Full text of "The Victoria history of the county of Durham"

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^be IDtctoria Ibtstor)^ of the
Counties of JEnglanb

EDITED BY WILLIAM PAGE, F.S.A.

A HISTORY OF

DURHAM

VOLUME III

THE

VICTORIA HISTORY

OF THE COUNTIES
OF ENGLAND

DURHAM

V.3

LONDON

THE ST. CATHERINE PRESS

STAMFORD STREET
WATERLOO. S.E.

Thii History is issued by

The St. Catherine Tress

and printed by IV. H. Smith & Son

The Arden Press, London

v. 3

INSCRIBED

TO THE MEMORY OF

HER LATE MAJESTY

QUEEN VICTORIA

WHO GRACIOUSLY GAVE

THE TITLE TO AND

ACCEPTED THE

DEDICATION OF

THIS HISTORY

THE

VICTORIA HISTORY

OF THE COUNTY OF

DURHAM

Edited by WILLIAM PAGE, F.S.A.

VOLUME THREE

LONDON

THE ST. CATHERINE PRESS

STAMFORD STREET, WATERLOO, S.E.

192 8

CONTENTS OF VOLUME THREE

FACE

Dedication ...... ......... v

Contents ................ ix

List of Illustrations ............••«

List of Maps lii

Editorial Note xiii

Topography .... General descriptions and manorial descents compiled under

the superintendence of William Page, F.S.A. ; Heraldic
drawings and blazon by the Rev. E. E. Dorlinc, M.A.,
F.S.A. ; Charities from information supphed by J. W.
Owsley, I.S.O., late Official Trustee of Charitable Funds
City of Durham :

General History of the

City ... By the Very Rev. Henry Gee, D.D., F.S.A., Dean of

Gloucester ........ I

City Jurisdictions . . By K. C. Bayley, F.S.A 53

The Castle . . . By W. T. Jones, F.S.A 64

The Cathedral :

Historical Description By C. R. Peers, C.B.E., M.A., F.B.A., F.S.A., Chief Inspector

of Ancient iMonuments ...... 93

Architectural Descrip-
tion . . -By the late John Quekett, M.A., F.S.A., and F. H.

Cheetham, F.S.A. 96

Monastic Buildings . By F. H. Cheetham, F.S.A. ...... 123

Parish of St. Oswald . General descriptions and manorial descents by Henrietta

L. E. Garbett ; Architectural descriptions by F. H.
Cheetham, F.S.A. ....... 144

Parish of St. Giles . . General descriptions and manorial descents by Henrietta

L. E. Garbett ; Architectural descriptions by F. H.
Cheetham, F.S.A 182

Stockton Ward : . . . General descriptions and manorial descents compiled under

the superintendence of William Page, F.S.A. ; Heraldic
drawings and blazon by tlie Rev. E. E. Dorlinc, M.A.,
F.S.A. ; Arcliitcctural descriptions by F. H. Cheetham,
F.S.A. ; Charities from information supphed by J. W.
Owsley, I.S.O., late Official Trustee of Charitable Funds

Introduction. , . By Myra Curtis, Classical Tripos . . . . .191

BiUingham ...„„„ „ 195

Bishop Middleham • » « .. » » 204

ix b

CONTENTS OF VOLUME THREE

Topography {continued)

Stockton Ward {continued)
Bishopton
Crayke .
Low Dinsdalc
Egglescliffe
Elton .
Elwick HaU
Greatham
Grindon
Hart .
Hartlepool
Hurworth
Middleton St. George
Long Newton
Norton
Redmarshall
Sedgefield
Sockburn
Staintun

Stockton-on-Tees
Stianton

By John Brownbill, M.A.

» »>

By Madeleine Hope Dodds, Historical Tripos
By Myra Curtis, Classical Tripos .

If If If

By Madeleine Hope Dodds, Historical Tripos

i» ff If ff If ff

By John Brownbill, M.A.

By Myra Curtis, Classical Tripos

By John Brownbill, M.A.

By Madeleine Hope Dodds, Historical Tr:

pot

213
216

217
222
232
23s
242
247

254
263
285
293
299
304

31S

321

343
344
348
365

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

h-West/

The Castle Gateway .
Durham : Elvet Bridge, c. 1829

„ Castle from the North-

„ Seal of the City .....

„ Elvet Bridge .....

„ Castle Plan ......

„ ,, „ adapted from a plan of about 1775

„ „ The Courtyard looking South

„ „ The Courtyard from the South- West T

„ „ „ „ „ „ South-East /

„ „ The Buttery

„ „ The Black Staircase

„ „ The Norman Gallery .

„ „ The Courtyard looking North

„ „ The Norman Doorway to Lower Hall

„ „ c. 1700, from an old Painting

„ „ The Chapel Bench-ends

„ „ The Tunstall Chapel "\

„ „ The Norman Chapel }

n )» )> )> J) -^ ^^^^

„ Cathedral : The Nine Altars .
„ „ The Ne\'ille Screen, East side

„ „ The Chancel looking West

„ „ The Nave looking South-East

„ ,, The North Doorway "1

„ The South Doorway J

„ The Prior's Doorway

„ 12th-century Ring or Knocker on North

„ The Gahlee

„ The Cloister and Western Towers

„ The Cloister

Deanery ; Ground Plan
Cathedral and Monastery : Coloured Plan
Finchale Priory Plan ....
„ ,, Exterior

„ ,, The West View in 1728

,, ,, The West Doorway

„ „ The East View "\

„ „ The Undercroft J

„ „ The Chapter House

Kepier Hospital T

St. Oswald's Church : The Nave looking East J
„ „ „ Plan ....

,, „ ,, from the South

St. Margaret's Church Plan ....
,, „ „ The Nave looking East .

'},

Doo

PACE

Frontispiece
plate, facing 1 2

• 34

. . . 63

plaie,/acing 64

. . . 67

. 68

plate, facing 68

. 71

plate, facing 76

. . . 78

. 80

plate, facing 80
• j; » 84

. . . 85

plate, facing 88

102

103

>. 116

117
. 117
plate, facing 1 20
I"
123

• 133
plate, facing 136

148

• 149

plate, facing 150

. „ » 151

. 152

plate, facing 174

• 17s

. . . 176

. . . 178

plate, facing 178

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

-West/

Durham : St. Mary Magdalene's Chapel Plan

„ St. Giles' Church Plan .
BiUingham Cliurch Plan ....

„ „ from the South-West

„ „ „ „ South

,, „ Looking West "^

„ „ The Font J

Bishop j\riddleli:im Church from the South-West
Low Dinsd.ile Church from the West "^
Elwick Hall „ ,, ,, South J

EgglesclifFe ,, ,, ,, North-East .

Elton „ ,, ,, South-West .

Grindon : The Vane Arms in the Village of Thorpe Thewles
„ Wynyard Hall

„ Church : Ruins from the South-

» .. Plan

,, ,, Ruins of Porch "1

Hart „ The Font f

» ., Plan

„ ,, from the South-East

Hartlepool : The Friary. Site now occupied by the Hospital"!
„ One of the Gates of the Town Wall J

,, Church from the Street looking East

„ „ „ „ South-West "l

„ ,, ,, „ South-East J

„ „ Plan ....

„ „ The Chancel Arch and Nave Arcades

,, „ The Nave Arcades

Middleton St. George Church from the South
Long Newton Church from the Soutli-West
Norton Church Plan ....
Norton ,, from the North-East "\
„ „ The Crossing J

„ „ The Tower

Rcdmarshall Church Plan

,, „ from the South

„ „ The South Doorway

Scdgefield : Hardwick Hall .

„ Church Plan

Rcdmarshall „ The Nave looking East "4
Sedgefield „ from the North-East J

„ „ The Tower .

Stainton Church from the South-East .
Stockton ,, „ „ South
Stranton „ „ „ „ . .

■}

PACE
183
187

. 200

plate, facing 200
. 201

plate, facing 202

• » ,> 210

• ,, ,, 220

. 230

• 23s
. 248

plate, facing 248

• 253

plate, facing 254

. 260

plate, facing 260

• » ,. 266

• » ,, 270
• » „ 276

• 279

plate, facing 280

• » » 284

. „ „ 298

. 310

plat€, facing 310

■ 312

. . . 318

■ 3'9
plate, facing 320

• 322

. . . 338

plate, facing 338

■ 34>

• 347
pliile, facing 362

• 373

LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS

Plan of the City of Durham, c. 161 1, by J. Speed

J) >> )) )> J) » in '754 •

„ „ „ Ancient Fortifications of Durham City

Index Map to Stockton Ward ....

Topograpliical Map ......

plate, facing 34

• ,. >, 46

. 92
. 192

. at end of Volume

Xtl

EDITORIAL NOTE

The Editor wishes to thank all those who have assisted him with notes
and information in the compilation of this volume during the long period
that it has been in preparation. The work was almost finished and partly
in type when the war and post-war conditions required it to be put aside
for nearly ten years. On the resumption of work it was difficult to pick
up the threads left by a scattered staff, but since that time the whole
volume has been revised and brought up to date. In this work the Editor
has particularly to thank Dr. John Bilson, who by his unique knowledge
of Durham Cathedral has afforded much help in the revision of the
architectural description of that great monument. This piece of work,
although begun by Mr. S. C. Kaines Smith, M.B.E., M.A., F.S.A., was
mainly written by the late Mr. John Quekett, M.A., F.S.A., whose
brilliant career as a literary architect was cut short, to the sorrow of his
numerous friends, on the battlefield in Flanders on 31 July 19 17.
Mr. Quekett left his account of the Cathedral buildings almost complete
from the east end of the church to the eastern part of the nave. From
this point the remainder of the account of the church and all the descrip-
tion of the monastic buildings have been written by Mr. F. H. Cheetham,
F.S.A., who at the same time has made such revision in the earlier part
of the work as alterations in the meantime have necessitated. The Editor
desires further to thank Professor Hamilton Thompson, M.A., F.S.A.,
for reading the proof of the whole of the account of the Cathedral and
Monastery, and Mr. C. R. Peers, C.B.E., F.S.A., F.B.A., for advice
and help in the parts of the description, other than that of the historical
development of the church for which he himself is responsible.

Acknowledgment is also gratefully made to the Very Rev. Henry
Gee, D.D., F.S.A., Dean of Gloucester, Brigadier-General Herbert
Conyers Surtees, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., M.V.O., F.S.A., D.L., J.P.,
Mr. W. T. Jones, F.S.A., Mr. E. V. Stocks, M.A., the Rev. Canon E.
Sykes, the Rev. Canon W. Bothamly, Mr. K. C. Bayley, F.S.A., and
Mr. C. H. Hunter Blair, M.A., F.S.A., for assistance given to the Editor
in various ways. The Editor also thanks the clergy who have read the
proofs of their parishes or otherwise helped in passing the pages through
the press. He would mention the assistance he has received m this way
from the Rev. F. P. Bates, the Rev. J. Bennett, the Rev. W. A. Blackwell,
the Rev. E. Doddington, the Rev. J. Clegg, the \'en. Archdeacon
Derry, the Rev. A. T. Dingle, the Rev. E. A. Douglas, the Rev. J. C.
Douglas, the Rev. A. T. Faber, the Rev. J. R. Fuller, the Rev. E. H.
Greatorex, the Rev. D, Hodgson, the Rev. C. E. Jackson, the Rev.

xiii

EDITORIAL NOTE

J. H. Kirner, the Rev. H. Martin, the Rev, H. S. Milner, the Rev. E. R.
Ormsby, the Rev. J. Ousey, the Rev. M. B. Parker, the Rev. G. W.
Reynolds, the Rev. A. C. Rose, the Rev. T. Rudd, the Rev. T. E. Scott,
the Rev. F. T. Saher, the Rev. H. Wilhamson, and the Rev. W. R.
Wyldbore-Smith.

