rooms was hung with tapestry. The estate was forfeited by the Conyers
through Ralph Conyers having taken part in the Earls’ rebellion in 1569.
Lying almost midway between the two Conyers’ seats of Cotham and
Sockburn stands the old home of the Killinghalls and Pembertons, at
Middleton St. George. The house formerly contained a painting, by
Francis Place, of "A Pointer and Pheasants." An old cross in the garden
is said to have been brought from Neasham Abbey.
Passing to the west of Darlington again, near the highroad leading to
Staindrop, stands Thornton Hall, for many years the residence of a
branch of the baronial family of Tailbois. It is a stone house, with
high pitched gables, old-world red tiles, and mullioned windows, and has
long been used as a farmhouse. Above the window over the main entrance
are two gargoyles. An interesting account of this house, with a number
of good sketches, may be found in Mr. G. A. Fothergill’s _Sketch-book_.
Several miles north of Thornton, a small old mansion with gables and
mullions may be seen at School Aycliffe, and not very far away, in a
north-westerly direction, the old grange of Midridge stands within an
old walled garden, with a row of old elms leading along the road from
the south. The house is a large treble-gable-ended building, and is said
to have been garrisoned by the Loyalist owner, Anthony Byerley, who was
a Colonel in the Royal army. His troopers are still locally known as
"Byerley’s Bull Dogs." A little to the south-west, the old house of
Newbiggin stands low, with solid stone walls, and the main staircase of
the same substantial material. There was formerly a tower on the west
end of the house.
The hall at Coxhoe, erected about the year 1725 by John Burdon, has a
richly decorated interior of contemporary date. In this house Elizabeth
Barrett Browning was born on March 6, 1806.
The northern portion of the county does not contain so many houses of
interest as the southern; there are, however, a few interesting
mansions.
Fen Hall, near Lanchester, is an interesting old house,
[Illustration: FEN HALL.]
dating from the Stuart period. It has the Greenwell arms over the
entrance, and is now fast falling into a ruinous condition.
[Illustration: A CORNER OF WASHINGTON HALL.]
Washington Hall, a large, old stone mansion, built in the form of an E,
with high-pitched roof and gable-ends, stands to the south side of the
low hill on which the church is built. The lights are divided by stone
mullions and transoms. It was erected by the family of James, possibly
by the Bishop, and was, in Hutchinson’s time, the seat of the
Bracks.[17] It is now, like the old hall at Rainton, in a pitiable
state, and let in tenements.
In the neighbourhood of Sunderland there are several interesting houses.
High Barnes, for long the home of the Ettricks, is now a convent, and
has been considerably altered. Low Barnes, the Pembertons’ old home, is
let to a laundry company. Ford Hall is a comparatively modern house, but
is interesting as having been the birthplace of General Havelock.
Pallion Hall, an old stone mansion, has recently been pulled down.
The old hall at West Boldon is more modern, having been erected in 1709
by the Fawcetts. The house has the arms of that family over the main
entrance, and several of the rooms are wainscotted. A quaint record of
another generation may well be noted in the late Mr. Boyle’s own words:
"On one of the window-panes in a bedroom, in a neat hand of the early
part of last century, someone has written with a diamond:
"Beautifull Grace Andrew."
On the next pane, in equally delicate script, another hand has added:
"Fair written Name, yet fairer in my heart,
No Diamond cutts so deep as Cupid’s Dart."
Travelling by railway from Boldon to Newcastle, the house now known as
the Mulberry Inn is a familiar object, just outside of Felling station.
It has been a picturesque building, and for long was the residence of
the Brandlings. It is now undergoing a serious alteration. A small
stone summer-house, once in the garden, still stands on one of the
station platforms.
[Illustration: THE DOORWAY, WEST RAINTON HALL.]
Kibblesworth Hall, a few miles south of Gateshead, is a solid Jacobean
brick house, with stone-mullioned, square-headed windows. It has a fine
oak staircase, and some of the fireplaces and cornices are of
contemporary date. The house has been let in tenements to the pitmen of
the adjoining colliery, the stables turned into cottages, and the
gardens into allotments. Another old house that has undergone a similar
fate is West Rainton Hall, erected about 1690 by Sir John Duck, Bart. It
stands on the main street of the village, shorn of the battlements
mentioned by Surtees, but still retaining a fine old doorway,
reminiscent of its better days.
There are also in this district several other old houses dismantled and
in tenements, betokening the scattering of their once owners to many far
lands. It is a pleasure to turn from these to a few houses still in good
condition. The Hall,[18] Houghton-le-Spring, was perhaps erected by
Robert Hutton, Rector of Houghton, between the years 1589 and 1623,
although its erection is more popularly attributed to his grandson and
namesake. This later Robert Hutton was Captain of a troop of horse in
the Parliamentary army, and, like Dobson of Harlow Hill,
" ... went to Dundee
And when he came back
held his head hee."
With the proceeds of this expedition he is supposed to have built the
house in which his descendants dwelt for many generations. To satisfy
some scruple of his conscience, or, according to another story, to lie
near a favourite horse, he was buried in his garden under an altar-tomb,
inscribed:
"Hic Jacet Robertvs Hvtton armiger qvi obiit Avg die nono 1680. Et
moriendo vivet."
Stella Hall, a picturesque Elizabethan structure, situated close to the
River Tyne, was erected by the Tempests on the site of a nunnery, and
still contains some tapestry representing the story of Hero and Leander.
Scattered up and down the dales are many other old homes that a writer
dealing with his homeland would love to touch upon, but space forbids.
Even these short notes are all too short. The old mansions of our
countryside are a much neglected feature of archæology, and each house
in itself demands photographs and drawings and a chapter quite as long
as this.
DURHAM ASSOCIATIONS OF JOHN WESLEY
BY THE REV. T. CYRIL DALE, B.A.
A packet of old letters suggests many questions as to the writers, whom
they have long survived. Nor is this curiosity diminished when one of
the correspondents has achieved a world-wide fame, so that there is no
portion of the globe where his name is not known. For then one desires
to know who were the people whom he honoured with his friendship, and to
scan the letters closely to see if they throw any new light upon the
character of the writer. There are in existence seventeen letters
written by John Wesley to a member of a family once well-known in the
county of Durham. Originally there were thirty letters, as appears from
the numbering of those which remain, but where the other letters are the
writer does not know.[19] These seventeen letters, two of them being
only copies of the originals, came into the possession of the Rev.
Thomas Dale, Canon of St. Paul’s from 1843-70, and from him passed to
his eldest son, the Rev. Thomas Pelham Dale (1821-92), at one time
well-known as the Rector of St. Vedast in the city of London.[20] They
were written to Miss Margaret Dale, second daughter of Edward Dale[21]
of Tunstall, who, owing to the extinction (as it seems) of the elder
branch of the family in the male line, was head of the family of Dale,
first of Dalton le Dale, and then of Tunstall. This Edward Dale was the
son of Thomas Dale by his wife Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of
George Middleton of Silksworth. Through her Burke, who was far too
amiable a genealogist to doubt the assertions of any one respecting his
ancestors, however remote, traces the descent of Edward Dale from
Gundreda, daughter of William the Conqueror. The curious will find the
descent set out at length in Burke’s _Royal Family_, Pedigree XVI.
Edward Dale married Eleanor, youngest of the three daughters of the Rev.
John Lawrence, Rector of Bishop’s Wearmouth. Mr. Lawrence (1668-1732)
was in his day a well-known writer on horticulture, and has, as a
consequence, a niche in that temple of fame--the _Dictionary of National
Biography_. It is related that when in 1721 he was appointed to the
Rectory, he was so obnoxious to the principal inhabitants of his parish,
owing to his Hanoverian proclivities, that when he was "reading himself
in" the three chief landowners of the place--John Goodchild of Pallion,
John Pemberton of Bainbridge Holme, and Thomas Dale of Tunstall--walked
out of the church as a protest against his appointment.[22] By a kind of
poetic justice, his three daughters married into the families of the
three protesters. His eldest daughter married the above-named John
Goodchild, his two younger daughters the sons and heirs of John
Pemberton and Thomas Dale. Only unfortunately for the completeness of
the tale, the two last marriages did not take place till after the death
of John Lawrence.
By Eleanor Lawrence, Edward Dale had three daughters--Mary, Margaret,
and Anne--and one son, also called Edward. He died when his eldest
daughter was only eleven and his son still an infant.
Margaret Dale no doubt made the acquaintance of John Wesley through his
devoted adherent, Margaret Lewen. Miss Lewen, the only child of Thomas
Lewen of Kibblesworth, while still a girl of about twenty-two, was
attracted by the preaching of John Wesley during his visit to the North
in the year 1764. Wesley, in his famous "Diary," speaks of her as being
"a remarkable monument of Divine mercy. She broke through all
hindrances, and joined heart and hand with the children of God." She was
"a pattern to all young women of fortune in England." Margaret Lewen was
certainly exceedingly liberal. "In works of benevolence and Christian
zeal, she cheerfully expended an ample income" (Stamp: Orphan House of
Wesley, London, 1863). Wesley says she had about £600 a year "in her own
hands." On one of his visits to the North she gave him a chaise and a
pair of horses. Now, Margaret Lewen was very intimate with the Dale
girls, and it was probably through her influence that they came into
contact with the great preacher. Whether any letters were written to the
other sisters is not known, but they can hardly have been so numerous or
more intimate than those written to Margaret Dale.
The first letter extant is written from Portpatrick, and is dated June
1, 1765, when Margaret Dale was still two or three months short of
twenty-one. It begins: "My Dear Miss Peggy," and ends, "I trust you will
be happier every day; and that you will not forget, my Dear Sister, your
Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley." The letter is occupied with spiritual
counsels, and questions about her spiritual health. He inquires: "How
far do you find Power over your Thoughts? Does not your imagination
sometimes wander? Do those imaginations continue for any time?" It is
clear, from Wesley’s next letter, written from Kilkenny, dated July 5,
1765, that Miss Peggy had found she was guilty of wandering thoughts,
for the letter begins: "My dear Sister,--Altho’ it is certain the kind
of Wandering Thoughts wch you mention, are consistent with pure Love,
yet it is highly desirable to be delivered from yᵐ, because (as you
observe) they hinder profitable thoughts." Miss Lewen is mentioned. "I
hope Miss Lewen and you speak to each other, not only without Disguise,
but without Reserve." The letter ends, "My Dear Sister, your
affectionate Brother."
Letters 4 and 5 are missing. The next, numbered 6, is dated from London,
November 6, 1765. Peggy has a fixed idea that she will not live beyond
the age of three and twenty. Wesley, in this letter, asks many questions
about this conviction. He wants to know when it began, and whether it
continues the same, whether her health is better or worse. The subject
is continued in the next letter, written December 31 in the same year.
This letter begins "My dear Peggy," and ends, "I cannot tell you how
tenderly I am, my Dear Sister, your affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."
Wesley had evidently a tender paternal regard for the girl. He was in
1765 sixty-two years of age, fifteen years older than her father would
have been if he had survived. Peggy was mistaken in her conviction. She
did not actually die till November, 1777, when she had completed her
thirty-third year, so she was just ten years out. Letter 9, written
April, 1766, from Manchester, contains nothing of interest. Numbers 10
and 11 are unfortunately missing. Number 12 shows that Peggy desired to
go to Leytonstone, where there was a considerable colony of Wesleyans,
and whither perhaps Margaret Lewen had already gone. Wesley was very
anxious she should not go. "I am afraid," he writes, "if you go to
Laton-Stone you will give up Perfection. I mean by placing it so high,
as I fear none will ever attain. I know _not one_ in London that has
ever largely conversed with Sally Ryan, who has not given it up, that
is, with regard to their own Experience. Now this, I think, would do
you no good at all. Nay, I judge, it wou’d do you much hurt: it would be
a substantial Loss. But I do not see how you _cou’d_ possibly avoid that
loss, without a free intercourse with me, both in Writing and Speaking.
Otherwise I know and feel, I can give you up, tho’ you are exceeding
near and dear to me. But if you was to be moved from your Stedfastness
that wᵈ give me pain indeed. You will write immediately to, my Dear
Peggy, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."
The next two letters are missing, so that we do not know if Peggy obeyed
John Wesley or no, though from the tone of the next letter it seems
probable that she did so. The next letter is dated November 7, 1766.
Margaret Lewen had died at Leytonstone, October 30. By her will, dated
November 21, 1764, she left many legacies to various Methodist good
works, and to John Wesley £1,000, and her residuary estate to be applied
as he should "think fit for the furtherance of the Gospel." She left
Mary Dale £1,000, and to her sisters Margaret and Ann Dale, £100 apiece.
Her father threatened to dispute the will, and the matter was
compromised by the surrender to him of the residuary estate.
John Wesley refers to Margaret Lewen’s death in the fifteenth letter:
"How happy it is to sit loose to all below! Just now I find a paper on
wch is wrote (in Miss Lewen’s hand), ‘March 24, 1762, Margaret Dale, Ann
Dale, Margaret Lewen, wonder in what state of life they will be in the
year 1766.’ How little did any of you think at that time that she would
then be in Eternity: But she now wonders at nothing and grieves at
nothing." He ends: "And sure neither Life nor Death shall separate you
from, my Dear Sister, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."
In the eighteenth letter--the sixteenth contains nothing of especial
interest, the seventeenth is missing--Wesley speaks of his followers at
Newcastle: "Those you mention are Israelites indeed to whom you will do
well to speak with all freedom. A few more in Newcastle are of the same
spirit: Altho’ they are but few in whom ye Gold is free from dross. I
wish you could help poor Molly Stralliger. I am often afraid for her
lest she shᵈ be ignorant of Satan’s devices, and lose all that GOD had
wrought in her."
The twentieth letter we give in full, not because it is more interesting
than the other letters, but because it has not before appeared in public
print.[23] The other letters will be found in the _Life and Letters of
Thomas Pelham Dale_, by his daughter, Helen Pelham Dale, published by
George Allen, 1894. The whereabouts of this letter was not then known,
but it has since been unearthed from a collection of autographs made by
a connection of the family. Possibly the other missing letters may be in
other collections. The letter is dated from Athlone, June 19, 1767: "My
dear Peggy, By conversing with you, I should be overpaid for coming two
or three hundred miles round about. But how it will be I know not yet.
If a ship be ready for Whitehaven, then I shall arrive at Whitehaven or
Newcastle, otherwise I must sail for Holyhead or Chester. I hope you now
again find the increased witness that you are saved from sin. There is a
danger in being content without it, into which you may easily reason
yourself. You may easily bring yourself to believe there is no need of
it, especially while you are in an easy and peaceful state. But beware
of this. The Witness of Sanctification as well as of Justification, is
ye privilege of God’s Children, and you may have the one always clear as
well as ye other if you walk humbly and closely with God. In what state
do you find your mind now? Full of Faith and Love? Praying always? Then
I hope you always remember my Dear Peggy, Your affectionate Brother, J.
Wesley."
Before Wesley wrote again he had been to Newcastle and had seen Peggy.
The letter is dated from Witney, August 27, and is, as usual, very
affectionate in tone: "I thought it was hardly possible for me to love
you better than I did before I came last to Newcastle. But your artless,
simple, undisguised Affection exceedingly increased mine. At the same
time it increased my Confidence in you so that I feel you are
unspeakably near and dear to me." He adds in a postscript, "Don’t forget
what you have learnt in Music." Possibly Peggy had been showing her
friend her accomplishments. Possibly, too, she had learnt her music from
a certain young man, Edward Avison, afterwards organist of St. Nicholas’
Church, Newcastle. If this were the case, her teacher taught Peggy
something else beside music, for she afterwards married him.
In the next letter we get glimpses of two people famous in the Methodist
world of the day, George Whitefield, and Darcy, Lady Maxwell. Of George
Whitefield it is unnecessary to speak. Lady Maxwell was the daughter of
Thomas Brisbane of Brisbane in Ayrshire, and the widow of Sir Walter
Maxwell, fourth Baronet, of Pollock. Left a childless widow in 1757, she
became a follower of John Wesley, though she did not formally join the
Methodists till many years later. She provided the money for building
the school at Kingswood.
Wesley writes: "I hope Mr. Whitefield was an instrument of good at
Newcasle, and a means of stirring up Some. He is very affectionate and
very lively and his word seldom falls to the ground: tho’ he does not
frequently speak of the deep things of GOD, or the Height of ye
Promises. But you say not one word of Lady Maxwell? Did she call at
Newcastle going and coming? Did you converse with her alone? And did she
break thro’ her Natural and habitual Shyness? How did you find her?
Seeking Heavenly things alone, and all athirst for _God_? It will be a
miracle of miracles if she stands, considering the thousand snares that
surround her. I have much satisfaction when I consider in how different
a situation you and my Dear Molly Dale are. You have every outward
Advantage for Holiness wch an indulgent Providence can give."[24]
The correspondence now begins to slacken. Peggy has accused him of not
answering her last letter; in reply Wesley writes from Liverpool, April
1, 1768. "I do not understand what Letter you mean. I have answer’d (if
I do not forget) every letter which I have receiv’d, and I commonly
answer either of you within a day or two. In this respect, I do not love
to remain in your debt. In others I must always be so, for I can never
pay you the Affection I owe. Accept of what little I have to give.... I
hope to be at Glasgow on Wednesday the 19th instant, at Aberdeen ye
28th, at Edinburgh May 5th, at Newcastle on Friday May 20th."
The next letter dated June 30, 1768, may be described as a very brief
treatise on Sanctification. Then there is a gap of nearly a year, the
next letter being dated May 20, 1769. Peggy has had to endure a great
trial. Her sister Molly married a Mr. John Collinson of London. The
_Newcastle Courant_ of April 29, 1769, thus announces the fact:
"Thursday, was married at St. Andrew’s, Mr. John Collinson of London to
Miss Dale of Northumberland Street, daughter of the late Mr. Dale of
Tunstall, near Sunderland, a most agreeable young lady, endowed with
every qualification to render the marriage state happy, with a fortune
of £2,000." But Peggy felt her sister’s defection much. Wesley was
strongly in favour of the single life both for men and women. He had
published a treatise in favour of celibacy, entitled _Thoughts on a
Single Life_. It is true that he himself afterwards married in the year
1751, but, as his matrimonial experiences were distinctly unfortunate
(he separated from his wife for ever after five years of married life),
he was not unnaturally more than ever firmly convinced of the advantage
of celibacy.[25] Peggy was as yet quite sure that John Wesley was right
in this as in everything else.
He comforts her thus: "The hearing from my Dear Peggy at this critical
time gives me a particular satisfaction. I wanted to know, How you bore
such a trial, a wound in the tenderest part. You have now a first proof
that the God whom you serve, is able to deliver you in every trial. You
feel and yet conquer.... I hope you are delivered not only from
_repining_ with regard to Her, but from _reasoning_ with regard to
yourself. You still see the more excellent way, and are sensible of the
advantages you enjoy. I allow _some_ single women have fewer Advantages
for Eternity than they might have in a married State. But, blessed be
GOD you have all the Advantages wch one can well conceive.... O may you
improve every advantage to the uttermost. And give more and more comfort
to, my Dear Peggy, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."
There is one more letter from London, November 17, 1769, encouraging
Peggy to persevere in her work for others. Then the letters cease.
Perhaps there were more letters which have been lost, or were perchance
destroyed by the recipient. Wesley, with his zeal for celibacy, can
hardly have liked the news of his Peggy’s engagement to Edward Avison.
He was organist of St. Nicholas’, Newcastle, in succession to his
father, Charles Avison,[26] once a well-known musician in the North of
England. He was three years younger than Peggy. Their married life was
short. They were married March, 1773: Edward Avison died October, 1776,
aged twenty-nine; and Peggy in November, 1777, aged thirty-three. They
left no children. Their monument in the churchyard of St. Andrew’s
Church, Newcastle, says: "They were eminent for piety and primitive
simplicity of manners; having each borne a lingering disease with the
most exemplary patience and resignation, they rejoiced at the approach
of death." Perhaps Wesley visited Newcastle during the last year of his
dear Peggy’s life, and was able to minister spiritual consolation to
her. Let us hope that any breach that Peggy’s marriage may have made
between her and one who loved her with so tender and paternal an
affection was cured by the approach of Death, the great Healer.