The Editor has to thank H.M. Office of Works and the Society of
Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne for permission to reproduce the
plan of Finchale Priory, Mr. Brook Kitchin for the plan of the Deanery,
Durham, taken from The Story of the Deanery, Durham, by the late
G. W. Kitchin, D.D., F.S.A., Dean of Durham, and Mr. W. T. Jones,
F.S.A., for various photographs and plans of Durham Castle, especially
for use of the large detailed plan of the Castle prepared by him. It is
also with pleasure that the Editor expresses his gratitude to the Durham
and Northumberland Archzeological Society for the grant they have
generously made from their funds towards the heavy expenses of
producing this volume.

XIV

A HISTORY OF
DURHAM

CITY OF DURHAM

THE City of Durham is situated in
the southern portion of the coal
measures which extend from the
Coquet to the Tees. It lies upon
and around a central peninsula
formed by the River Wear 13 miles above its
mouth.i This curious horseshoe bend is one
of several loops which the river makes as it
passes from the western uplands to Wearmouth.
The peninsula is about 800 yds. long and about
250 yds. from bank to bank of the river at its
narrowest point. It incloses about 58 acres,
and this area forms what Leland says is 'alonely
caullid the wauUed Toune of Duresme.'
The name Durham, however, comprises, and
has for centuries comprised, various ancient
jurisdictions outside the peninsula. One of
these, as we shall see, has some claim, at all
events, to be considered the original settlement
and to antedate Durham itself, strictly so
called, by at least two centuries. From this
central peninsula the city now extends in various
directions over the undulating neighbourhood
and in somewhat straggling order, so that as
an early local writer says : ' I may liken the
form of this Bishopric to the letter A and Durham
to a crab ; supposing the city for the belly and
the suburbs for the claws.' **

The lay-out of Durham, like most mediaeval
towns, is so arranged that the roads and bridges
bring all the traffic through the market-place in
order to collect the tolls from merchandise and
give entertainment to travellers. The suburbs
grew up at the three chief entrances to the city.
In this way Framwellgate and Crossgate arose
at the foot of Framwellgate Bridge on the roads
from Newcastle and the north and from Lan-
chester and the north-west ; Gilesgate, at the
entrance of the roads from the east, one from
Sunderland and the other from Hartlepool, the
chief mediaeval port of the Palatinate ; and
Elvet, at the foot of Elvet Bridge, along the road
from Darlington and the south. Although the
city still maintains its importance as the centre
of the Palatinate, it has not developed indus-

' V.C.H. Dur. i, 25.

1* Robert Hegge, Legend of St. Cuthbert (1626, ed.
J. B. Taylor, 1816), 2.

trially in the way that other northern towns
have done. For this reason it retains many of
its ancient features, and the plan of the city and
its suburbs, with their tortuous thoroughfares,
has remained practically unaltered since the
Middle Ages. The older part of the city lies
about the market-place, on the west side of
which is the modern town hall, and on the
north, standing isolated by the entrance to
Claypath, is the modern church of St. Nicholas.
An equestrian statue of the third Marquess of
Londonderry completes the catalogue of some-
what uninteresting features of the market-place.
The house on the north-west side of Silver
Street (No. 38), now occupied as a shop by
Messrs. Caldcleugh, belonged to Sir John Duck,
and retains internally much characteristic work
of the late 17th century. The staircase has
richly carved strings, twisted balusters and
square carved newels. Over the fireplace of the
front room on the first floor, which is lined with
panelling, is a curious oil painting emblematical
of Duck's career, containing views of the hospital
founded by him at Lumley and of his house at
Harwell-on-the-Hill. The house numbered 12
on the same side of the street is an early 17th-
century gabled building of brick three stories in
height. The ' Dunelme Cafe,' on the opposite
side, is a half-timber house of three oversailing
stories of about the same date.

Of the old work remaining in Gilesgate, the
houses numbered 2 and 5 are early 17th-century
buildings, considerably modernised ; and num-
bers 21 and 23, which are of two stories with
gabled dormers, though much altered, appear to
be of the same period. The ' Woodman Inn,' on
the same side, a plastered two-storied building
with a moulded stone entrance, bears a panel
inscribed 'G M 1715.' Number 194 on the
opposite side is a plastered 18th-century house
of two stories with a flat canopy over the en-
trance supported by wrought iron brackets.

Saddler Street has been levelled and filled up
for a depth of many feet, and deep below its
present surface are the remains of the old rising
bridge to the Gateway, one or two arches of
which may be seen in the lower basements of
premises on the east side. Spanning the street
at its southern end stood the North Gate. Of

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

the Norman gateway here we have only the
reference by Laurence that it was ' stately and
threatening,' with a tower and barbican. It
was strengthened by Bishop Skirlaw (i 388-1406),
and greatly reconstructed and enlarged by
Bishop Langley (1406-37), who formed a portion
of it into a prison for ' criminals ' and ' cap-
tives.' There were three gates, the outer,
the main and the inner gate. The outer defen-
sive portion as shown by existing prints con-
sisted of a short barbican with walls of great
thickness and defensive passages, with outer
turret towers square at the base and octagonal
above the gate. Apparently the drawbridge
was within the barbican. The main gate had
two large turrets, square at base and octagonal
above, and is described as possessing ' salli-
poris and upper galleries for the annoyance of
assailants.' Its portcullis (which was supposed
to have been raised for a century) unexpectedly
fell down in 1773 and stopped the communica-
tion between the Bailey and Saddler Street, until
' the workmen with saws and axes cut it to
pieces.' On the south side, the south-east
and south-west angles of the gate were covered
with smaller octagonal turrets, doubtless stair-
cases for the use of the residential or prison
quarters, rising considerably higher than the
general level of the tower and possibly pro-
viding access to the roof. Towards the end of
the 15th century a small square central pro-
jecting wing was built out between the main
turrets over a large portion of the barbican, the
parapets of which bore three shields ; two of
these are supposed to have been preserved, and
were fixed some fifteen years ago on the west
wall of the Bishop's garden. The chamber
described by James Nield in 1805 1'' as intended
for an oubliette exists, much filled up, under
the building formerly called the library on the
west side of the street. Where the ' great hole,'
also mentioned by him, was situated cannot be
identified, but part of the basement under the
Advertiser office on the east side of the
street doubtless formed some of the * holes ' he
described. This Gateway, one of the most
picturesque buildings in the North, was de-
stroyed in 1820, shortly after the new prison
was built at the top of Old Elvet, because it
was supposed to be an obstruction to traffic.^
From the almoners' rentals of 1424 and 1432

1" G<?n/. ;l/a^. (Nov. 1805).

2 Fortunately, excellent prints and pictures exist —
notably that of the North Front by T. M. Richard-
son, in the Castle Common Room ; a drawing of a
portion of the North Front (unsigned) in the Chapter
Library ; and a print from the North-West by
W. Bryne in the same Library. There is also a
painting of the south side of the gate hanging in the
Castle, and two charming sketches by Bouet, in the
possession of Mr. J. G. Wilson.

we obtain some particulars of the castle area at
these dates. The Earl of Westmorland had his
town house in Owengate or Ovengate, and a
house in North Bailey called ' Sheriffhouse '
belonged to the Archdeacon of Durham. Bow
Lane was known as ' Le Chare,' and its houses
on the east side arc said to have been bounded
by the castle wall. Nearly opposite but north
of the present gateway to the college was the
infirmary, then let out in tenements, one of
which was occupied as a school. Opposite the
infirmary were some houses called ' Halfseters.'^*
Among the buildings on the east side of the
North Bailey which now form Hatfield Hall is
part of an old inn. The dining room, which is
in this portion, is a large mid-i8th century
apartment with a coved and flat ceiling and a
* Venetian ' window with internal finishings of
the Doric order. The house known as the
Rectory is decorated internally in the late 18th-
century Gothic manner with good effect. To
the south of Hatfield Hall, at the corner of Bow
Lane, stands the church of St. Mary-le-Bow.
Number 24 in the North Bailey, to the south of
Bow Lane, like many other houses in the North
and South Baileys, appears to bean early 17th-
century house remodelled in the last half of
the i8th century. The entrance hall is a charm-
ing example of the period. The principal stairs
are of the geometrical type and the first floor
landing is open to the hall, across which it is
carried, like a gallery, upon Doric columns and
pilasters, the front having a handrail supported
hy turned balusters. St. John's Hall, also in
the North Bailey, occupies a good stone 18th-
century house of three stories with a basement.
The central portion is slightly broken forward,
and the entrance doorway has a pediment sup-
ported by carved consoles. To the south of
the 15th-century gateway to the 'College,' on
the west side of the South Bailey, stands the
church of St. Mary-the-Less. Beyond this point
the road turns to the westward and descends
sharply to Prebend's Bridge, passing beneath a
semicircular archway, which incorporates some
mediaeval fragments and stands near the site of
the former ' Water Gate.' Viewed from the
river, the houses in the Bailey, with their
gardens terraced upon the steeply sloping bank,
present an extremely picturesque appearance.
The foot of the peninsula is skirted from Elvet
Bridge to FramweUgate Bridge by the path
known as ' the Banks.' On the west side,
where the slope is steeper, and in parts almost
precipitous, the path divides, one branch climb-
ing the wooded face of the rock and passing
directly under the west front of the Galilee,

2i> Rolls in the Durham Treasury. The house
called ' SherifThouse ' was earher known as Lithfot-
house. See Durham Treasury 2, 2. Elemos. 16 and 17.

CITY OF DURHAM

After crossing Framwellgate Bridge from
Silver Street the road divides into three
branches : Crossgate, which runs nearly due
east, and out of which lead South Street and
Allergate ; the old Newcastle road running
northwards through Milburngate and Fram-
wellgate ; and the new North Road, which leads
in a north-westerly direction, and after passing
under the London and North Eastern Railway
south of the station joins the Newcastle road
again outside the town. Framwellgate and
Milburngate, with Crossgate, South Street and
Allergate, constitute the old western suburb of
Durham, and it is along these thoroughfares that
the bulk of the older buildings are found. The
North Road, with the streets which fill up the
triangle between Framwellgate and Crossgate,
is entirely modern, and represents the chief
development of Durham in the 19th century.

Many excellent examples of 18th-century
work survive in the houses in Framwellgate.
The Convent of the Sisters of Mercy attached
to the Roman Catholic Church of St. Godric
occupies what was formerly the Wheatsheaf Inn.
On a lead rain-water head is the date 1741. The
old dining room of the inn is an exceptionally
fine example of the interior decoration of the
period. The walls are lined with carved
panelling surmounted by an entablature with
shell and scroll ornament upon the frieze, and
the room is lighted from one end by a large
' Venetian ' window with Ionic pilasters sup-
porting entablatures from which the archivolt
of the central light springs ; while on the side
opposite the fireplace are two rectangular
windows with enriched architraves. The chim-
ney-piece is of carved wood with swags and
consoles, and the overmantel has a scroll pedi-
ment and cartouche supported by pilasters
shaped like terminals. The doorcases are also
elaborately ornamented, and the plaster ceiling
is designed in the rococo manner of the period.
In the house now occupied by the Church of
England Mission is a room of about the same
date, with plaster panelling and a large ' Vene-
tian ' window. The moulded stone entrance
doorway shows the house to be of the late 17th
century ; the staircase, a good example of the
period, has twisted balusters and square newels.
In Milburngate, the southern extremity of
Framwellgate, are some two-storied half-
timber cottages, now plastered, of early 16th-
century type.

On the south side of Crossgate, just to the
westward of its junction with South Street,
stands the church of St. Margaret. At the
corner of South Street and Crossgate is an
early 16th-century two-storied house of half-
timber ; the building has been considerably
repaired and the ground story has been faced
with brick. On the opposite side of South

Street is a three-storied half-timber house with
oversailing upper floors. It appears to be of
early 17th-century date ; the ground story is
now plastered, and the upper stories have been
cased with brick, but the original entrance door-
way has been left intact. Little else of archi-
tectural interest remains in South Street, which
runs southwards parallel with the river along
the crest of the steep bank. The ' Fighting
Cocks Inn ' in Crossgate contains a good square
well staircase of the latter half of the 17th cen-
tury, with heavy moulded handrails, turned
balusters, and square newels.