Little remains to be said. Mary Collinson lived to 1812, and left a
family of two sons, George Dale and John Collinson, and three daughters,
Ann Collinson, Thermuthis Collinson, and Mary, the wife of Christopher
Godmond. It is not known if any of her descendants are alive to-day; if
there be any such, they may very likely possess the missing letters. Ann
Dale never married, and lived till 1820. Edward, their brother, died in
1826, having seen five of his six sons die before him without issue. His
eldest and only surviving son, also Edward, lived till 1862, and then
died childless. With him died out the senior branch of the family of
Dale of Dalton-le-Dale and Tunstall. Since his death there have been no
Dales of this family residing in the Bishopric. How the letters written
by John Wesley came into the possession of Canon Dale, or Canon Dale’s
father, William Dale, is not known. Possibly Anne Dale gave them to
William Dale, or her brother may have given them to his son. It is
certain that to that son’s careful preservation of them we owe this
intimate revelation of the great revivalist’s affection for a Durham
girl.
THE OLD FAMILIES OF DURHAM
BY HENRY R. LEIGHTON
The evil fate that has attended the old houses in this county has
followed equally relentlessly the families who once dwelled therein.
Here and there, it is true, a family still exists that has weathered the
storms of long centuries; one or two, perhaps, may be pointed out that
have increased their acreage as the long years went by; and perhaps
another two or three whose lands remain with daughters’ heirs.
With few exceptions, almost all the families of importance in feudal
days have passed away. The great House of Neville,[27] that once
threatened to overshadow the Lords Palatine themselves, survives only in
several southern branches, and their name is almost forgotten in their
native land. The baronial houses of Eure,[28] Conyers, Hylton, and
FitzMarmaduke have all passed away. So, too, have nearly all the names
recorded in the Heralds’ Visitations at intervals from 1530 to 1666. Of
the latter, eight only retain their patrimonial acres. These are the
Chaytors, Edens, Lambtons, Liddells, Lumleys, Salvins, Vanes, and
Whartons. To these may be added the Williamsons, who came from
Nottinghamshire, and the Shaftos from Northumberland.
The Visitations of Durham[29] are, like those of the sister county of
Northumberland, notoriously incomplete. Of the latter, Surtees wrote:
"The Northumbrian gentry, many of whom probably never heard of the
Visitation, would scarcely leave their business or amusements to attend
an Officer of Arms for a purpose of which few then saw the utility, and
which, it is plain, in many instances was considered an extreme
nuisance." In the adjoining county to the south there was a similar
state of affairs. Of Dugdale’s _Visitation of York_, Mr. Davies wrote:
"Nearly one-third of the whole number of gentry whom the herald called
upon to appear before him with proofs of their arms and pedigrees
treated his summonses with neglect."
In this county both a long and a strong list of families of gentle blood
can easily be enumerated who, for one reason or another, make no
appearance in the Heralds’ books. No one familiar with the history of
the county can have helped remarking the absence of families formerly so
well known, and in many cases still well known, as the Allgoods of
Bradley, Blacketts of Hoppyland, Bromleys of Nesbitt, Dales of Dalton,
Douthwaites of Westholme, Emersons of Westgate, Goodchilds of Pallion,
Greenwells of Greenwell and Stobilee, Holmeses of Wearmouth, Hunters of
Medomsley, Ironsides of Houghton, Meaburns of Pontop, and others whose
names spin out too long a list to give in full. Now, most of these
families had intermarried with families who registered and had written
themselves as "gentlemen" for several generations; and, as an
interesting sidelight upon the Visitations, we believe it could be shown
that more than one family who registered was in debt pretty heavily to
others who didn’t register. So it does not appear to have been
altogether a matter of means.
It may perhaps be as well, before proceeding farther, to notice the
principal material we have, in addition to the Visitations, for proving
the succession to estate in this county.
Durham, being a separate regality, is not included in the Domesday Book,
and our earliest record is the Boldon Book, dated some years later,
being compiled by order of Bishop Pudsey in 1183. Later there is a
survey of the county, made by order of Bishop Hatfield, who ruled from
1345 to 1381. From the time of Bishop Beaumont (1318-33) the succession
may be proved by the inquisitions post-mortem taken upon the death of
every owner. These documents were formerly kept at Durham, but are now,
with many other local records, in London.
With these must be mentioned the Halmote Rolls, commencing in 1349,
containing a record of all holders of the Bishop’s lands and other
records of the cursitors. The Durham Chancery Proceedings, also now in
the Record Office, are full of the most interesting information
respecting local families.
The wills of residents in the Bishopric from the sixteenth century
onwards are of great value. A few also of the parish registers within
the diocese commence towards the end of the same century, but the
majority do not date with any regularity until another hundred years had
passed.
Limited space forbids any lengthy account of the families individually,
and a few passing notices must suffice. Amongst the existing
"indigenous" families, as Surtees calls them, the Lumleys must bear the
palm, not for length of pedigree, but for the long period they have
ranked amongst the greater nobility.
Probably for some generations before, and certainly from, the days of
Uchtred, Lord of Lumley, _temp._ King Stephen, the family has held high
rank. Marmaduke de Lumley, who was in right of his mother one of the
coheirs of the barony of Thweng, made an interesting change in the
family arms. His father had borne a scarlet shield with six silver
popinjays, whilst his mother’s family arms were a golden shield, thereon
a fess gules. Marmaduke dispensed with three of the popinjays, and
placed his mother’s fess between the remaining three, two above it and
one below. His son Sir Ralph, the builder of the castle at Lumley, was
summoned to Parliament as a Baron in the eighth year of Richard II.’s
reign. Yorkist in sympathy, he joined in an unfortunate attempt to
overthrow the fourth Henry in the year that monarch grasped the throne,
and was killed at Cirencester in a skirmish. One of his younger sons,
Marmaduke, was successively Bishop of Carlisle and Lincoln, and Lord
High Treasurer of England. John de Lumley, Sir Ralph’s second but eldest
surviving son, was restored to his father’s estates by King Henry,
became a distinguished leader in the French wars, and was slain on the
field of Baugé in 1421. The successor, his only son Thomas, was summoned
to Parliament in his grandfather’s barony in 1461, the attainder of the
latter being reversed upon petition.
Third in descent from the last-named peer, John, the fifth Baron, took
part in the great victory of Flodden. He lived to see his son and heir,
George Lumley, beheaded for high treason, and attainted, for taking part
in the Pilgrimage of Grace.
George Lumley’s son, John Lumley, was recreated a Peer in 1547, his
father’s attainder being reversed. This John, Lord Lumley, must have
been something of an Oriental in his philosophy. He was strongly imbued
with the spirit of ancestor-worship. It was he who brought two stone
monuments from Durham Abbey under the belief that they were of his
forefathers, and set them up with a long line of effigies representing
every generation of his house from a remote period. The rooms at Lumley
were also hung with a series of portraits of the same individuals by his
direction. About the origin of these the late Mr. Planché advanced an
interesting theory, printed in 1866, in the _Journal of the British
Archæological Association_.
Lord Lumley appears to have impressed his family importance upon William
James, the contemporary Bishop of Durham, whose repetition of the
pedigree so astonished that modern Solomon, King James I., that the
latter evidently thought the Bishop was taking a rise out of him. "By my
saul, I didna ken Adam’s name was Lumley!" said the Sovereign. Doubtless
this was a natural exclamation, for it was the King’s first meeting with
a pedigree drawn up by an Elizabethan Herald. He would meet others as he
travelled farther South!
The estates passed on the death of this peer to a second cousin, Sir
Richard Lumley. Created in 1628 a Viscount in the Peerage of Ireland,
Sir Richard in later years was known as a gallant Royalist, and one of
Prince Rupert’s trusted officers.
His son, another Richard, one of the commanders of the Royal army at
Sedgemoor, was advanced in 1690 to the Earldom of Scarborough. Little
more remains to be said, beyond that Lumleys have taken part in almost
every war since that date (one, Sir William, commanded the cavalry at
Albuera; and another, a captain in the navy, was killed on the _Isis_ in
1782), and that Lumley Castle is still the seat of the Earls of
Scarborough.
Closely allied to the Lumleys by marriage, the Lambtons have owned the
adjoining estate of Lambton from the twelfth century. Their connection
with the curious legend of the Lambton Worm has made the name widely
known in the North. From the fifteenth century onwards the family were
perhaps most remarkable for the brilliant series of marriages the
successive owners of the estate made. Matches with Rokeby of Rokeby,
Lumley of Ludworth, the Lords Eure, the Tempests of Stella, and the
Curwens of Workington, each either bringing additional lands to the
house, or else widening and extending the family influence, came to a
climax with the marriage of Ralph Lambton, in 1696, with Dorothy
Hedworth, heiress to great estates on the north bank of the river. The
great-grandson of this marriage was the celebrated Radical Earl of
Durham, whose life has been told in recent years by Mr. Stuart Reid.
The Greenwells are the third ancient house in this county who still
dwell on the lands from which they take their name. At the time our
earliest record, the Boldon Book, was compiled, William the Priest[30]
held lands at Greenwell, in the green valley of Wolsingham, and his
sons, James and Richard de Greenwell, took their surname from their
home. From their generation through long centuries Greenwell succeeded
Greenwell, until the death of Henry Greenwell in 1890. The estate then
passed to his brother’s daughter, Mrs. Fletcher, who sold Greenwell
within the last few years to her kinsman, Sir Walpole Eyre Greenwell,
Bart.
Like other families, as the years passed by, younger sons founded
branches, some of which flourished and became even more influential than
the parent stem.
Anthony Greenwell, a son of Peter Greenwell of Wolsingham, and grandson
of Peter Greenwell of Greenwell, living in the reign of Henry VIII., is
stated to have settled at Corbridge, in the adjoining county of
Northumberland. His son Ralph became allied by marriage to a number of
influential families; the administration issued after the death of his
father-in-law, Ralph Fenwick of Dilston, in
[Illustration: GENERAL JOHN LAMBTON.]
1623, showing that the latter left five daughters, his coheirs. Of
these, Isabel, the eldest, married Ralph Greenwell, Mary married John
Swinburne, Agnes was wife to John Orde, Margaret to George Tempest of
Winlaton, and Barbara married William Harrison.
Ralph’s grandson Nicholas, so named after his mother’s father Nicholas
Leadbitter of Warden, married, in 1683, Frances Whitfield, and their
son, Whitfield Greenwell, a captain in the army, was killed at the
Battle of Glenshiels in 1719. From his grandson, John Greenwell, of the
India House, the present Sir Walpole Greenwell is lineally descended.
A second branch of the family has long been known as the Greenwells of
Greenwell Ford, thus curiously taking their name from the old home in
Wolsingham parish and giving it to the new (though its very newness has
now grown green with age) home near Lanchester.
Thomas Greenwell, probably a younger son of John Greenwell of Greenwell,
living _circa_ 1440, took up his abode at Stobilee, in the parish of
Satley (the vill of which had been held in chief in the early days of
the fourteenth century by Robert de Greenwell), and there his
descendants resided until the time of the Commonwealth, when the then
head of the family, William Greenwell, was sequestered as a Royalist,
his lands being taken from him, and let to Henry Blackett by the
Parliamentary Commissioners.
Nicholas Greenwell, a younger brother of the Royalist William, founded
the house of Ford, purchasing that estate in 1633. He married at
Medomsley, in 1623, Mary Kirkley, probably a near relative of Michael
Kirkley of Newcastle, whose daughter married the first Sir William
Blackett. This Michael Kirkley mentions in his will, which he made in
1620, amongst other relatives, his cousin, Mr. William Greenwell the
elder, of London, merchant, to whom William Camden, the Herald, had
confirmed in 1602 "the antient armes of the worshipfull family of
Greenwell, of Grenewell Hill, in the County Palatine of Duresme, from
which the said William Greenwell is descended." This London branch of
the family ended with an heiress, who married Thomas Legh, of Ridge, in
Cheshire.
Returning to Nicholas Greenwell of Ford, he died in 1640, and was buried
amongst his ancestors at Lanchester. His son, another William, added
lands at Kibblesworth to the paternal estate by marriage with an heiress
of the Cole family. He died at an advanced age in 1701, when his eldest
son, Nicholas, succeeded to Greenwell Ford, whilst Kibblesworth passed
to his younger son, Robert. The latter was great-grandfather of the late
Major-General Sir Leonard Greenwell, K.C.B., who, in 1820, acted as
godfather to the present venerable head of the family, the author of
Greenwell’s Glory, one of, if not, the best trout flies known.
Other branches of the family have flourished for awhile and then
disappeared. In 1697 William Greenwell of Whitworth acquired a moiety,
including the mansion-house of Great Chilton, where his descendants
lived for some three generations. One of his daughters married Cuthbert
Smith, whose brother Ralph became his heir. This hunting squire
bequeathed his property, for no other reason but that they had often
ridden together
"From the drag to the chase, from the chase to the view,
From the view to the death in the morning,"
to Robert Surtees of Milkwellburn.
At a much earlier date another William Greenwell owned a fair estate at
Neasham, and dying in 1619 left two daughters, Margaret aged three and
Eleanor two years, as his heirs. His widow married Marmaduke Wyville,
and the daughters respectively became the wives of John Taylor of
Appleton, and Ralph Hedworth of Pokerley.
One other branch, still surviving, must not be passed over. The estate
of Broomshields near to Satley has belonged to Greenwells from as far
back as 1488, when one of the many Peters lived there. The
representation of the Maddisons of Hole House in the Derwent Valley, a
family celebrated in local history and ballad, passed into this family
by marriage in 1774. A later owner of Broomshields, John Greenwell,
married Elizabeth, daughter of Alan Greenwell of Ford, and thus
re-united the two families.
Many years have passed since Robert Surtees wrote: "_Sic transit._ We
know not what are become of the descendants of Bulmer, whose ancestors
held Brancepeth and Middleham Castles. The family of Conyers, which has
had Parliamentary lords, and once consisted of nine or ten flourishing
branches (excepting some remains in the South), is reduced to a single
Baronet’s title without a fortune, and the probable descendants of
Surtees of Dinsdale are ignorant of their own origin, whilst the chief
male line is either extinct or steeped in poverty and oblivion."
The great house of Surtees derives, as its name implies, its origin from
a family resident to a remote period on the banks of the River Tees.
William, the son of Siward, was living there in the reign of Henry II.,
and his son Ralph was the first to style himself Sur Tees, the family
residence being then, as for many long years afterwards, at Dinsdale,
the adjoining seat to Sockburn where the Conyers family dwelt.
Of the dissolution of this head house of the race, Mr. Surtees added: "I
discovered by a remarkable deed at Durham (unknown to Hutchinson) how
the estates went to Brandling in prejudice of Marmaduke, heir male of
the half-blood; and that Marmaduke’s grandson Thomas sold most of what
remained in the male line; but I cannot find further as to this Thomas
except that his younger brother Richard married and had two sons, Robert
and Richard, who are the last I can trace of this branch, the undoubted
direct heirs."
The existing branches of this old family now resident at Redworth Hall,
Mainsforth, and Hamsterley, derive their descent from a William Surtees
who, in the year 1440, acquired lands in Whickham under the Halmote
Court, his sureties being Robert Boutflower and Thomas Gibson.
His descendants for some generations resided within the parishes of
Whickham in this county, and Ovingham in Northumberland.
Edward Surtees strengthened the family by marrying in 1617 Margaret
Coulson, whose mother was sister and heir of Robert Surtees, Alderman
and twice Mayor of Durham.
The eldest son of this marriage was ancestor of the famous beauty, Bessy
Surtees, who ran away with and married John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon
and Chancellor of Great Britain.
The second son, Robert Surtees of Ryton, added to his inheritance by
marrying an heiress of the Hauxley family. He purchased Mainsforth and
founded the two families now owning that seat and Redworth, and amongst
his descendants was Robert Surtees the historian, to whom his native
county owes an everlasting debt.
The Surtees of Hamsterley Hall trace their descent from a Cuthbert
Surtees of Ebchester who died in 1622, and whose relationship to the
Ovingham family is not at present clear. His son Anthony, however, held
the Hollins in Ovingham parish in 1629, and that property in 1586 was in
the possession of Rowland Surtees, who died the following year, and who
was brother of William Surtees, ancestor of the families already
mentioned.
Hamsterley descended to Robert Smith Surtees, the author of some
well-known sporting novels.
The Edens are almost certainly an indigenous family, for there can be
but little doubt that they derive their name from the village of Eden,
now called Castle Eden. The family for a number of generations resided
at Preston-on-Tees,
[Illustration: HOPPYLAND PARK.]
where lands were held by Robert de Eden in 1413. A succession of
Thomases and Williams bring the pedigree into the sixteenth century,
when John Eden married an heiress of the Lambtons. After the heads of
the house successively increased the family patrimony by marrying
heiresses of the Hutton, Welbury, and Bee families, John Eden’s
great-great-grandson, Robert by name, followed his ancestor’s example by
marrying another Lambton heiress. He was Member for the county and was
created a Baronet in 1672. Sir Robert Eden, the third Baronet, had a
large and distinguished family. His second son Robert was Governor of
Maryland, and created a Baronet in 1776. He was ancestor of the present
Sir William Eden, who succeeded also to the inheritance of the
first-named Sir Robert’s eldest son, and is thus doubly a Baronet. The
Governor’s next brother, Sir Robert’s third son, was the distinguished
statesman, William Lord Auckland, and the fifth son, Sir Morton Eden, an
eminent diplomatist, was created Baron Henley, and was ancestor of the
present peer. One of the sisters of this talented trio married John
Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and another married the Rev. Richard
Richardson, Chancellor of St. Paul’s.
Several old families have for many generations dwelt in the Valley of
the Derwent, and were all more or less intermarried with each other.
Thomas Hunter, about the end of the fourteenth century, married Margaret
Layton, heiress, through her mother, of the family of Alanshields of
Alanshields. A century later quite a small clan of the Hunters were
resident up and down the valley, but principally at Medomsley. Here in
1675 was born Dr. Christopher Hunter, the celebrated antiquary; and here
nearly a century later, in 1757, General Sir Martin Hunter, G.C.M.G.,
first saw the light.
The Stevensons were another Derwentside family, whose name is best known
through John Hall, the _Eugenius_ of Sterne, having taken it when he
married the heiress of Ambrose Stevenson of Byerside.
The Shaftos have in various branches been closely connected with the
county for many centuries. The late Rev. John Hodgson, in an early
volume of the _Archæologia Æliana_, throws doubt upon the traditional
descent of the Shaftos in the male line from the Folliots. He
overlooked, however, several important facts that at least render the
assertion possible. The Fenwick of which the Folliots were Lords is not
the Fenwick in Northumberland as he assumed, but the place of that name
in Yorkshire which passed by the marriage of Margaret Folliot to her
husband, Sir Hugh Hastings, and long continued in his family.
Cuthbert, son of John Folliot of Fenwick, is said to have acquired lands
at Shafto in Northumberland by marrying one of the heirs of Roger
Welwick of that place, and his descendants took the local name; another
daughter of Roger is stated in the Visitation of Rutland, 1618, to have
married a Bryan Harbottle. A comparison of the arms of the respective
families shows that the Shafto coat is merely the Folliot arms
differenced. Jordan Folliot in 1295 bore _gules a bend argent_, and
Robert de Shaftowe, a contemporary, bore _gules on a bend argent, three
mullets azure_.
The Shaftos of Tanfield Leigh in this county recorded their pedigree at
the Visitation of 1615. Le Neve continued the family for several
generations. James Shafto, aged eight, in 1615 married a sister of Sir
John Jackson of Harraton, and his son was living in 1707, and then
described as very poor. His son, again, a third James, married a
daughter of Sir Thomas Sandford, and had three sons, after whom the
descent is not clear.
The family now resident at Whitworth Park are an early offshoot of the
Shaftos of Bavington in Northumberland. They have several times
intermarried with the Edens, and, like that family, are very rich in
quarterings. Their escutcheon includes the arms of the Cavendishes,
Dukes of Newcastle; the Lords Ogle, and many other great houses. Within
the last century Beamish Park, near Chester-le-Street, has become the
seat of another branch of the same family.
The Salvins of Croxdale are another of our old historic families who
have held the same acres for generations. They have lived at their
present home from the early days of the fifteenth century. In the time
of King Charles they were gallant Loyalists, and two of them were killed
in the King’s service.
The Whartons have also resided near to Durham for a good many centuries.
They descend from the Whartons of Wharton in Westmorland, and their
armorial insignia is interesting both in its origin and as illustrating
the close alliance often existing between families bearing similar arms.