The eastern suburb of Elvet consists of the
streets known as Old Elvet and New Elvet, into
which the road divides after crossing Elvet
Bridge. New Elvet runs southward nearly
parallel with the river for a short distance, and
again forks into Church Street, through which
the main road to the south passes, and Hallganh
Street, the commencement of the road to
Stockton. On this side the town appears
hardly to have extended at all since the middle
of the i8th century. Work of this century pre-
vails in the houses of the suburb, though some
retain detail of an earlier period. No features of
particular interest remain in Church Street, on
the west side of which, between the road and
river, is St. Oswald's Church. On the north
side of Old Elvet are some good 18th-century
houses, while the principal feature on the south
side is the Shire Hall erected in 1897. At the
end of Old Elvet are the modern Assize Courts
and prison, standing back from the road.

It will be convenient to take the varying
boundaries of the city as they come before us
in connection with the history of the separate
jurisdictions, and to begin with the report of
the Commissioners on proposed division of
counties and boundaries of boroughs in 1832.
The map which they made shows that at that
time the city of Durham consisted of a misshapen
square which inclosed a great deal more than
the peninsula. The boundaries were as follows :
Starting from the old Hallgarth Toll Bar, now
demolished, but formerly standing on the ex
treme south-east point of the city, the line ran
west by Back Lane, now called Gladstone Terrace,
and thence across the south end of the river-
bend over South Street to the present work-
house in a northerly direction. It crossed the
North Road opened in 183 1 to the top of
Framwellgate. Here it curved to the east,
crossing the river below the city near Crook
Hall. Thence, skirting the ruins of Magdalen
Chapel, it passed to the junction of the Sherburn
and Sunderland Roads. At this point it
turned sharply to the west to take in St. Giles'
Church, whence it struck south, crossed the
river, and passing over the middle of the old
race-course, reached Hallgarth Toll Bar. The

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

Commissioners proposed large additions to this
area. The south-east limit was now extended
to Shincliffc Bridge, from which the boundary
passed to Hallgarth Toll Bar. Thence it ran
rather to the south of the old line to Charley
Cross, and via Quarry Head Lane, round by
Margery Lane and Flass Lane to the gates of
the present Hospital, and up the Newcastle
Road to Springwell Hall. Here it turned
sharply to the east in a straight line to Kepier
Hospital, and thence round by Kepier Lane to
what is now Bell's Villa Lane, where it turned
west, rounded the end of Pelaw Wood, and fol-
lowed the right bank of the river to Shincliffe
Bridge.

In 1849 Mr. G. T. Clark, a superintending
inspector under the Public Health Act of the
previous year, instituted a preliminary inquiry
on the sanitary conditions of the city. His
report to the General Board of Health will be
noticed in another connexion. In this he pro-
posed a further addition to the boundaries of
the city on its extreme north-east limit, so as
to take in an uneven parallelogram containing
what was then known as New Durham. The
proposal was not accepted at that time, nor was
it allowed in 1905, when the city boundaries
were again altered. Accordingly the limits
were not changed between 1832 and 1905.

The Municipal Corporations Act of 1835,^
which gave effect to the Commissioners' Report
of 1832, divided the city into three wards on
the recommendation of the revising barristers.
These wards were called respectively the North,
South, and St. Nicholas wards, and were un-
changed for the next seventy years. In 1905,
in pursuance of certain sections in the Local
Government Act of 1888,'' an extension order
was drawn up under which the existing boun-
daries and wards were settled. A new ward
was added on the west of the city to comprise
the suburb which had grown up in recent years
in the direction of Neville's Cross. By some
redistribution and enlargement the three wards
were increased to six, and are now known as
Neville's Cross ward on the west, Framvvellgate
ward on the north and Crossgate ward below
it, St. Nicholas ward in the centre of the city,
Gilesgate and Elvet to the north-east and south-
east respectively. The intake added consider-
ably to the area and population of the city —
viz., 181 acres and 2,220 persons. The addi-
tions over and above that of the Neville's Cross
ward consisted of an enlargement of the limits
of the old South ward so as to take in an area
bounded by Honeyhall wood, Mountjoy reser-
voir, Oswald House, South End, and Bow
cemetery ; and, further, an increase of the old

3 Stat. 5 and 6 Will. IV, cap. 76.
* Ibid. 51 and 52 Vict. cap. 41.

North ward by a circular boundary running
from Frankland Lane through Hopper's Wood
to Akeley Heads Farm, thence skirting and in-
cluding the Dryburn estate to Western Lodge
and Springwell Hall. The Parliamentary boun-
dary was not affected by the changes of 1905,
and is therefore not strictly conterminous with
the municipal boundary.

Although the county was the birth-place of
passenger traffic by rail, it was some time before
the city participated in the new means of
communication; nor was there any desire for it,
though many of the inhabitants took part in the
festival opening of the Stockton and Darlington
Railway in 1825. Durham itself was first
brought within useful distance of the railway in
1838, when the Durham Junction Railway from
South Shields to Leamside was opened. Thus
a drive of 6 miles only lay between the city and
the railway. In 1844 direct communication
was opened with Leamside from a station in
Gilesgate. Later a new station at the north
end of the city was completed and Durham was
connected with the Weardale and Durham
Railway. In 1841 the Great North of England
Railway was opened as far as Darlington, and
was continued to Newcastle in 1844, passing
through Leamside and giving Durham easy
access to Newcastle and York. All these lines
which directly affected Durham were consoli-
dated into the North Eastern Railway in 1854.
In 1857 the Bishop Auckland line was finished
and was brought to the North Road station
over a viaduct which was called the Victoria
Viaduct. Since 1872 the usual express route
from Newcastle to York has lain through the city
by the completion of the Team Valley Railway,

The railways put an end by degrees to the
large service of stage coaches which had run
through Durham. In 1827 there were sixteen
coaches daily leaving or reaching the various
coaching inns.^ Of these eight were in commu-
nication with London, four with Edinburgh,
and the rest with Sunderland, Newcastle, Leeds
or Lancaster. There were numerous carriers
to all local towns and villages. The main roads
were the Great North Road, connecting north
and south and running through the city ; a
road to Brandon and Brancepeth on the west ;
another to Sunderland on the north-east,
branching off to Sherburn and Hartlepool ; and
a fourth diverging at Springwell Hall from the
Great North Road and running to Lanchester.

The River Wear was never navigable in the
neighbourhood of Durham owing to its frequent

^ Parson and White (Hist. Dir., and Gazetteer of
Dur. and Northumb., 1S27) give full particulars. In
1827 there were about eighteen daily coaches and
about forty-one carriers.

CITY OF DURHAM

shallows. In the reign of George II * a scheme
was proposed for making the stream available
for barges at a time when coal-mines were being
developed. This scheme was revised in 1796'
in a very ambitious way with the design of con-
necting the Wear and the Tyne.

The modern municipal administration of the
city begins with a paving Act of 1773. Until
this time the various jurisdictions which will
be described later had their own surveyor in
each case. Certain Commissioners were ap-
pointed by the Act, and they nominated a single
surveyor for the whole city, placing under him
all pavements, sewers, drains, water-courses,
footpaths, carriage-ways, and lamps. This Act
was superseded by an important Act of 1790.
It recited the fact that the ways ' are not properly
paved, cleansed, or lighted, and are rendered
very inconvenient by several nuisances, annoy-
ances, encroachments and obstructions.' Ac-
cordingly a very large commission was appointed
of 257 persons, representing, apparently, the
whole magistracy of the city and county with
others. There is no extant record of what the
commission did with their ample powers of
levying rates, regulating tolls, extending roads
and abating nuisances. In 1816 the streets were
still unpaved, or very badly paved, for they are
described as being ' as soft as an Irish bog and not
paved with stones point upwards as some other
towns.' No improvement took place, and in
1822 the Act of 1790 was amended ^ after a
strong indictment of the city roads at Quarter
Sessions. All of them, it is said, were ' at this
time in an indictable state,' the flagging being
perfectly useless in wet weather owing to the
drip from the eaves of the houses, and the
streets themselves full of filth wheeled out from
the houses. According to the preamble of this
new Act the rates raised under its predecessor
were not sufficient. The making and main-
tenance of pavement or flagging in front of each
house was now thrown upon the owner, and
fixed days for sweeping the causeways were
appointed to the householder. The North and
South Baileys were placed under the Commis-
sioners for paving purposes for the first time."
In 1823 Hallgarth Street was macadamized,'"
and the same system was introduced next year
in Old Elvet ; but the dust which it produced
caused some annoyance, so that the plan was

^ Arch. Ael. ii, 118.

' Sykes, Local Rec, sub anno.

* I.oc. and Personal Act, 3 Geo. IV, cap. 26.

* The north gate of the castle having been first
taken down. See further on this change below.
Books still preserved were from this time kept by the
Commissioners, and form a kind of history of city
progress.

*" The Macadam system was introduced for Dur-
ham turnpike roads about 1821.

not universally adopted in the city. Its com-
parative failure, perhaps, led to the cobbling of
Claypath and Gilesgate in 1830. By 1840 the
cobbling of the streets generally was complete,
so that a feature which has been thought to be
characteristic of old Durham is comparatively
modern. Cobbles, however, have been widely
replaced by granite paving, and the cobbles have
largely disappeared in favour of tar paving and
other systems. In no place, however, has there
been used wood, cork or asphalt.

The Act of 1790 was imperfectly carried out
as regards lighting, and indeed its mention of
lamps existing and to be made is incidental and
ambiguous. The result was an increase of
disorder at a period of great political unrest.
Accordingly, in 18 14, the Secretary of State
intervened, and oil lamps were placed in the
Baileys, Market-place, South Street and the
Elvets. Lamp-smashing now began to be a city
sport for the rougher element in the populace,
so that parish constables were appointed to
help the city constables. At last, in 1823,
lighting by gas was considered, and the offices
were enlisted of Mr. West, who had recently
contracted for the gas supply of Stockton. At
the beginning of 1824 the whole city was
lighted by gas. ' We behold,' says the Durham
Advertiser, ' a city long notorious for its
nocturnal darkness become at once perhaps one
of the best lighted towns in the kingdom.'
All the plant and installation were the property
of Mr. West, from whom they were purchased
in 1841 by the first Durham Gas Company.
An opposition company was soon merged in
the former, which continued its work until 1873,
when the present company was formed. The
area of supply is about 33 miles. Incandescent
street lamps were introduced in 1902, owing to
the competition produced by the appearance of
electric lighting, which was made accessible in
Durham in 1901. A transformer station to the
north of the city receives supply from the
County of Durham Electric Power Distribution
Company, whose generating station is at
Carville-on-Tyne.

The peninsula had, and still has to some extent,
its own natural water supply at a depth of 30 ft.
to 40 ft. The castle and cathedral had their
own wells, and most of the Bailey houses had
theirs. They gave trouble, however, and about
1540 Bishop Tunstall brought a supply to
cathedral and castle from beyond the river. The
portions outside the peninsula were supplied by
their own wells, e.^. Framwell, Southwell,
St. Cuthbert's Well, St. Oswald's Well, Hakow
Well. In 1450 water was brought to the market
place from Crook Hall, and a pant or fountain
was erected. Such was the general provision
until 1844, when a water company was formed
and the trade of water carrying became by

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

degrees a thing of the past. This Durham water
company built worics outside the south-east
corner of the city and pumped filtered river
water into a supply reservoir on Mountjoy until
1880. In this year the company was taken over
by the Weardale and Shildon water company,
which afterwards became the Weardale and
Consett company. Thus an excellent supply
of beautifully soft, pure water was brought from
Waskerley, near Consett, to Durham.