Amongst the Normans who settled in this country after the Conquest was a
family named Flamanville, often abbreviated into Flamville, who took
their name from their lordship of that name in the province of La Manche
in Normandy, and gave it as a suffix to their new Leicester estate of
Aston. Their coat of arms was simply _la manche_, the sleeve, and so the
name originally applied to the curious geographical shape of a peninsula
came to be a familiar term in English heraldry. They intermarried with
the Conyers and the Hastings, and both these families adopted the
_manche_ as their emblem. An heiress of the latter family married a
Wharton, and to this day a silver _manche_ or _maunch_ on a black field
is the Wharton arms.
Dr. Wharton of Old Park, a lineal ancestor of the Dryburn family, is
celebrated as one of the courageous physicians who continued to visit
the sick during the Great Plague of London. One of his descendants, Dr.
Thomas Wharton, was the friend of the poet Thomas Gray, who visited him
at Old Park.
The name of Burdon is an old one in the county, and probably derived
from one or other of the local villages of that name. There were Burdons
at Helmdon centuries ago, and for a number of generations Burdens have
owned Castle Eden. The curious articles on the family arms, described by
some writers as organ-pipes, are said to be in reality palmers’ staffs,
and are so used by the present family.
One branch of the Ords, who are a Northumbrian, or more correctly a
North Durham, family, must not be passed over. In the reign of James I.
John Ord acquired property at Fishburn, and founded the house who have
for so long dwelt at Sands Hall, beside Sedgefield.
Another family of Northumbrian extraction are the Blenkinsopps of
Hoppyland, who are, however, in the male line descended from the Leatons
or Leightons of Benfieldside. Hoppyland was purchased from the Blacketts
in 1768 by William Leaton of Gibside, agent to the Bowes family.
The Blacketts, who now reside at Wylam in Northumberland, held Hoppyland
for several generations. Their ancestor, Edward Blackett, of Shildon,
married for his second wife a daughter of the famous Lilburne family of
Thickley-Puncharden, and a near relative of "Freeborn John." The Baronet
family, who now own the old Conyers estate of Sockburn, are also
descended from this Edward, and are rather curiously derived from the
latter family. The first baronet’s wife was a daughter of Michael
Kirkley of Newcastle, whose wife’s grandmother, Marion Anderson, was a
lineal descendant of William Conyers of Wynyard.[31]
Ravensworth Castle, near Gateshead, has been the home of the Liddell
family since 1607. The third owner of the name was created a Baronet by
King Charles I. in 1642, and was a strong Royalist during the troubled
years of that King’s reign. Since then the family has twice held
peerages. Sir Henry Liddell was created Baron Ravensworth in 1747, but
as he had no children the title became extinct at his death in 1784.
His great-nephew, Sir Thomas Henry Liddell, took the same title on his
elevation to the peerage in 1821.
Two members of the Ravensworth family have left names well known in the
literary world. The second Baron, son and namesake of the first, was the
author of a translation into English lyric verse of the _Odes of
Horace_, and, in conjunction with Mr. Richards, he published in blank
verse a translation of the last six books of Virgil’s _Æneid_. He was
created Earl of Ravensworth, a title that died with his son, when the
Barony passed to a cousin. The Very Rev. Henry George Liddell, Dean of
Christ Church, Oxford, and some time Vice-Chancellor of that University,
was one of the compilers of the well-known Greek lexicon.
The Bowes family was once as widely scattered over Durham as the
Conyers. Streatlam Castle and Gibside, Bradley Hall, Biddick, and
Thornton Hall, were all residences of the Boweses at one time. One
branch only in the male line survives, and is now resident at Croft.
Streatlam and Gibside, however, still belong to descendants in the
female line--the Earls of Strathmore--who have added the name of their
Durham ancestors to the paternal surname of Lyon.
One of the most celebrated members of this family was _Old_ Sir William
Bowes, whose devotion to the young wife he lost, when he was about
twenty-eight years old, has caused him to be celebrated amongst true
lovers. He lived to a great age, and never remarried.
A descendant of his, Sir George Bowes, is celebrated in local rhyme as--
"Cowardy! cowardy! Barney Castle,"
a most erroneous term, for he was, in very truth, a loyal and gallant
gentleman, whose brave defence of Barnard Castle in a time of strife and
rebellion perhaps saved England for Queen Elizabeth. But the Boweses
have always, like most of our real old families, been a brave old race,
and fully up to their motto: _In multis, in magnis, in bonis expertus_.
The Chaytors are descended from a certain John Chaytor, of Newcastle,
merchant, whose widow remarried William Wilkinson, another merchant in
the same old city.
The widow of both made her will on March 23, 1558-59, and in it, after
desiring to be buried in All Saints’ Church, Newcastle, beside her last
lord, mentions her two sons, Christopher and John, and her daughter,
Jane Kirkhouse. John Chaytor the younger married a daughter of James
Perkinson, and left two children, Elizabeth and John, living in 1579.
Christopher Chaytor became an important public man, and, besides
acquiring the Manor of Butterby, near Durham, gathered into the family
fold the great estate of the noble old house of Clervaux, of Croft, and
founded the present Baronet Chaytors. His son Thomas married a daughter
of Sir Nicholas Tempest, Bart., of Stella; and his son again, Nicholas
Chaytor, was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Army under the famous
fighting Marquess of Newcastle, and by his wife, a Lambton heiress, was
father of Sir William, created a Baronet in 1671. This baronetcy became
extinct on the death of the first holder in 1720, but was again revived
when Sir William Chaytor was created a Baronet in 1801.
The Tempests, as already mentioned, were relatives of the Chaytors. They
came into the county from Yorkshire, when Sir William Tempest, of
Studley, married the heiress of the Washingtons of Washington. His
natural son, Rowland, acquired a considerable estate by marrying one of
the many coheirs of the great baronial family of Umphreville, and was
ancestor of the various families of the name seated in this county.
Sir Nicholas Tempest, of Stella Hall, in the reign of James I., was
created a Baronet, and was buried at Ryton in 1625.
[Illustration] Portrait of Sir George Bowes
(_From the painting at Streatlam Castle_)]
His younger brother, Rowland Tempest, was ancestor of the Tempests of
the Isle and Old Durham, whose representative some hundred years later,
John Tempest, who was many years M.P. for the city of Durham, left a
daughter Frances, who became eventually heiress of this branch of the
family. She married the Rev. Sir Henry Vane, Bart., Prebendary of Durham
Cathedral, a descendant of the famous Sir Henry Vane the elder, and her
son, assuming his mother’s name, became Sir Henry Vane-Tempest. He left
an only daughter, Frances Anne Emily, who married the third Marquess of
Londonderry as his second wife, and was grandmother of the present
Marquess.
The Vanes, who descend from a common ancestor with the Earls of
Westmorland, have only been connected with Durham since the reign of
James I., when Sir Henry Vane, of Hadlo Castle, a Kentish knight,
acquired Raby Castle by grant from the Crown. His youngest son was
ancestor of the Marquesses of Londonderry, and his eldest son was
ancestor of the late Duke of Cleveland and of the present Lord Barnard.
The Williamsons came into this county through a strange decree of fate.
The estate of Monkwearmouth passed from its purchaser, Colonel George
Fenwick, of Brinkburn, the well-known Puritan, to his daughter Dorothy,
who married Sir Thomas Williamson, of East Markham, in Nottinghamshire.
Sir Thomas belonged to a Cavalier family that had lost much in the Royal
cause.
Sir William, the fourth Baronet, married a sister of Mrs. Lambton, of
Lambton, and co-heiress of John Hedworth, of Harraton, whose wife was a
descendant of William James, sometime Bishop of Durham. Whitburn Hall
has for several generations been the family residence, and the present
Baronet is the ninth.
Lord Boyne’s family are only recent settlers in Durham, and came here
when Brancepeth Castle passed to the seventh Viscount upon his marriage
with an heiress of the Russells. They have been Barons of Brancepeth
since 1866.
Other old families still existent in the shire who should at least be
mentioned are the Pembertons[32] of Belmont Hall, the Wilkinsons of
Durham, the Fogg-Elliots of Elvet Hill, the Bateses of Wolsingham, the
Trotters of Helmdon, and the Hutchinsons.
The Claverings of Axwell, a noble old race, have within the last few
years died out in the male line, but the name and blood continue in the
present owners of the old home.
Descendants of other old families doubtless linger on: Byerleys and
Fawcetts, Darnells and Croudaces, Muschamps and Emersons, Morgans and
Marleys, Ewbankes and Raines, Rippons and Maddisons, and many another
race, inheriting to the full the traditions of our country, are to be
found scattered up and down the county.
INDEX
Abbey, Durham, 158
---- of Durham dissolved, 16
Acre, 107
Agnes’s Fast, St., 53
Alanshields of Alanshields, 249
Aldhun, Bishop, 109
"All Fools’ Day," 57
Alston, 41
Altars at Bolihope, Roman, 80
Altar-screen, Durham, 121-122, 138
Altar-tomb, Neville, 170
---- of Bernard Gilpin, 194, 195
Amiatinus, the Codex, 151
Anglo-Saxon memorial crosses, 183
Arms, Greenwell, 225
---- Lumley, 242
Associations of John Wesley, Durham, 229-238
Asylum, Sunderland Orphan, 35
Auckland, brasses in St. Andrew’s, 180, 189
---- brass in St. Helen’s, 180, 190
Aucklandshire, 39
Aycliffe Church, 171
Baker, Mrs. Sarah, 194
Bale Hill, 218
Balliol, Bernard de, 213
---- John, sometime King of Scotland, 213
Ballads, Robert Surtees’, 65
Bank, 105
Barbara, Bishop William de St., 30
Barnard Castle, 40, 213
---- ---- Church, 170, 185
Barnes, Mrs. Fridesmond, 189
Baronial houses, 239
Barons of the Bishopric, 3, 11
Barrow at Copt Hill, 182
Bateses of Wolsingham, 256
Battle of Neville’s Cross, 41
Baydale inn, 24
Bayley, K. C., 7
Beaumont, Lewis, Bishop-elect of Durham, 27, 28
Bede, Venerable, 4, 36
---- at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, 146-151
Bede’s chair, Jarrow, 54
---- tomb, 123
---- Well, Monkton, 55
Bellasis, 218
Bell, Durham Curfew, 63
---- Pancake, 56
Billingham Church, 172
Binchester, Roman camp at, 4
---- Roman epitaph at, 183
Birthdays folk-lore, 46
Biscop, Benedict, 4, 36, 147, 149, 150
Bishop Aldhun, 109
---- Auckland, 39
---- ---- Palace, 200
---- Cosin, 20, 120, 179
---- Crewe, 21, 204
---- Flambard, 8, 40, 118, 133
---- James, 206
---- Middleham, 222
---- ---- Church, 180
---- Philip de Pictavia, 172
---- Pudsey, 9-33, 37, 38, 134, 166, 195, 202, 241
---- Walcher, 6-7, 30, 32, 36, 156
---- William of St. Carileph, 7, 30, 110, 114, 118, 158, 166
Bishopric, Barons of the, 3, 11
---- of Durham, 1, 2, 81
Bishop’s revenue, 11
Bishopwearmouth effigy, 185
Black Death, the, 12-13
Blackett family, 252
---- Sir Edward, 75
Blakeston of Blakeston, 188
Blakiston, 222
---- Sir William, 212
Blenkinsopps of Hoppyland, 252
Boar, the Pollard, 68-71, 74
Bogs, 101
Boldon Book, 9, 30, 38, 39, 42, 241
---- Church, 176
Bolihope, 91
---- Roman altars at, 80
Bowes of Streatlam, 253
---- Sir George, 41
---- Sir William, 214, 216
Boyne, Lord, 255
Bradley, Ralph, 194
Brae, 105
Brag, the Picktree, 76-78
Brancepeth, 41
---- Castle, 203
---- Church, 179
Brass, Chester-le-Street Church, 190
---- Haughton-le-Skerne, 191
---- Hoton, William, 168, 190
---- Houghton-le-Spring, 191
---- Brasses, monumental, 189
---- Sedgefield Church, 168, 190, 191, 192, 193
Bridge, Prebend’s, 52
---- Tyne, 34
Brigantes, occupation by, 4
Brocks, 91-92
Bronze Age, 182
Brow, 105
Brown, Dame Dorothy, 26
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 224
Bruce, Robert de, 37
---- tombs, 196
Brunskill, Thomas, 222
Bruses (De), tomb of, 165
Bulmer, Bertram de, 203
---- family, 247
---- stone, 25
Burdon family, 251
---- John, 224
Burns, 91-92
Butler, Bishop, 22
"Butterby churchgoer," 64
"Butter Cross," Ravensworth, 212
Byerley, Colonel Anthony, 224
"Byerley’s Bull Dogs," 224
Carileph, Bishop William of St., 7, 30, 110, 114, 118, 158, 166
Carling Sunday, 57
Castle Barnard, 213
---- Brancepeth, 203
---- Durham, 204-207
---- Eden, 216
---- Hilton, 187, 210, 211
---- Lambton, 74, 209
---- Lumley, 207-208
---- Raby, 214, 215
---- Ravensworth, 211, 212
---- Stanhope, 198
---- Streatlam, 213, 214
---- Walworth, 215
---- Witton, 199
Castles and Halls of Durham, 198-228
---- the, 79
Cathedral brasses, Durham, 190-191
---- Durham, 3, 7, 12, 18, 108-129
---- local lore of Durham, 63
Cau’d Lad of Hilton, the, 71-73
Cave, Heatheryburn, 79
Ceolfrid, Abbot, 149, 150
Chancery Proceedings, Durham, 241
Chanter, John the, 149, 161
Chapel, "Galilee," 122
---- Lady, 122, 138
---- Nine Altars, 125, 135
---- of St. Hilda, first, 36
---- St. John’s, 42
Charter, Bishop Hugh Pudsey’s, Durham, 30
Chaytor family, 240, 254
Chester-le-Street, 5, 32, 108, 109, 130, 131
---- Church, 177, 186
Cheyne, John, sculptor, 187
Christian the Mason, 195
"Churchgoer, Butterby," 64
Churches at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, Saxon, 147
---- of Durham, parish, 162-181
Civil War, outbreak of, 20
Claverings of Axwell, 256
Cleatlam Hall, 221
Clergy, secular, 109
Cleughs, 95-96
Cleve’s Cross, 68
Clopton, John, 220
_Club, Hell-fire_, 204
Codex Amiatinus, 151
Coldingham, Richard de, 173
College, Ushaw, 192
Commission, Ecclesiastical, 18, 23
Common, 105
Coniscliffe, Church of St. Edwin, 172
Convent of SS. Peter and Paul, 147
Conyers falchion, 75, 217
---- family, 247
---- Nicolas, 195
Conyers, Ralph, 223
---- Sir John, 74
Copt Hill, Houghton-le-Spring, 182
Cosin, Bishop, 20, 120, 179
Cotham Conyers, 222
---- Stob, 222
Council of the North, 16
Cow, the Dun, 66-67
Coxhoe Hall, 224
Cradock family, 222
Craft gilds, 31
Craggs family, 83
Crawford, Jack, 35
Crayke, 108
Crewe, Bishop, 21, 204
Cross at Darlington Market, 25, 26
---- at Ravensworth, 212
---- Battle of Neville’s, 41
---- Butter, 212
---- Cleve’s, 28, 68
---- Neville’s, 55, 58
Crosses, 107
---- Anglo-Saxon memorial, 183
---- Billingham pre-Conquest, 172
---- Saxon, 26
Cumin, Robert, Earl of Northumberland, 29
Curfew Bell, Durham, 63
Cuthbert, St., 5, 133, 152, 155
---- Feast of the Translation of St., 29
---- Patrimony of St., 5, 6, 17
---- sanctuary of St., 24
Dalden Tower, 216
Dale, Helen Pelham, 234
---- _Life and Letters of Thomas Pelham_, 234
---- Miss Margaret, 230
---- of Dalton-le-Dale, family of, 238
---- of Tunstall, Edward, 230
---- Rev. Thomas, 229
---- Rev. Thomas Pelham, 229
Dales, name-places in the Durham, 79-107
Dalton Church, 175
Darcy, Lady Maxwell, 235
Darlington Church tower, 166
---- market-cross at, 25, 26
---- rood-loft, 167
---- St. Cuthbert’s Church, 165
"Darnton Trod," 24
Day, New Year’s, 56
Days, lucky, 57
Death, portents of, 51
"Death, power of life and," 1, 11
Delavale, Peter, 194
Denes, 91
Dens, 101
Derwentdale Plot, 21
Dinsdale, 217
---- Church brass, 190
Dog-tooth ornament, only instance of, 167
Douthwaite family, 222
Duck, Sir John, 63, 227
Dun Cow, the, 66-67
Durham, 5-6, 28, 109
---- Bishopric of, 1-2
---- Castle, 204-207
---- Cathedral:
altar of Our Lady of Pity, 124;
altar screen, 121;
altars in north transept, 124;
Bede’s tomb, 123;
Bishop’s throne, 123;
brasses, 190-191;
Carileph’s choir, 113;
chapter-house, 127;
choir, 114-115;
cloister, 127-128;
crypt, 111-113;
doorways, 113;
fresco paintings, 123;
Galilee Chapel, 122;
Hatfield’s tomb, 121;
ironwork, 118;
Lady Chapel, 122;
library, 127-128;
local lore of, 63;
monks’ dormitory, 128;
nave, 114;
Neville chantry, 124;
Neville screen, 122;
nine altars, 125-126;
refectory, 111, 127-128;
sanctuary knocker, 118;
towers, 120;
transepts, 116;
treasury, 127
---- curfew bell, 63
---- fall of abbey, 16
---- first Lord, 209
---- Lewis Beaumont, Bishop-elect of, 27, 28
---- local volunteer companies, 206
---- North Gate, 13
---- Palatinate of, 9, 19
---- prosperity of Methodism in, 22
---- St. Giles’s Church, 173, 185
---- St. Margaret’s Church, 173, 185
---- St. Oswald’s Church, 172
---- School, 22, 23
---- spires, 166
---- trades, 21, 22
---- University of, 22, 23
"Eade stones," 80
Eales, 99
Earl of Northumberland, Robert Cumin, 29
Earls, rebellion of the, 18
Easington Church, 175, 186
Ebchester, Roman camp at, 4
Ecclesiastical Commission, 18, 23
Eden family, 240, 248-249
Edmundbyres Cross, 107
Effigy at Bishopwearmouth, 185
---- at Norton, 187
---- of Euphemia de Neville, 169
---- of Isabel de Neville, 169
---- of Isabella, sister of Robert Bruce, 196
---- in Barnard Castle Church, 185
---- Lanchester Church, 187
---- St. Giles’s Church, Durham, 185
---- Whitburn Church, singular, 188
Effigies in Easington Church, 175, 186
---- in Hurworth Church, 186
---- in Redmarshall Church, 172, 188
---- stone and wood, 185-189
Egelwin, Bishop, 29
Egglescliffe Church, 172
Elizabethan Poor Law, 19
Elvet, 28, 30
Epitaph of Regina, wife of Barates the Palmyrene, 182, 183
---- of Tidfirth, Bishop of Hexham, 184
Epitaphs, punning, 197
Escomb Church, 159, 163
Estfelde, William, 189
Eures family, 239
Evenwood, 39
Ewbanke family, 221
Fairy Hills, Castleton, 45
Falchion, Conyers, 75, 217
Families of Durham, Old, 239-256
Fast, St. Agnes’s, 53
Feast of the Translation of St. Cuthbert, 29
Fell, 105
Fen Hall, 224
Ferryhill, 28
Ferry, Roger de, 68
"Fig sue," 57
Finchale Priory, 130-145
Fire festivals, 44
First charter of incorporation, Durham, 31
First lifeboat built at South Shields, 36
---- passenger railway-line, 26
Flambard, Bishop Ralph, 8, 40, 118, 133
Flask, the, 101
Flodden, banner of St. Cuthbert at, 15
Fogg-Elliots of Elvet Hill, 256
Folk-lore, Durham, 44-64
Font, Sedgefield, 167
---- Staindrop, 169
Ford Hall, 226
Forest of Weardale, 39
Fothergill, G. A., 224
Fox, Bishop Richard, 14
Framwellgate, 29
Frosterley, 84
Furmety, 59
Gabriel Hounds, 45
Gainford Church, 171
---- grave-cover, 193
---- Hall, 222
Galilee Chapel, Durham, 122
"Garland, maiden," 52
Gateshead, 32
---- St. Mary’s, Church, 176
---- grave-covers, 193
Gibside, 212
Gild, craft, 31
Gills, 95-97
Gilpin, altar-tomb of Bernard, 194, 195
Glory, Hand of, 45
Godric, St., 130-132, 173
---- shrine of St., 138
Goodchild of Pallion, John, 230
Grace, Pilgrimage of, 16
Grains, 91-92
Grange, Lambton, 209
---- Midridge, 224
---- Raby, 222
Grave-covers, 192-193
---- stones, Roman, 182
Great Aycliffe, 27
Greatham Hospital, 189
---- old chapel at, 186
Great North Road, 24
Greenwell arms, 225
Greenwell family, 244-246
Greenwells of Broomshields, 247
"Guisers," or mummers, 58
Hall, Bishop Middleham, 222
---- Blakiston, 222
Hall, Cleatlam, 221
---- Cotham Conyers, 222, 223
---- Coxhoe, 224
---- Fen, 224
---- Ford, 226
---- Gainford, 222