Traces of old sewers of uncertain date are
often found, but there is nothing by which to
reconstruct the ancient scheme of drainage.
Save for the elaborate latrine-pits on the western
wall of the monastery and others in the castle,
there was probably in ancient times no regular
drainage. The haphazard substitutes con-
tinued until recent times, and their condition
was the object of an elaborate report drawn up
by Mr. G. T. Clark in 1849 under the Public
Health Act of the previous year. His descrip-
tion of the sanitary condition of the city is
sufficiently shocking. Apparently very little
had been done under the powers of the Acts of
1790 and 1822, and it was reported by the
engineers of the new water company that only
eight streets had good sewers, whilst twenty-
three had none ! In 1852, as the outcome of
these reports, a scheme for resewering the whole
city was drawn up, but was carried out im-
perfectly in the interests of a false economy.
Sewers under this scheme, so far as it was put
into operation, entered the river at seventeen
different points. Considerable discussion arose
about the city sewerage at various times, and at
last in 1899 it took shape in the elaborate system
introduced by Mr. H. W. Taylor. Gravitating
sewers now followed the course of the river on
both sides, and brought the sewage to a point
below the city, whence it is pumped by centri-
fugal pumps into chemical precipitation tanks
whence it is conveyed over some 12 acres of land
and eventually reaches the river in a thoroughly
purified state. The ultimate cost of this elabo-
rate scheme is ^43,000, and it will serve a
population of 30,000 so far as the sewage con-
veyance goes, and 18,000 so far as sewage
disposal is concerned. ^^

In 1790 provision was made for a watch of
not more than twenty-four : four were actually
chosen. In 182 1, owing to the ruffianism alluded
to above, a regular police force on a small scale
was trained, which was supplemented by paro-
chial constables. The watch were not merely
guardians of the peace but inspectors of nui-
sances, of weights and measures, and until 1822
of the assize of bread. In 1823 some control

11 For details see Mr. Pegge's paper in Journ. of
Inst, of Munic. Eng. vol. i (1909) ; Mr. Taylor's
explanation, ibid. 94.

of fire engines was placed in their hands. The
Act of 1835 inaugurated the permanent police
force.

In regard to trade and industry Durham was
far more self-contained before the days of rail-
ways, producing on the spot most articles
required in the city. Communication with
London and great industrial centres has had the
effect of starving out or of greatly reducing
many trades which once were supported. The
chief trade at present is with the pitmen and
neighbouring villagers who constantly come in
to shop. Trades that have disappeared are
those connected with mustard manufacture,
brickyards, tanning, grease-making, whilst those
of the currier, gunsmith, lead-sheet worker,
pewterer, glover, spurrier and cutler are extinct
or have been merged in allied departments.
There are still at work tinplate workers, carriage
builders, cartvvrights, iron-founders, engineers
of various kinds, plumbers, whitesmiths, brass-
workers, ropcmakers, bookbinders, printers,
coopers, millers, builders and contractors. AH
these in addition, of course, to purveyors of
provisions of all kinds, drapers and clothiers.
The manufacture of mustard and of carpets
has long been associated with Durham, but
mustard-making is now transferred to Yarm,
and the carpet factory has been restarted in its
old home '- in recent years with every prospect
of rapid development.

We pass to the origin and development of
the city. Maiden Castle, to the south-east of
Durham, indicates a prehistoric settlement in
Elvet ^^ and probably the occupation at that time
of the large plateau formed by the great river
loop between it and St. Oswald's Church."

After the English occupation, the dawn of
history touches the districts to the north and
south before it reaches Durham. Lindisfarne,
Bamburgh, Whitby, York are all illuminated,
whilst the hills of Durham are still in darkness.
It is usual with historians to contrast the
comparatively late origin of Durham with that
of York or Ripon, and to proceed at once with
the familiar events of the arrival of St. Cuth-
bert's body in 995. Some reasons are now to
be given for going back at least 200 years beyond
that date to what is probably the first mention
in history of the locality, if not of the peninsula
itself. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the
year 762 records the consecration of Peohtwine
as Bishop of Whithern in Galloway, at a place
called Aelfet ee. The circumstances which led
to the choice of this particular spot are not given,

'^ For its origin see below, p. 49.

*' See V.C.H. Dur. i, 348, and for an older, more
detailed account Surtees, Hist, and Antiq. of Dur. iv,
90.

11 V.C.H. Dur. i, 354.

CITY OF DURHAM

and do not really concern us. At all events the
context makes it clear that the locality must be
sought in Bernicia, and there appears to be no
other name there which would develop from
Aelfet but Elvet. Whatever Aelfet may mean,i*
the phrase Aelfet ee must signify Aelfet island,
and the expression would suit the river girt
character of the plateau. But other considera-
tions help out the identification. The peninsula
itself can never have been very well adapted for
corn and other crops, but the open district
within the river loop at Elvet can scarcely have
failed to be productive. When Christianity
was re-established in Northumbria in the 7th
century, as Bede tells us, under King Oswald,
a rapid and widespread development of the
Church took place throughout his realm.

Christianity would surely visit this fertile
spot at an early date, where probably an Anglian
village arose. Now the church in Elvet is
dedicated to St. Oswald, and such dedication
would be a very natural one to give to any
church in a district where St. Oswald was a
native prince, and where his efforts made perma-
nent the conversion of Northumbria to the
Christian faith. 1* At any rate St. Oswald's
Church was the mother church of a very exten-
sive district, and even St. Margaret's, which
was built in the early part of the 12th cen-
tury, remained a chapelry in the large parish
of St. Oswald until the 15th century. With the
antiquity of the site and dedication of the church
works in an interesting discovery of Saxon
remains made in the year 1895 in the churchyard
wall of St. Oswald's. The portions of pre-
Conquest crosses then recovered are now in the
Cathedral Library, and certainly suggest a local
Christianity of that period. They have already
been described in this history."

Once more we have proof that in 995 a settle-
ment actually existed on the left bank of the
river, and this, we may take it, was in Elvet and
near St. Oswald's if the general theory here
advanced is sound. The proof mentioned is

*^ The late Mr. W. H. Stevenson suggested swan.
Prof. F. M. Stenton writes : 'There can be little doubt
that the ^Ifet where Peohtwine was consecrated to
Whithern in 762 is Elvet near Durham. The place
must be sought within the ancient Kingdom of
Bernicia. So far as I know there is no other name
which could descend from .lElfet. Raine's suggested
identification with Elmet is obviously impossible.'

1^ The interesting reference to the Scottish
missionaries and the building of churches in North-
umbria in Bede, Hist. Ecd. iii, 3, taken with the
absence of churches when Oswald began to reign
(ibid, iii, 2), points to a really vnde work by the
king.

" See V.C.H. Dur. i, 224-5 ; Trans. Dur. and
Northumb. Arch, and Archit. Soc. iii, 32 ; iv, 281,
with plates.

given by Simeon of Durham,'* the 12th-
century Durham monk and historian, who not
only knew the locality well, but had access to
Northumbrian traditions and chronicles which
no longer exist. He says that when the body
of St. Cuthbert came in 995 to the peninsula,
the place was practically uninhabitable, and with
the exception of a level surface of no large size,
it was totally covered with very thick wood.
This level part ' people were in the habit of
cultivating by ploughing and sowing.' It is
at the least tempting to suppose that these
farmers, who can scarcely have lived on a site
so densely covered with trees, lived beyond the
river, and came to and fro for their agricultural
operations. It should also be pointed out that
the road passing along through Crossgate has
been known from time immemorial as South
Street, at all events in one portion of it. ' Street,'
however, is an unusual word in Durham.
Silver Street within the peninsula, and South
Street on the other side, are, strictly speaking,
the only Durham streets. Why ' south ' when
it runs on the west of the city ? And why
' street,' which is so rare a word ? Is it not
likely that the road so-called forms a part of a
really ancient way which ran past the peninsula
and skirted Elvet to the south ?

The general conclusion that the district called
Elvet was settled and christianized before 762
is fairly warranted. The existence of a village
here with its unwritten history is in no way
disproved by Simeon's story of the advent of
St. Cuthbert's body and the foundation of the
historical Durham. Indeed in one particular,
as we have seen, the record presupposes an
existing settlement. We will now take some
points in the story which has already been told
in an earlier volume.'' The congregation of
St. Cuthbert were travelling from Ripon to
Chester-le-Street. Their route to Piercebridge
would follow the course of the great Roman
road. If they did not continue it to Lanchester
and strike thence to Chester-le-Street they may
have followed, whatever its exact course, the
road which ultimately led from the south
through Elvet and out to the intended destina-
tion of the congregation.

At the moment the Danish menace had lifted,
but the time was stiU threatening, for the
incident which had prompted the flight to
Ripon was part of a long series of invasions.

Chester-lc-Street, despite its sanctuary asso-
ciations extending over a period of 1 13 years,
was not really safe, and the minds of the congre-
gation must have been highly strung and excited.

*' Simeon of Durham, Op. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), i, 80.

" V.C.H. Dur. ii, 7. XVTiat is said in the text is
to be taken as a supplement to what was there
written.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

At some point in the journey the impregnable
character of the peninsula was doubtless pointed
out, and there it was determined to defend the
saint's body and to make the place an abiding
home without fear of Danish molestation. The
legend of the car immovable, of the vision from
heaven, of the wait for three days, will then
resolve itself into an allegory concerning the
debate, the doubts, the decision which led to
the transfer of St. Cuthbert to Durham. We
may perhaps reread the account of the momentous
decision as follows. The two principal actors
are certainly Aldhun, the Bishop of Chester-le-
Street, head of the congregation of St. Cuthbert,
and Uchtred, who rather later became Earl of
Northumbria. The latter was now or afterwards
the bishop's son-in-law, and appears to have
acted as vicegerent to his aged father. Earl
Waltheof. When the congregation set out to
Ripon in the spring of 995 various manors,
parcel of the patrimony of St. Cuthbert, were,
during the present necessity, committed to the
care of Uchtred and his father.^" Elvet may
have been one of these, but it is not included in
the imperfect list of Simeon.^* It is, at all
events, no unlikely conjecture that on the return
journey a few months later some agreement was
reached between the bishop and Uchtred.
The precious body of St. Cuthbert was far too
valuable an asset to run the risk of its being
sent on further wanderings at the appearance
of the next band of Svvegn's followers. Close
to Elvet, and well known to all who passed
to and fro along South Street, was the rocky
fortress of Dun holm, as it was probably called
at this time.'^^ No more inviolable sanctuary
could have been chosen than this fastness. A
political reason has been suggested as an
additional motive in the choice at this time.
It has been pointed out that the selection was
due not merely to reverence and interest in the
possession of St. Cuthbert's body, but to the
need of a new capital more to the south of the
Northumbrian dominions at a moment when
those dominions had been cut short by the
comparatively recent cession of Cumbria to the
Scots.^'

The site of the new city had now been chosen,
and no time was lost in erecting the buildings
necessary for the congregation of St. Cuthbert.
First and foremost a small wattled church was
built where the saint's body was placed, a spot
which tradition has identified with St. Mary-le-
Bow in the North Bailey, but at all events the
reputed scene of a cure which carried far and

*" Simeon of Dur. op. cit. i, 83. 21 11,1^^

22 The famous dun cow legend has not, so far, been
traced beyond the i6th century. See Rites of Dur.
(Surr. Soc), 254.

23 See F.C.H. Dur. ii, 133-4.

wide the fame of the new sanctuary, and gave
Durham a notoriety which only grew as years
passed on. But, whatever the exact site of
this small shrine, it was only in use for a few
days, and then the body was transferred to
another church, known as the Alba Ecclesia,
in which it rested for three years. This period
was employed in extensive building operations
under the direction of Aldhun with the help
of Uchtred, to whom was due a levy of the
whole population. Under apparently forced
service^ they cut down all the wood on the
peninsula, and built houses for the various
members of the congregation, to whom they
were assigned by lot. This done, the larger
church was begun and was pressed on with all
the zealous care of the bishop and his helpers.
It was completed before the year 998 ran out,
and on 4 September was dedicated with every
manifestation of joy in the presence of a large
concourse of the widespread levy which had
helped in the building. It was soon after this
that the cure mentioned above took place, and
was regarded as a special sign of divine appro-
bation bestowed upon the saint's new resting-
place. The cure had the effect of constituting
Durham a place of pilgrimage as widely sought
as Chester-le-Street had been. The sanctuary
privileges which had grown up at Lindisfarne
and at Chester-le-Street were undoubtedly
confirmed to Durham, though no express men-
tion of them is made by Simeon, since we shall
find them confirmed, not granted, by 11th-
century kings. In this way the earliest buildings
were erected and the influence of Durham
began.

There is no mention of walls and fortifications
so far ; Simeon speaks of the place as ' naturally
fortified.' With the recrudescence of Danish
fury after the massacre of St. Brice at the end of
1002, it doubtless became necessary to strengthen
these natural defences. The danger indeed to
the infant city was twofold, since Scots as
well as Danes menaced the district. In 1006,
apparently, Durham was invested by the Scots,
but by this time the position was fenced with
ramparts throughout its whole circuit, and was
relieved by the strategic skill of Uchtred, the
bishop's son-in-law. The Scots, however, driven
out of Northumbria at this time, were victorious
in the important fight at Carham in 1018,
when ' the people of St. Cuthbert ' were anni-
hilated. The disaster broke the heart of
Bishop Aldhun, who despaired of any recovery
of the former prosperity of his see. At his
death in 1019 the western tower alone of his
church was unfinished. But Aldhun's sad
prophecy of the permanent desolation of the
place was not fulfilled. The conversion of

-* Simeon of Dur. op. cit. i, 81.

CITY OF DURHAM

Canute to the Christian faith disposed him to
patronize the English sacred places, and amongst
them Durham was the recipient of his favours.
He not only made his famous pilgrimage in
person, but bestowed fresh gifts of land and, as
we may presume, confirmed the sanctuary
privileges of Durham. ^^ After his death the
Scots again besieged Durham under King
Duncan, but without success. This second
successful withstanding of the Scots must have
enhanced the fame of the city, and there is
evidence that the church became rapidly more
wealthy and prosperous, deriving its treasures
not only from the offerings of the pilgrims, but
also, it is probable, from the deposits of those
who stored here the money which it was not
safe to keep at home.^*

Various stories recorded by Simeon show the
attractiveness of Durham and its shrine during
the reign of Edward the Confessor. One of
these by its mention of hospitium^'' suggests
that lodging houses were already in existence
before the Norman Conquest, in which guests
coming to the shrine of St. Cuthbert might
find entertainment. We thus get an allusion
to one of the most characteristic features of
mediaeval life in Durham. There is, however,
no evidence at all as to the pre-Conquest
buildings and streets save as regards the church
itself. When the Conquest came, Durham was
the northern rallying point of those Northum-
brians who hoped to set up Edgar Atheling
against the Conqueror. The submission of
Ethelwin the bishop to William at York was
probably feigned. When in 1068 the northern
rebellion broke out, William advanced towards
the north. At his approach all this brave
confederation collapsed and a discontented
remnant fled to Durham, where they hastily
erected a strong tower to aid them in their
defence of the place. The incident of the tower
is mentioned in one Norman chronicler only,^^
but the reference can scarcely have been an
invention. If we accept its historical character
we have here, in all probability, the foundation
of Durham Castle, but the work can scarcely
have been carried far, since in the very next
year events happened which broke it all off.
The episode of Earl Cumin and his retinue,
against whom the men of Durham rose in their
might until all the streets ran with blood, was
ruthlessly punished by the Conqueror at the end
of 1069.^^ Incidentally the story of Cumin
shows that Durham was now a city of some size,
with its houses and streets, in which the bishop's

2^ Simeon of Durham, op. cit. i, 90.
« Cf. ibid. 91-2. " Ibid. 95.

^^ William of Jumieges, as quoted by Freeman,
Norman Conquest, iv, 194.

^' Simeon of Dur. op. cit. i, 99, 245 ; cf. ibid, ii, 1S7.

residence stood near the church and close to
its western tower. This tower, completed
after Aldhun's death in 1019, was in grave
danger of burning when the populace in their
rage set on fire the house in which the earl had
passed the night.

The Normans found Durham practically
empty, for the bishop and his retinue had fled
with the saint's body to Lindisfarne. The
church without defenders and ministers was
used as a hospital for the sick and dying who
crawled thither, perhaps in the hope of sanctuary,
whilst the Norman army spread ruin and famine
in every direction. Spring brought new hope
as the avenging force retired, and Durham,
which does not appear to have been itself
ravaged by the Normans, was re-entered by the
bishop and his people, who found their church
polluted by its recent usage and its treasures
piUaged. The strong walls of Durham saved
it when Malcolm's forces invaded Northumbria
in 1070, burning churches and carrying slaughter
in every direction. Events now followed which
made the city something more than sanctuary
and fortress by constituting it the centre of
government. Something of the kind was
probably intended when William outlawed
Ethelwin the bishop and made the Lotharingian
Walcher from Liege bishop in his stead.
Walcher was already familiar with a franchise,"*
which in some sort corresponded to the franchise
of St. Cuthbert, which had grown up even
before the Conquest. But, however this may
be, the coming of Walcher led to an important
development in the city of Durham, for it was
through his friendship with Waltheof, the new
Earl of Northumbria, that the castle came to be
built. As an Earl of Northumbria had been
the guiding force in building the city, so another
earl was the builder of the castle. It seems
quite clear that the earldom had still extensive
powers in the neighbourhood and a particular
control of the city, though it is not possible to
define these powers. ^"^ The building of the
castle was probably carried out^- by a levy
summoned hy the earl, but, as we have seen,
there is reason to believe that some part of the
fortress already e.xisted. It was now begun
in 1072, and in the same year the Conqueror
visited Durham, probably for the first time, and
confirmed the sanctuary and other privileges
which Canute had endorsed years before. When
in 1075 Waltheof died, Walcher succeeded him
as earl, and thus brought to Durham that

'" For the early history of Liege, see Histoire de
Feveche et de la principauti de Liege, by J. Daris (Liege,
1868-90).

^1 This power was not, perhaps, surrendered until
the 1 2th century. Cf. V.C.H. Dur. ii, 137-8.

'- Simeon of Dur. op. cit. ii, 199.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

political sovereignty which had hitherto been
established at Bamburgh. Then Durham, for
the time, was not only sanctuary and fortress,
which it had been for eighty years, but the seat
of government in Northumbria as well, a position
which became permanently attached to it in
the 1 2th century. About the same time
Walcher began to convert the ecclesiastical
establishment into a Benedictine monastery,
and it is possible that the buildings between the
present chapter-house and deanery contain some
remains of his work. His rule was unfortunately
cut short by an ebullition of the Northumbrian
animosity against the Norman regime. The
murder of the bishop might have been avoided,
as Simeon seems to suggest, if he had been
willing to remain within his castle. How
strong eight years had made that fortress was
proved when the murderers rushed from Gates-
head, where they killed him, to Durham, and
there made a determined assault upon the
castle.^' Their efforts, maintained for four
days, were quite unsuccessful. But the castle
had to open its gates a little later to Odo of
Bayeux, who placed a military garrison there,
and apparently conducted his terrible expedition
of vengeance for the death of Walcher from
Durham as his base of operations.** Little
remains to-day of the castle as Waltheof built
it, with the exception of the interesting Norman
chapel, which is unhesitatingly ascribed by
Rivoira to the time of the reputed foundation
of the building, 1072. The chapel is the oldest
building in Durham.

We now approach a century which made the
city what it was both architecturally and
politically until the Reformation, and although
that political prestige has long since disappeared
the architectural interest of the 12th century
largely remains to-day. St. Calais, the Norman
bishop who followed Walcher, was rash enough
in the days of Rufus to meddle with another
anti-Norman plot hatched in Durham, which had
so consistently fostered the English spirit of
resistance. For complicity in this affair St. Calais
was banished for three years to Normandy. The
castle had only surrendered its bishop after a
siege and during the prelate's exile was seized
and held by the king in his most approved
fashion. When the bishop came back he made
that pact with the Earl of Northumberland which
is reasonably supposed to confer upon the
mediaeval Bishop of Durham the outstanding
rights hitherto retained in the hands of the
earl, who held certain ill-defined powers over
the patrimony of St. Cuthbert.^' gy ^1,^3
transfer of rights we see, no doubt, how the way

*' Simeon of Dur. op. cit. i, 118.

3« Ibid.

35 V.C.H. Dur. ii, 137.

was paved for the erection of the great Norman
cathedral whose design St. Calais had very likely
formed during his absence on the Continent.
What Walcher had planned St. Calais carried
out, for he finished the transformation of the
ecclesiastical establishment into a Benedictine
monastery (1087). St. Calais began his great
church in 1093, carrying it eastward, and com-
pleting the walls of the quire, and westward to
the first bay of the nave. An important change
which affected the city as well as the Cuthbertine
lands outside was the division of property
between bishop and monastery instituted by
St. Calais, and completed by his successor.^" It
was probably by this arrangement that the
divided ownership of Durham and its suburbs
was defined. The land was now divided between
bishop and monastery. Up to this time the
bishop, as head of the congregation of St.
Cuthbert, had full rights over the church and
its immediate surroundings,^' whereas the earl
had at all events some ownership outside those
precincts. It was the earl, for instance, who
built the castle. 3* When St. Calais put the
monastery in place of the congregation by
authority of the bulls of Hildebrand, he became
supreme landlord of all the Cuthbertine terri-
tory, and by his agreement with the earl he was
constituted owner of all the earl's rights, and
Rufus endorsed the arrangement. ^^ St. Calais
was thus in a position to divide as he pleased.
In this way he made over the ancient settlement
of Elvet and Crossgate, with its church, to the
monastery.^ This, by the way, is a further
confirmation of the view taken above that
Elvet was the original settlement with a church
of undoubted antiquity. The bishop kept in
his own hand the castle and precincts and, for
the present, a much more immediate authority
and control over the monastery buildings than
was the case at a later date.''^ We have as yet
no proof of the existence of Framwellgate and of
what is now the parish of St. Nicholas, but it is
probable that there were such suburbs at this
date.

To Bishop Flambard (i 099-1 128) the city of
Durham owes more than to any other single
prelate, but it is unfortunate that the dearth of
documents at this critical period prevents us
from tracing the details of his work. He was

•"^ Simeon of Dur. op. cit. i, 123.

3' Simeon represents the bishop as building the
church and Uchtred as helping. Bishop and earl
had often been at strife over their rights (op. cit. i,
125).

3' This is clearly what Simeon represents.

33 F.C.H. Dur. ii, 137.

*" Ibid, ii, and reference there given.

■" St. Calais builds as he wills, and so do Flambard
and Pudsey. There is as yet no dispute between
bishop and convent (ibid. 14).