---- Holmside, 219
---- Houghton-le-Spring, 228
---- Kibblesworth, 227
---- Middleton St. George, 224
---- Pallion, 226
---- School Aycliffe, 224
---- Sledwish, 220
---- Snotterton, 221
---- Staindrop, 221
---- Stanhope, 199
---- Stella, 228
---- Thornton, 224
---- Thorpe Thewles, old, 222
---- Washington, 225
---- West Boldon, 226
---- Westholme, 222
---- West Rainton, 227
Hallow E’en sports, 58
Halls and Castles of Durham, 198-228
Halmote Rolls, 241
Hand of Glory, 45
Harding the Chronicler, Ralph, 218
Hartlepool, 37
---- Church, 163
---- ---- brass, 191
---- West, 38
Hatfield, Bishop, 3
---- Survey, 241
Haugh, 105
Haughton-le-Skerne Church, 171
Havelock, birthplace of General, 226
---- Sir Henry, 35
Heatheryburn Cave, 79
Heighington Church, 171, 186
_Hell-Fire Club_, the, 204
Hell Kettles, 24
Heraldry, the Manche in, 251
Heralds’ Visitations, 239
Heslerigg, Sir Arthur, 201
High Barnes, Sunderland, 226
Highwaymen of the North, 24
Hilda, 4
---- first religious house of St., 36
Hilton Castle, 187, 210, 211
---- John, 210
---- Sir Thomas, 210
---- the Cau’d Lad of, 71-73
Hilton’s tomb, Monkwearmouth, 187
Hob of Pelaw, 64
Hodgson, Rev. J. F., 167
Holden, Sir Thomas, 218
Hole, 106
Hollinside, 218
Holms, 100
Holmside Hall, 219
Hooks, 106
Hopes, 88-92
Hopper, J. T. H., 200
"Hot cross buns," 57
Hot Hill, 101
Hoton brass, William, 168, 190
Houghton-le-Spring, 34
---- Church, 174
---- Hall, 228
Hounds, Gabriel, 45
Hulme, Nicholas, 189
Hunter family, 249
Hurworth Church, 172, 186
Hutchinson family, 256
Hutton, Robert, 195, 228
Incorporation, Durham’s first charter of, 31
Inn, Baydale, 24
Inscriptions, monumental, 182-197
Intake, 107
Isabella, sister of Robert Bruce, effigy of, 196
Isle, The, 220
James, Bishop, 206
James family, 225
Jarrow, 146-161
Jarrow, monastery of, 4, 16
John the Chanter, 149, 161
Kellaw, Bishop, 24
Kelyng, John, 189
Kerns, 98
Kettles, Hell, 24
Kibblesworth Hall, 227
Killhope Cross, 107
---- Moor, 42
Knocker, sanctuary, 118-119
Lady Byron’s Well, Seaham, 55
Lady Chapel, Durham, 122, 138
Lad of Hilton, the Cau’d, 71-73
Lambton Castle, 74, 209
---- Grange, 209
---- William Henry, 209
---- Worm, the, 73, 74, 134
---- ---- Well, 54
Lambtons of Lambton, 240, 243-244
Lanchester Church, 171, 179
---- Roman camp at, 4
Langley, Bishop, 31, 34
Law, Elizabethan Poor, 19
Lawrence of Durham, 8
---- Rev. John, 230
Lee, Mary, 194
Legends of Durham, 65-78
Leighton, Henry, 209
Letters of John Wesley to Margaret Dale, 231-237
Lewen, Margaret, 231, 233
Ley, 103
Liddell family, 240, 252
"Life and death, power of," 1, 11
Lifeboat, first, 36
Lilburne family, 35
Lindisfarne, 108, 152
---- monastery of, 4, 5
Linns, 98
Little Eden Tower, 216
Local lore of Durham Cathedral, 63
Londonderry, Marquess of, 220
Low Barnes, Sunderland, 226
Luck, spitting for, 61
Lucky and unlucky things, 59-61
---- days, 57
Ludworth Tower, 218
Lumley arms, 242
---- Castle, 207, 208
---- tombs, Chester-le-Street, 178, 186
Lumleys of Lumley, 241-243
"Maiden garland," 52
Manche in heraldry, the, 251
Market-cross at Darlington, 25, 26
Mark, Vigil of St., 51
Material for tombstones, 196-197
Mathew, Michael, 189
Mea, 106
"Mell-supper," 58
Melsamby, Prior Thomas of, 135
Memorial brasses, Billingham, 172
---- crosses, Anglo-Saxon, 183
Methodism in Durham, 22
Middleton, brass of William de, 189
---- of Silksworth, George, 230
---- St. George, 224
---- Sir Gilbert, 28
---- Thomas, of Chillingham, 185
Midridge Grange, 224
Mitford family, 70
Monkchester, 156
Monkwearmouth, 36, 146-161
Monumental brass, Haughton-le-Skerne, 171
---- brasses, 189
---- inscriptions, 182-197
Moor, Killhope, 42
Mortham, Robert de, 185
Motto, the Jameses’, 206
Mulberry Inn, Felling, 226
Names of streams, 83
Naunton, Elizabeth, Prioress of Neasham, 171
"Need-fire," working for, 54
Neile, Bishop, 19, 20
Neolithic men, 182
Neville family, 239
---- Geoffrey de, 203
---- Henry, Earl of Northumberland, 170
---- monuments, Staindrop, 168
---- Ralph, Earl of Northumberland, 170, 214
---- screen, 121-122, 138
---- tombs, Staindrop, 185
Neville’s Cross, 12, 55, 58
---- ---- Battle of, 41
New Year’s Day, 56
Nine Altars Chapel, 125, 135
"Nominy sayer," 50
Norman tower, Jarrow, 161
North, Council of the, 16
---- Gate, Durham, 13
Northumberland, Robert Cumin, Earl of, 29
Norton Church, 172
---- effigy at, 187
Old Families of Durham, 239-256
Ords of Sands Hall, 252
Orphan Asylum, Sunderland, 35
Palace, Bishop Auckland, 200
Palatinate of Durham, 9, 19
Pallion Hall, 226
Pancake Bell, 56
---- Tuesday, 56
Parish churches of Durham, 162-181
Park (De) arms, 188
"Parson, the Pickled," 76
Passenger railway-line, first, 26
Patrimony of St. Cuthbert, 5-6, 17
Pelaw, Hob of, 64
Pemberton of Bainbridge, John, 230
Pembertons of Belmont Hall, 256
Pictavia, Bishop Philip de, 172
Pictree Brag, the, 76-78
Pike, 105
Pilgrimage of Grace, 16
Pittington Church, 173
Place, Francis, 224
Plain, 105
Plot, Derwentdale, 21
Pollard Boar, the, 68-71, 74
---- family, 68, 71
Pools, 98
Poor Law, Elizabethan, 19
Portents of death, 51
"Power of life and death," 1, 11
Prebendaries of Durham, 19
Prebend’s Bridge, Durham, 52
Pre-Reformation chancel screen, Staindrop, 169
Prior Thomas of Melsamby, 135
Priory, Finchale, 130-145
Pudsey, Bishop, 9, 33, 37, 38, 134, 166, 195, 202, 241
---- Durham Charter of, 30
---- Henry de, 134
Pulpit, Heighington Church, 186
Punning epitaphs, 197
Quaint sepulchral inscriptions, 194
Raby Castle, 214, 215
---- Grange, 222
Railway-line, first passenger, 26
Ravenshelm, 212
Ravensworth Castle, 211, 212
---- cross at, 212
Rebellion of the Earls, 18
Redmarshall Church, 172
Revenue, Bishop’s, 11
Ridding, 102
Rig, 105
Road, Great North, 24
Rolls, Halmote, 241
Roman altars at Bolihope, 80
---- camps in Durham, 4
---- gravestones, 182
---- roads, 4, 130
Rood-loft, Darlington, 167
---- Staindrop, 169
Roses, Wars of the, 14
Royal Oak Day, 57
Rudde brass, John, 192
Rushyford, 27
Ruthall, Bishop, 15
Ryton Church, 177
Sadberge, wapentake of, 9-14, 38
St. Cuthbert’s Church, Darlington, 165
St. Mary’s Church, Monkwearmouth, 149
Salvins of Croxdale, 240, 251
Sanctuary knocker, 118-119
---- of St. Cuthbert, 24
Saxon chancel, Jarrow, 161
---- church at Escomb, 157
---- churches at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, 147
---- crosses, 26
---- suffixes, 81
"Sayer, Nominy," 50
School Aycliffe, 224
---- Durham, 22, 23
Screen, Neville, 121-122, 138
Seat, 104
Secular clergy, 109
Sedgefield, 38
---- Church, 167
---- ---- brasses in, 190, 191, 192, 193
---- Rectory, 76
Seventh sons, 49
"Shafto, Bobby," 42
---- family, 250
Shaftos of Tanfield Leigh, 250
Shaw, 101
Sherburn Hospital, 189
Shield Lawe, 36
Shields, South, 36
---- ---- St. Hilda’s Church, 176
"Shout the mell," 58
Shrine of St. Godric, 138
Side, 106
Sikes or Sykes, 95-98
Skelton, Roger, 72
Snotterton Hall, 221
Sockburn, 217
---- Worm, the, 74-76
Solomon’s Temple, 148
Spires, Durham, 166
"Spitting for luck," 61
Spring, legend of Sir John le, 65
Staindrop, 40
---- Church, 168
---- Hall, 221
Stanhope, 42, 84, 85
---- Castle, 198
---- Hall, 199
---- treasure of, 79
Stanley, Andrew de, 168
Stella Hall, 228
Stevenson family, 249
Stockton, 38
Stone and wood effigies, 185-189
---- Bulmer, 25
---- cross, 28
---- crosses, 107
Streams, names of, 83
Streatlam Castle, 213, 214
Sunderland, 34
---- Orphan Asylum, 35
---- of Dinsdale, 247-248
---- Robert, 28, 246, 248
Surtees, Robert, ballads, 65
Symbolism on grave-covers, 193
Symeon of Durham, 111
Tailbois, family of, 224
Tempest, Colonel John, 220
---- family, 219, 254
Temple, Solomon’s, 148
Theodore of Tarsus, 162
Things lucky and unlucky, 59-61
Thornton Hall, 224
Thorpe Thewles old hall, 222
Tidfirth, Bishop of Hexham, epitaph, 184
---- of a deacon in Ryton Church, 188
Tomb of De Bruses, 165
---- Venerable Bede’s, 123
Tombs, Bruce, 196
---- Lumley, Chester-le-Street, 178, 186
---- Neville, 185
Tombstones, material for, 196-197
Tower, Dalden, 216
---- Darlington Church, 166
---- Little Eden, 216
---- Ludworth, 218
---- Monkwearmouth Church, 153
---- Staindrop Church, 169
Trades, Durham, 21, 22
Translation of St. Cuthbert, Feast of the, 29
Trotters of Helmdon, 256
Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, 16
Tyne Bridge, 34
University of Durham, 22, 23
Unlucky, things lucky and, 59
Ushaw College, 192
Vane family, 240
Van Mildert, Dr., 75
Vigil of St. Mark, 51
Visitation of Northumberland, 240
---- of Shropshire, 240
---- of York, 240
Visitations, Heralds’, 239
Walcher, Bishop, 6, 7, 30, 32, 36, 156
Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria, 6
Walworth Castle, 215
Warbeck, advance of, 15
War, Civil, 20
Wars of the Roses, 14
Washington Hall, 225
Washingtons of Washington, 254
Watson, Edward, 222
Weardale, 79
---- Forest of, 39
Wearmouth, 34
---- monastery of, 4, 16
Weather-lore, 55
Weddings, 50
Well, Lady Byron’s, 55
---- Lambton Worm, 54, 73, 74
---- Venerable Bede’s, 55
Wells, 94-95
Wesley, Durham associations of John, 22, 229-238
West Boldon Hall, 226
West Rainton Hall, 227
Westholme Hall, 222
Wharton family, 240, 251
Whitburn Church, 176
Whitefield, George, 235
Whittingham, William, Dean of Durham, 220
Wilkinsons of Durham, 256
William of St. Carileph, Bishop, 7, 30, 110, 114, 118, 158, 166
Williamson family, 255
Wills, 241
Winston Church, 171
Witchcraft, 45
Witton Castle, 199
Wolsingham, 42
Wood and stone effigies, 185-189
---- punning epitaph on Ralph, 197
Worm, the Lambton, 73, 74, 134
---- the Sockburn, 74-76
---- Well, the, 54, 73, 74
"Yule dollies," 59
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, i. 321. The Empire, of course, means
that great medieval constitution of Central Europe corresponding very
roughly indeed to Germany. The German Empire, as we know it, only dates
from 1870.