CITY OF DURHAM

the keen champion of the palatinate power
against all outside aggression,'*^ but he built it
up by exaction and invasion of the Cuthbcrtine
liberties, though before his death he bitterly
repented his conduct.''^ To him is due the con-
tinuation of the majestic nave of the cathedral.
St. Calais had built the church and the monks the
monastic buildings, but after the bishop's death
in 1096 the monks went on with the church and
abandoned the completion of the monastery.
Flambard reverted to the former arrangement,
and in addition enlarged the narrow chapter-
house. He built the city wall, rendering
the place stronger and more imposing. In
addition to this he ran a wall from the
cathedral apse to the castle keep, and cleared
Palace Green or Place Green (as it was later
called) of the many dwellings which then stood
upon it. His design in this clearance was to get
rid of any danger to the church either from pol-
lution or from fire. This mention of habitacula
multa proves that the century elapsed since
the foundation of Durham had witnessed the
spread of buildings within the peninsula, and
we shall soon get proof that suburbs had sprung
up outside. Room must have been found for the
dispossessed tenants of the Palace Green, and it
is no improbable conjecture that they were
placed by the bishop on that part of the bishop's
lands which now goes by the name Framwellgate.
We have no direct documentary testimony as to
the origin of this suburb, but the fact just named
and the building of Framwellgate Bridge, which
was undoubtedly Flambard's work, might be
considered to make probable the hypothesis
that Flambard planted the evicted persons on
his own land, and consoled them by making their
new habitations immediately adjacent to the
road by which pilgrims came and went when
they visited Durham. The new bridge gave
ready access to the city, and connected Fram-
wellgate and Crossgate with the district of St.
Nicholas, which was already, no doubt, occupied
by houses, and had its own parish church, either
at this time or in the episcopate of Pudscy. The
fact that Framwellgate had no church of its own,
taken in connexion with its constant documen-
tary connexion with the Borough (which after-
wards came to be the name of St. Nicholas'
parish), will suggest the priority of the latter in
point of time. The dedication to St. Nicholas is
worth noting, as there is some reason to believe
that this patron saint of sailors was also adopted
by traders who plied their craft under his pro-
tection.

The chronology of Flambard's episcopate is
obscure, but it is not at all improbable that his
works were in part carried out in connexion with

*^ Simeon of Dur.
" Ibid. 141.

op. cjt. 1, 139.

the most picturesque scene of the time, the
translation of the body of St. Cuthbert to the
shrine in the completed church. The date is
4 September 1104. Now, if not before, began
the history of a great north country event when
the Fair of St. Cuthbert was instituted, and,
as we see from many 12th-century references,
became at once a celebration of impressive
character and proportions. The nave of the
cathedral was not quite finished when Flambard
died, but was completed by the monks in the
interval of five years before his successor arrived.
Just before his death the bishop, in token of
repentance for much harsh treatment of his
Durham neighbours, made over to them a
considerable sum of money which the king
afterwards demanded again."" The foundation
by Flambard of the Hospital of St. Giles, com-
monly known as Kepier Hospital, can be accu-
rately dated to the year 11 12. At the same time
Flambard also built the church of St. Giles,
which stood on the summit of a hill north-east
of the city, gathering round it, as time went on,
a settlement which went by the name of Giles-
gate or, in local phrase, GiUygate. Such was the
beginning of a new and important suburb, des-
tined to be closely connected with the hospital.
Finchale, which was, perhaps, an old Celtic
monastic site, was made over by Flambard to the
monks of St. Cuthbert in iiiS.''^

A period of vicissitude soon followed the death
of Flambard, entailing great suffering on Dur-
ham and its environs. Miseries which are quoted
by a modern historian as characteristic of the
anarchy of Stephen's reign had perhaps their
chief exemplification in the misfortunes of the
city."*^ As at the Norman Conquest Durham
had been distracted between two parties, so now
it was menaced by a double allegiance. The
majority took the side of Stephen, but the
activity of David of Scotland, espousing the
cause of the Empress Maud his niece, brought
the whole district into imminent danger.
Stephen's entry into Durham in February 1 1 36
obliged David to withdraw the troops with
which he meditated the reduction of the city and
the annexation of the patrimony of St. Cuthbert.
Terms were arranged at the castle during Ste-
phen's stay. The ebb and flow of the invasions
that ensued did not affect Durham again until
1 1 38, and then only in passing, as the Scots

^^ This may refer in p.irt to his dispossession of the
traders (as they probably were) on the Palace Green
(cf. Simeon of Dur. op. cit. i, 141).

*5 It is .in old theory that the Synod of Pincahala
in 787 was held at Finchale (Haddan and Stubbs,
Councils, iii, 444). At all events in the 12th century
foundations of ancient buildings were to be discerned
under the turf (Reginald, De Vita St. Godric [Suttees
Soc], 69).

^■^ Green, Short History, 98-9.

I I

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

advanced to the battle of the Standard, or fled
from it through Durham in confusion. A truce
was ratified in Durham in the same year, and in
1 139 peace was signed in the castle. By this
Treaty of Durham the bishopric became for a
time an oasis in a Scottish Northumbria, for
whilst the Scottish boundary was now to be the
Tees, the rights of the territory of St. Cuthbert
were respected.'" Then came the clever and
unscrupulous attempt of David's Chancellor to
annex Durham and the Cuthbertine territory
under cover of law.'** Cumin the usurper had
laid his plans before the bishop's death, and all
was ready when the prelate drew his last breath
in the castle. The fortress was betrayed by the
dead man's nephew, and most of the bishopric
barons declared for Cumin.''* The usurper
commenced his turbulent three years' reign in the
castle. At first he was affable enough and tried
to cajole the monks into acquiescence.*" When
at the end of two years a band of them managed
to get to York and there to elect a lawful bishop
the rage of Cumin knew no bounds. He now
showed himself in his true colours as a savage
and rapacious tyrant. Within the city the monks
who would not swear allegiance were ejected,
and the citizens were put to the most cruel
torture. Outside, his mercenary troops pillaged
in every direction, sallying forth from the castle
and returning to it laden with their booty,
making it a den of thieves. The misery of the
city was intense and its general aspect, says the
chronicler,*^ was as if all the tyrants that had
injured it at different times had united to do
their worst. Every house in the place was visited
and the most cruel tortures were invented for
those still loyal to the true bishop. Meanwhile
the lawful prelate, William of Ste. Barbe, had to
fight for his see. He was eagerly joined by a
growing band of supporters and took up his posi-
tion on the hill-top a mile from castle and cathe-
dral, where a suburb had already sprung up
round the Church and Hospital of St. Giles. Here
fortifications were erected, and the two armies
watched each other from neighbouring heights.
Il was now that the desolation of the cathedral
took place, which has been described for us by
one of the monks who was evidently an eye-
witness. It was the result of a regular siege of
the building where the faithful monks were col-
lected together in prayer. Suddenly the soldiers
of Cumin burst open the doors, set ladders to the

" F.C.H.DuT.ii, 139.

*' The main authority for the usurpation is the
continuation of Simeon, which is probably the work of
Laurence, who became Prior of Durham. See Simeon
of Dur. op. cit. i, 143-60. The poem of Laurence
mentioned in the next paragraph was written close to
the events of the Cumin episode.

*' Simeon of Dur. op cit. i, 164.

»« Ibid. 162. 61 Ibid. 164.

windows, swarmed in at every point and easily
overpowered the very thought of resistance from
the unarmed men. The voice of prayer and
praise was silenced and so continued until a year
and seven weeks had passed. Then a truce
brought respite for seven months in all, but no
cessation of hostilities. At last in 1144 Earl
Henry of Northumberland advanced to ter-
minate the situation and to place the true bishop
in his see and castle. As he drew near Cumin
wreaked his last act of vengeance, burning the
suburb of St. Giles which had so recently been
the camp of his opponent's forces, and likewise
setting fire to the district of Elvet, which, as we
have seen, was a peculiar possession of the
monks.*^

We are fortunate in possessing a curious Latin
poem written by Laurence, later Prior of Dur-
ham (1149). As chaplain of Bishop Geoffrey
Rufus (1133) he lived in the castle, and on the
death of his master became precentor of the
cathedral, and actually witnessed some of the
events of Cumin's usurpation. With much feel-
ing he tells the story of those days of blasphemy
and rebuke. Incidentally he works into his
narrative some description of the city in general,
and of the castle in particular. Unfortunately
the exigencies of metre make it difficult, some-
times, to follow the description given, but the
main features are clear enough. He mentions
in turgid verse the lofty situation, the horse-
shoe bend of the river, the precipitous banks, the
impregnable character of the position.*^ To
this last feature he recurs.** Palace Green
with its opportunities of fun and laughter is
there, and the town wall surrounding the penin-
sula, and pierced by at least three gates. Special
attention is paid by the poet to the castle he knew
so well and a rather detailed inventory is given of
its parts.**

Pudsey's long episcopate (1153-95) carried on
the work of Flambard, which had been inter-
rupted by the anarchy of Stephen's reign. At
the outset the new bishop had to face the great
ruin of the city, which the reign of William de
Ste. Barbe had scarcely begun to repair. More-
over at the commencement of Pudsey's con-
nexion with Durham a terrible fire seems to
have burnt down the northern wing of the castle.*'
It is apparently described in two more or less
contemporary documents *' from which we
gather that it broke out in Silver Street and
being fanned by a north wind quickly overleaped

*- Simeon of Dur. op. cit. i, 159.

*' Laurence, Dialogi (Surt. Soc), 8.

*'' Ibid. 27. *'' See below, p. 65."'

*' Mentioned in Hist. Dunelm. Scriptores Tres (Surt.
Soc), 12.

*' In the Life of St. Godric (Surt. Soc), 182, and in
Reginald of Durham, Libellus de admirandis Beati
Cuthberti tiirtutibus (Surt. Soc), cap. xxxix.

Durham : Elvet Bridge c. 1829
(By W. Westall)

Durham Castle from the North-west
(EaHy l8th century)

CITY OF DURHAM

the battlements of the castle. Proof of this
disaster is found in the stone-work of the very
part in question which shows some traces of
the action of fire.^* The chronology of Pudsey's
building operations is as uncertain as that of
Flambard's work, but the view here taken is that
the rebuilding must be referred to the latter
half of the episcopate. During the former half
his time was much taken up by disputes with the
king, and Henry's policy of centralizing the
governing power was not likely to permit the
bishop to develop his capital too rapidly. It was
probably after the difficulties of 1173 and 1174
that Pudsey set to work with the help of his
architect Richard and carried out the series of
building operations connected with his name. He
practically rebuilt the castle. He renewed the
wall between the north and south gates which is
thought to be represented by the foundations
which still stretch along the river bank from the
Bailey to the Prebend's Bridge.^' His eager-
ness in building pressed him on, and he spared
no expense to carry out his designs and to win
general applause. As an instance of his lavish-
ness he restored the borough of Elvet which
Cumin had destroyed, and threw a splendid
bridge across the river to unite the old suburb
with the peninsula. When the work was com-
plete he gave back to the monks what had been
so long their own possession, resigning all right
and authority over it.*" No doubt at this time
the church of St. Margaret was erected as a
chapelry of Elvet (St. Oswald's) Church, though
the invocation as it now exists may probably
have been much later. The architectural evidence
of the building points pretty decisively to this
period, and had we more data we should prob-
ably find that the district in which the church
stands had been likewise ruined by Cumin. It
is equally certain, too, that the Church of St. Giles
was rebuilt by Pudsey at this time, and it is
probable that his work here was a part of his
refoundation of Kepier Hospital as described
above.*' The achievement in Durham most
widely associated with his name, however, is the
Galilee of the cathedral, which was completed
by the year 11 89, when his nephew the Count of
Bar was buried there.*^ Pudsey's position as

^' An examination of the lower courses of the stones
in the buttresses on the North Terrace revealed this
to the writer and Mr. W. T. Jones.

^* The summary is given in Hist. Dun. Scriptores
Tres (Surt. Soc), 11-12.

*" To him is also due the sumptuous mediaeval
shrine of silver and gold in which the bones of Bede
were placed. The chronicler makes much of its impres-
siveness (Ibid.). *i V.C.H. Dur. ii, iii.

"^ A reference in Reginald of Durham enables us
to date the Galilee with great exactitude to the year
1 177 {De Fita S. Godrici (Surt. Soc), 384, and for the
date ibid. 385 n.).

Earl of Northumberland and also Earl of Sad-
berge *^ gave him no doubt some excuse for
the sumptuous and magnificent enrichment of
Durham, which was now the centre of a highly
developed franchise.

But the most important event of Pudsey's
episcopate, so far as Durham is concerned, is
his charter to the burgesses.

Durham is again fortunate in possessing two
books which were written in Pudsey's time and
illustrate in an interesting way the buildings
and life of that period. The writer is Reginald,
a monk of Durham, or, according to one account,
of Coldingham. He lived within the abbey and
held high position there, dying, as it might
appear, before the end of Pudsey's episcopate. His
earlier book** is a collection of sermons and ad-
dresses dealing with the miracles of St. Cuthbert,
and it is a probable conjecture that he him-
self was one of those whom Pudsey sent with
relics of the saint to perambulate various dis-
tricts of England and Scotland in order to spread
abroad the praises of St. Cuthbert*^ and to
attract pilgrims to his shrine. Somewhat later
than this, and with an appendix of probably
still later date, is Reginald's Life of St. Godric,^
the celebrated recluse of Finchale. It is easy to
pick from the two volumes a large number of
references which throw much light upon what
Durham was then like. It was usually approached
from the north, apparently by a via regia *' which
is almost certainly the old road leading from
Elvet and the south towards Newcastle. At the
distance of one mile from the city stood a cross
which was probably one of an inner circle of
crosses marking the limit of the leuga or sanc-
tuary circle.** Reginald has several allusions to
Pudsey's buildings, and twice over to the ex-
tension of the cathedral by the Galilee.

Without the city itself Reginald mentions
Kepier*' which was not only a hospital but a
shelter for pilgrims ; the Church of St. Giles"
where Godric had been a frequent worshipper ;
the city walls,'' which had to be passed in what-
ever direction the traveller came or went. Within
their circuit the details are minute. There was
the Church of St. Nicholas,'- in the midst of the
city ; the Church of St. Mary ,'3 with its school
where Godric strove to compensate for early
defects of education; the lodging houses'*
where the pilgrims stayed; the shops'* in the

63 Roger of Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 19.
** Libellus de admirandis B. Cuthberti virtutibus
(Surt. Soc). ^ Ibid, no, cf. 77, 109.

66 De Vita S. Godrici (Surt. Soc). *' Ibid. 334.

68 Ibid. 334 ; Reginald, Libellus B. Cuthberti, 282.

69 De Vita S. Godrici (Surt. Soc), 402.
'0 Ibid. 59. " Ibid. 334.

'2 Ibid. 388. '3 Ibid. 59.

'* Libellus B. Cuthberti, 271.

'5 Ibid. 266 ; De Vita S. Godrici, 345.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

market or with open fronts along the streets.
Reginald speaks of the muddy approach'* to the
cathedral over Palace Green, and more than
once of Palace Green" itself, of the Cross'* that
stood in the churchyard, of burials that took
place here." The great bells were visible from
without, and the youth of Durham gladly took
their turn in ringing them.'" The ' usual '
entrance was the north door,*' and hard by were
the attendants,*- ready to open it or to repel if
need be. On the door were handles of brass. On
entering the minster the pilgrims passed by the
mighty cyhnders of the new pillars.*' At the
crossing he saw the statues of kings and saints.
Hard by were the inner gates,*' usually guarded,
and through these the pilgrims reached the
shrine. A new marble pavement had recently
been laid by Prior Roger *^ (1137-49), probably
after the desecration caused by Cumin's soldiers.
The shrine had its special adornment and its
own custodian.** Here the pilgrim might offer
his candle*' and any gift that he had brought.
If it was a great festival the church was deco-
rated with care as at Easter ** or Whitsuntide.*'
The two great festivals of St. Cuthbert on
20 March *» and 4 September *' brought crowds to
Durham, when attractions within the cathedral
were many ; and without, sports and games were
held.*2 Peculiarly interesting were the relics
exhibited at such times to the pubHc view.*'
The banner of St. Cuthbert** was a conspicuous
object near the shrine. At night the monks had
the church to themselves and sang the midnight
office '5 in their stalls** after the attendants had
prepared the cressets to light them." There
is mention of the altar of St. Oswald,** of the
pulpit** upon which the lectionary lay, of the small
bell in the quire,'"" of the bishop's throne,'
of the Crucifix - opposite it within the quire, of
the signals given by the bells* when service
began, or the various hours of day and night had
to be indicated.

Then there was the monastery with its build-
ings and its monks. Reginald, however, has
little to say except in this incidental way about the

'* Libellus B. Cuthberti, 373.

" De Vita S. Godrici, 189, 191.

'* Libellus B. Cuthberti, 164.

''^ De Vita S. Godrici, SI.

*" Libellus B. Cuthberti, 266.

*i Ibid. 119. *2 Ibid. 292.

*' Ibid. 266, cf. ibid. 190.

** Ibid. 166, cf. ibid. 82.

85 Ibid. 154. 8fi Ibid. 161, 268.

*' Ibid. 179. 88 Ibid. 163. ** Ibid. 202.

*" Ibid. 40 ; De Vita S. Godrici, 893.

»i Libellus B. Cuthberti, 54, 98. «2 Ibid. 284.

»* Ibid. 165. 9* Ibid. 83.

*^ Ibid. 71. ** Ibid. 81, 174.

*' Ibid. 167. 98 Ibid.

«* Ibid. 173. '""Ibid. 189.

' Ibid. 166. 2 Ibid. 81. 3 Ibid. 189.

surroundings of his own life. He knows the
castle from the outside and refers to its massive
gates,* the porter who guarded them,* the
battlements* with their sentinels' on watch, the
concourse of servants,* the bishop's prison. *
From a later reference there is some reason for
supposing that this prison was on the west side
of Palace Green until the days of Bishop Lang-
ley.'"

Elsewhere there is allusion to Allergate," to
the suburbs of Durham, '^ to South Street with its
white houses as seen from the neighbourhood of
the cathedral.'* In between ran the river with
its dam and mills and water-wheels.'* Saturday
then, as now, was the market-day.'* There was a
town-crier.'* The mint-master was a man of
position."

One more document of Pudsey's episcopate
remains to be mentioned. Boldon Book, a very
important recital of all the bishop's vills, was
drawn up in the year 11 83.'* Unfortunately,
the light it throws upon Durham itself is neither
clear nor full. It tells us that Durham was at
farm, and had mills producing large revenue.
It calls Durham alone of all the vills named
a civitas. Beyond this there is no information,
and we are not even told what the dues farmed
out may have been in amount, nor what the
farmers' names were.

The uncertain references to the city itself,
however, are only disappointing in so far as
they give no details of the administration of
Durham. The works of Reginald supply a vivid
enough picture of the place. It is not, therefore,
very difficult to form some conception of
Pudsey's Durham in the light of what has now
been said. The shrine brought the pilgrims,
and the pilgrims brought business. The secular
side of Durham as the centre of government was
perhaps secondary, though extremely important.
The whole meaning of the two books of Reginald
the monk lies in the fact that Pudsey greatly
increased the attractions of Durham as a place
of pilgrimage. Reginald incidentally shows
by more than one amusing touch how anxious
the new-born fame of St. Thomas of Canterbury
rendered the Durham monks. Fear of this
important rival no doubt prompted some of the
revelations which are recorded, in order to
confirm the wavering prestige of St. Cuthbert's
shrine, and their satisfactory' conclusion has a
spice of humour in it. Some of Pudsey's work
was planned, no doubt, for the express purpose

* Libellus B. Cuthberti, 211. * Ibid. 233.
6 Ibid. 282. 'Ibid. 211. * Ibid. 212.

* Ibid. 314. '" See below, p. 23.
"/)<• Vita S. Godrici, 403.

'2 Libellus B. Cuthberti, 172. " Ibid. 252. '* Ibid.
'5 De Vita S. Godrici, 388.

»* Libellus B. Cuthberti, 206. " Ibid. 210.

'*r.C.W.Z)«r. 1,259.

CITY OF DURHAM

of increasing the attractions of the place in
the eyes of pilgrims. They and other visitors,
as they came, would require the services of
a host of tradesmen, purveyors, and hucksters.
It is no surprise, also, to find not merely
constant reference in Reginald to the crowds
of visitors, but various allusions elsewhere
to the existence of the Durham mint. It was
a necessity, in order to provide a local medium of
exchange, and its resuscitation by special grant,
just after Pudsey's death, goes to prove that
the necessity was felt and allowed by the king.
At the moment when Boldon Book was written,
the mint was temporarily in abeyance. The
local imports, connected not merely with the
city, but with the bishopric, were numerous,
consisting of wine, mill-stones, salt and herrings.
It was sometimes an incidence of service that
such commodities should be carted to Durham. ''
On the other hand, there was an e.xport trade
of some volume ; as, for instance, mill-stones
from Durham to Ireland, and also salmon and
iron, with other merchandise.^" No doubt
the Cuthbertine Fairs in March and September
were the chief opportunities of trade, and
Reginald's incidental mentions of these great
occasions suggest their very great social and
economic importance. They not merely afforded
trade and market meetings on a great scale,
but brought no little gain to the bishop or the
farmers appointed by him, as we gather from
the returns for ' booth-silver ' or stallage,
a similar rent being paid still to the corporation
of Durham for travelling shows, etc., allowed
to take up their stand in the market-place.

In the 13th century two great strifes occu-
pied the attention of Durham people — the one
between bishop and monastery, and the
other between bishop and barons of the
bishopric. Both have been described elsewhere,^*
and do not concern us here, save as very sig-
nificant factors in the condition of the inhabit-
ants, who were washed to and fro in the rough
tide-way as the storm flowed or ebbed. The
monastery dispute opens with the savage attack
of the foreign Bishop Philip upon the cathedral,
which has been described for us by the
chronicler Geoffrey of Coldingham.22 It was
almost the Cumin episode over again. A
deadly controversy had arisen between the
bishop and the monastery. Apparently the
bishop, a foreigner, was induced to believe that
the monks had invaded the episcopal liberties,
and in particular had usurped the patronage
of the Church in Elvet. Stung by this supposed
invasion of his own rights, he started up to

•9 V.C.H. Dur. i, 305.

20 Ibid. 306.

"F.C.//.Z)ur.ii, 16-18.

*2 Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 17-27.

defend his injured pride. If we may trust
Geoffrey, whose interest, of course, lay very
emphatically with the monks, Philip regularly
besieged Elvet Church, placing armed sentinels
all round it, applying fire and smoke to doors
and windows, ordering that no food should be
given to the beleaguered monks. The general
sympathy, we are told, was aU on the side of the
religious, who for conscience' sake endured
every species of indignity heaped upon them,
until the bishop, for very shame, surrendered
the church and made no further claim upon the
advowson of St. Oswald's. An interval of peace
elapsed, and then further disputes broke out,
which gave Philip opportunity for exhibiting
all the ferocious savagery of character with which
the chronicler credits him. The prelate thought
nothing of imprisoning the citizens of Durham
and of the bishopric generally, haling them
off to prison and spoihng their goods. Some
resorted to the most contemptible adulation
towards the prelate, hoping to make him their
friend and to secure peace. Others meditated a
general rising against his tyranny. The Prior
Bertram actually journeyed to the royal court
to seek his favour at a time when John's hands
were full with other things. The king amused
his visitor with kind words and promises ; but
Bertram returned to find that the bishop was
already punishing the monks, and through them
the citizens, for the prior's action. The postern
gate, by which access was gained to the Abbey
Mill below the cathedral, was built up to prevent
any passing to and fro, and so to starve the
monks. They had made a new fish-pond,
and this was destroyed. The ovens in the monks'
borough of Elvet were rendered useless. The
fish tank at Finchale was broken up. The water
supply, which was brought apparently in pipes
from beyond the river, and perhaps crossed the
Wear at the mill-dam, conveyed the water to
Palace Green. The bishop diverted this, and
brought the water into the castle, so as to cut
it off from the monastery. All this mad fury
eventually culminated at the autumn fair of
St. Cuthbert, when the city was thronged with
visitors, and Philip prohibited the prior from
celebrating the High Mass usual at that time
and made a general proclamation forbidding
all alike, clergy and laity, from being present
in the cathedral. Bertram celebrated notwith-
standing, when an unseemly scuffle ensued,
which was only ended by the common sense
of the Archdeacon of Richmond, who was pre-
sent, and appealed to the excited throng to
await the return of the prior's messengers,
who had been sent to Rome to appeal to Pope
Innocent III.^^