[2] This important matter, with its bearing upon the Palatinate Power,
was first noticed by Mr. K. C. Bayley, _Victoria County History_, ii.
137.
[3] See Dr. Lapsley’s book, _The County Palatine of Durham_, which
forms a very able survey of the development of the whole system.
[4] Dr. Lapsley describes Boldon Book in the _Victoria County History
of Durham_, vol. i. See also ii. 179.
[5] See Dr. Bradshaw’s account of the Black Death and its effect in the
_Victoria County History_, ii. 209-222.
[6] No account of the legends of Durham would be complete without some
note upon Robert Surtees’ ballads, several of which he foisted upon the
unsuspecting Walter Scott as genuine antiques. Perhaps the most weird
and effective is the one generally known as the "Legend of Sir John le
Spring," the scene of which is in Houghton, the _alma mater_ of the
poet’s own schoolboy days. One or two of the verses, which are well
known in the North, run:
"Pray for the sowle of Sir John-le-Spring,
When the black monks sing--
And the Vesper bells ring;
Pray for the sprite of a murdered Knight,
Pray for the sowle of Sir John-le-Spring.
He fell not, before the....--♰
The waning crescent fled,
When the Martyr’s palm and golden crown
Reward Christ’s soldier dead.
"He fell not in the battle-field,
Beneath St. George’s banner bright,
When the pealing cry of victory--
Might cheer the sowle of a dying knight;
But at dead of night, in the soft moonlight,
In his garden bower--he lay;
And the dew of sleep, did his eyelids steep
In the arms of his leman gay.
"And by murderous hand, and bloody brand,
In that guilty bower--
With his paramour,
Did his sowle from his body fleet,
And through mist and mirk, and moonlight gray,
Was forc’d away from the bleeding clay,
To the dreaded judgment seat."
[7] This is proved by an inquest taken at Hilton in that year. _Cf._
Bishop Swaby’s _History of the Hiltons of Hilton Castle_, p. 39.
[8] _The River-Names of Europe_, pp. 33, 34.
[9] Pudsey commenced to build a Lady Chapel at the east end of the
church which, as was said, St. Cuthbert shook down.
[10] About the year 1800 the whole cathedral underwent a process of
chiselling, in order to render the surface uniform. This was done
under the superintendence of Wyatt, and in some parts four inches in
depth were removed by the operation. The evidence of this is apparent
in several places on the north side of the choir and nave, where, in
consequence of the soil having accumulated several feet in height, that
part of the building has escaped being pared down. What has been the
result is shown there in the nook shafts of the arcade, which have been
reduced from a due proportion to one most inadequate.
[11] It is possible that Basire, whose words are rather curious, simply
means that he destroyed the chapels. He speaks of them as "being blown
up by Sir Arthur Haslerig in the Gunpowder Plot of the late Rebellion."
[12] Some years before 1834, when Mackenzie wrote, a portion of it had
been "converted into a respectable and substantial house," and was then
the residence of Mr. Henry Morton, Lord Durham’s agent. In or about
1875 the house underwent further changes, and has now for many years
been known as Lambton Grange. There is, however, another building in
the Park, locally known as the old Hall, and at one time used as a
brewery, which may represent some intermediate residence.
[13] The above account of Lambton Castle is abridged from an address
given by the late Henry Leighton of Lambton Grange, when acting as
chairman at the dinner given to the workmen on the completion of the
restoration of Lambton Castle, January 18, 1868.
[14] A somewhat similar building is at Bale Hill, near Wolsingham.
[15] A considerable portion of the Tower fell in February, 1890,
leaving portions of the west and south walls still standing.
[16] So Surtees sayeth. _A falcon on a tun_ was the family crest.
[17] The tablet in the church which Surtees noted to the memory of
William James has disappeared. There is a large marble tablet on the
north wall to the memory of James Brack and his three wives, which
reads rather curiously owing to the major portion of the inscriptions
having been raised and the panel containing his name inserted last. At
the foot the family arms have been emblazoned, a scarlet shield, having
apparently a passant lion of the same colour on a silver chief, and
impaling the sable shield with the engrailed fess and silver hands of
the Bates. The colours are badly rubbed and will not survive many more
cleanings.
[18] The late Mr. Boyle described the house as "ugly," an opinion we
cannot agree with. If not beautiful, it is certainly a handsome old
building.
[19] The writer of this chapter would be very grateful if any reader
who should chance to know where the other letters are would communicate
with him.
[20] See _Dictionary of National Biography_, for Canon Dale, vol.
xiii.; for Thomas Pelham Dale, _ibid._, supplement, vol. ii.
[21] The descendants of George Dale, the elder brother of Ralph Dale,
this Edward Dale’s great grandfather, were apparently extinct in
the male line by 1750, although George Dale, by his marriage with
Elizabeth, daughter of John Lively, Vicar of Kelloe, 1625-56, had at
least three sons alive in March, 1655-56--namely, Edward, John, and
Anthony.
[22] See the paper on John Lawrence in vol. iv. of the Proceedings of
the Sunderland Antiquarian Society.
[23] The letter has appeared in a privately printed magazine, the
_Family News_. See British Museum catalogue, under "Periodicals:
Northwood."
[24] See _A Christian Sketch of Lady Maxwell_, by Robert Bourne.
London, 1819.
[25] When he was in America, he had proposed to and been rejected
by a Miss Hopkey in 1757, and in 1748 he had been engaged to a Miss
Murray, so that his opinion of the advantage of celibacy had known some
variation.
[26] See _Dictionary of National Biography_, vol. ii.
[27] Their early pedigree has been printed in detail by the Rev.
William Greenwell in the seventh volume of the _New History of
Northumberland_. Their later descents have been fully dealt with, so
far as Raby and this county are concerned, by Surtees. It therefore
seems needless, in a limited volume like this, to retrace their
fortunes already so well traced. See also an interesting account of the
family by another local writer in _The House of Neville in Sunshine and
Shade_.
[28] For an interesting note upon the Eures, rather apt to be
overlooked, see the _Archæological Journal_, 1860, p. 218. The family
motto was _Vince malum bono_.
[29] Readers interested in the Visitations should read Mr. George
Grazebrooke’s very interesting introduction to the Harleian Society’s
_Visitation of Shropshire_, 1623 (vol. xxviii.). Commenting upon a
similar state of affairs in that county, he says: "Such names shew that
although it is very pleasant to a family to find their descents duly
recorded, still the absence of their name altogether from the list is
no proof whatever that their social position and heraldic rights were
not all the time perfectly well assured."
[30] The origin of the Greenwells may be compared with an interesting
paper upon "Clerical Celibacy in the Diocese of Carlisle," by the Rev.
James Wilson, in _Northern Notes and Queries_, 1906, p. 1.
[31] Another descent of the Blacketts from the Conyers has been pointed
out by the late Mr. Cadwallader Bates. _Cf._ his Letters, p. 124.
[32] The Pemberton descent given in Burke’s _Landed Gentry_ needs
correction. _Cf._ Foster’s _Visitations of Durham_, p. 251, footnote 2.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
The Church from the North-west, Finchale Priory 136=> The Church from
the North-west, Finchale Priory 139 {pg xii}
frequently occuring Celtic=> frequently occurring Celtic {pg 87}
the orginal chancel=> the original chancel {pg 173}
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Memorials of old Durham" ***
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