» Roger of Wendover, Flores Hist. (Rolls Ser. 84),
ii, 68.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

The black shadow of the papal interdict fell
upon Durham, and much impressed Geoffrey
the chronicler. No service, no bells, no proces-
sions were allowed, and in the monastery,
though not in the parish churches, one weekly
Mass alone was celebrated, and that with closed
doors. But these dark days which followed
the death of Philip in 1208 brought a new and
unheard of oppression upon the men of Durham,
and the patrimony of St. Cuthbert generally.
Hitherto all taxation had been internal, and had
been imposed by bishop or prior as the case
might be ; but John now began to impose
burdens which no appeal to ancient right or
liberty could evade. ^^ In Durham, during the long
vacancy after Philip (i 208-1 7), the one ray of hope
was the election of William as prior in 1209.2*
He was not merely a Durham monk, but a
Durham man, and his brief office (1209-15)
brought some respite at all events to the monas-
tery and to the monastery tenants. His tenure
of office witnessed a royal confirmation of the
Cuthbertine liberties,^* for which the monks
paid 500 marks, and shortly after his death,
when the new bishop, Richard Marsh, was
appointed, Henry III permitted restoration of
lands and houses to all whose property had been
confiscated in John's recent march through the
bishopric to subdue the northern barons."
But the new bishop falsified the hopes that had
been formed, and all the old strife between
bishop and monks broke out again.'* At last,
in 1229, it was ended by the famous compromise
drawn up by Bishop Poor and known as the
Convenit, which was supposed to be a settle-
ment of all outstanding questions between
bishop and monks.^* The sphere of the bishop's
court and the sphere of the prior's had to be
defined,^" but in the result the monks considered
that their own liberties had been somewhat
overridden by the settlement. One or two
matters in this document specially concerned
the monastery tenants in Elvet who had suffered
much in Bishop Philip's time. It was enacted
that ' the customs and amendments respecting
brewing and bad bread and bad wxights or
measure in regard to the prior's men at Elvet
and the Old Borough shall continue for the
Durham monks freely and fully for ever ; but

"* Hist. Dunelm. Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), 27.
" Ibid.

26 Boldon Bk. (Surt. Soc), 98, p. xxiii.
" Cal. Pat. 1216-25, P- 77-

28 Hist. Dunelm. Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), 36.

29 Teoi. Prior. Dunelm. (Surt. Soc), 212.

'" The prior's court had been confirmed to the prior
by King John in a full and ample manner (ibid. 96).
Probably the prior quoted his charter for more than
its real value, so that in the disputed area of juris-
diction (referred to by Dr. Greenwell, ibid. p. xxiv)
the prior drew into his court more than his due.

if the men of these same are found in the bishop's
borough with bad bread, or used bad weight
or measure, justice shall be done therein
by the bishop's bailiffs, and if there issue thence
fine, fee, or other profit, it shall be halved between
the bishop and the prior. Moreover, the men
aforesaid of Elvet and the Old Borough shall
use the same measures and weights which the
bishop's men shall use in his Borough of
Durham.'

The years which followed the Convenit seem
to have been a period of growth and vigorous
development in the city of Durham, so far as
our scanty information goes. Melsamby became
prior in 1 233, and in 1237 would have been
appointed bishop had not Henry III stepped
in and prohibited his consecration, on the
ground that he could not be sure of his loyalty.'*

An extraordinary story preserved about
Melsamby in the king's objections runs as
follows : ' He ought to be rejected as a mur-
derer. When a certain performer was going
up a rope stretched from tower to tower in the
churchyard, with the prior's express permission,
he fell and was killed. The said prior ought
never to have been present at such unseemly
proceedings nor to have given his consent ;
indeed, he ought to have expressly prohibited
their taking place.' '2 Near the north door
of the cathedral is a much-visited tomb. A
sculptured figure is represented upon it as
holding a glove or purse. Local tradition, well
known to all pitmen and others who visit
the cathedral, is very definite in maintaining
that the grave contains the body of a tight-rope
walker who fell from the tower.

Prior Bertram greatly increased the opulence
of the monastery, and left to his successor,
Hugh Darlington (1258-72), a well-replenished
exchequer. Probably the monastery had never
been so prosperous before ; but Bertram left
behind him a reputation for more than material
prosperity. He was a copyist of liturgical works,
and a commentator of some local fame, writing
postils on various books of Old and New Testa-
ment. His successor, Hugh, had the advantage
of being trained by him, and used the wealth
of the house in a way which was much approved.
In the Barons' War he bought off unwelcome
intruders upon the peace and prosperity of
Durham, and was able to bring to completion
the great bell-tower of the cathedral.''

There must have been agreat deal of hospitality
at the monastery ; but beyond an occasional
reference to visitors of importance, no special
account of this department exists. Accordingly,

'1 Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 38-9 ;
App. no. liv.

'2 Ibid. App. p. Ixxiii.

" Greenwell, Dur. Cath. 95, 6.

CITY OF DURHAM

a somewhat obscure allusion to the conditions
of life in the abbey is interesting. It occurs
in 1272 in connexion with a proposed surrender
of Bearpark or Beaurepaire, on the western side
of the city, a refugium of the prior lying in the
wide open valley and enlivened by the breezes
that sweep in from the western uplands. The
monks made emphatic protest against the pro-
posal, alleging that the convent cannot agree
to give up ' Beaurepaire ubi conventus quorum
labor est gravis et aer corruptus habet pro
majori parte suam recreationem.' *' This may
be interpreted to mean that it is their one special
place of relaxation, since the work at Durham
is heavy and the air bad. But in what sense bad ?
The actual Durham air is healthy, but somewhat
sleepy in summer ; but this is, perhaps, not
likely to be the chronicler's meaning. It has been
suggested that the words refer to what was, in
days of imperfect sanitation, a very real draw-
back in the life of the monastery and city.
Durham Abbey did not receive the purging
help that the river so generally gives in other
places. Here the latrines gave upon the pre-
cipitous bank some 105 feet above the Wear,
and the house depended in a general way on the
length of the drop. With the river low, as it often
is in summer, and with a prevailing westerly
breeze, the defects of mediaeval drainage must
have been constantly and painfully apparent.
Under such circumstances, the monks were in
consternation at the prospect of losing their chief
holiday resort.

The long-standing dispute as to the Arch-
bishop of York's right to visit the chapter and
the see, introduced some strange episodes in
which the city took its part. In 1274 during
the vacancy after Bishop Stichlll's death Arch-
bishop Giilard, who was much concerned with
the reform of abuses at York, made a visitation
of the monastery, after which he proceeded to
the castle in pontifical state, no objection being
taken to his action.^* Giffard's successor. Arch-
bishop Wickwane, a prelate of more vigorous
reforming tendency, found a very different
temper prevailing when he visited Durham.
The change was due to a presentation dispute,
Wickwane refusing to institute a nominee of
prior and convent to a living in Yorkshire. The
Archbishop by an unwarranted stretch of his
authority demanded to visit the chapter during
the temporary absence of the Bishop of Durham
and entered the city without opposition. As he

3* Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 49.
The suggestion in the text was made to the writer
by Canon J. T. Fowler. The quotation shows the
value of Bearpark to the monks in general at this time.
In severe weather change of air would probablv be
sought not in breezy Bearpark but in the warm and
secluded river valley in which Finchale lies.

« Ibid.

came up Saddlergate to the great north gate
of the castle in order to pass up to the cathedral
he found his way blocked by the barons of the
bishopric. Halting there, he addressed the
people and proceeded to excommunicate the
bishop, who naturally sided with the monastery,
as well as the prior and convent, citing them to
undergo his visitation at a later date. An
appeal to Rome issued in a triumph for the
prior,^* but the death of the bishop in 1283
renewed the strife. Wickwane again journeyed
to Durham to force what he considered his
undoubted right sede vacante. The prior even
refused him admission to the cathedral. Upon
this the Archbishop descended the hill and
made his way to the church of St. Nicholas,
which lay upon episcopal land in the borough
of Durham, and was probably claimed as his by
right during the vacancy of the see. Hereupon
some of the youths of the borough made up
their minds to resist the Archbishop's action as
an invasion of the rights of Durham and so
alarmed the Archbishop by their demonstration
that he was glad to escape from the church.
He made his vvay, apparently, through a back
door and down a flight of steps leading into
Walkergate, and so, with what secrecy he could,
to the river bank and thus to the hospitable
shelter of Kepier. The brief chronicle of this
escape contains one incidental reference of
importance when it tells us that Wickwane fled
down the steps ' towards the schools.' We have
already discovered an allusion to schools in the
Bailey, more than a century before this date,
but here we get what seems to be a distinct
trace of schools in the borough which was
directly a part of the episcopal section of Dur-
ham. It may be added that the popular Hugh
Darlington, who had resigned the priorate to
Richard Claxton, the prior opposing Wickwane,
was re-elected in 1285 and made his second
tenure of office memorable by bringing the strife
to an end.^' It was Prior Hugh's last con-
siderable act, for soon after this he began to
show the infirmities of age and was forced to
resign.

Another scene enacted in 1290 within the
cathedral throws some light upon mediaeval
customs and manners in Durham. There were,
of course, various serjcanties and services by
which the barons of the bishopric held their
lands and houses. The repulse of Wickwane
at the North Gate was effected by the barons
of the bishopric (j)er milites episcopatus), and their
part in the drama looks as if the resistance of
invasion was a duty of military service at the
North Gate. The tenures are very imperfectly
known, but the story now to be told shows that

»7

3« Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tra (Surt. Soc), 60.
" Ibid. 73.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

the Raby lands were held on condition of pre-
senting a deer at the abbey on St. Cuthbert's
feast in September. The destination of the
animal is in itself interesting, for the lord of
Raby was in no sense a baron of the prior but
of the bishop. It seems probable, therefore,
that this custom was a reminiscence of the
earlier period when Canute gave the manors of
Raby and Staindrop to the congregation of
St. Cuthbcrt about 1018. Probably the prior
still received the payment even after the division
of lands between bishop and convent, and
apparently the arrangement was confirmed after
Flambard's death in I131. There was no
difficulty until 1290, when the third Lord
Nevill, Ralph, who was then in possession of
Raby, made claims upon the prior in return
which caused much trouble. This Ralph has
been mentioned in a previous article^* as one
of those who induced nearly all the knights and
freeholders to revolt against Bek. In 1290 he
was probably asserting himself in preparation
for the leadership which he afterwards assumed.
On this occasion he brought the deer and made
the unheard-of demand that not only he him-
self, as always, but all his retinue should be
entertained by the prior. It was the great
gala day in the Durham year when the city
was filled to overflowing and the prior's hospit-
ality was probably strained to the utmost. The
prior perhaps refused on the score of difficulties
of service, whereupon Ralph said that his own
servants should wait, but that all his retinue
should dine with the prior. Since a knight's
retinue was no small company Prior Hotoun
refused again and gave orders that the deer
should not be accepted when and if Nevill
brought it with the customary pomp to the
shrine of St. Cuthbert. Nevill meant to come
and to dine with all his following, and accord-
ingly he issued many invitations for the spectacle.
In vain John Balliol of Barnard Castle advised
him to yield his claim, but Nevill refused and
presented himself at the church door with his
offering. A procession was formed and with
much winding of horns paced up to the shrine
carrying the stag with great pomp, not to the
hall of the prior, but right up to the Nine Altars.
When the prior saw what was intended he
refused to have the animal received in this
tumultuous manner. Hereupon the servants
of Nevill proceeded to bear it ofl towards the
kitchen in order to cook it, apparently for the
lord of Raby and his friends. A disgraceful
struggle arose and monks and men were soon at
strife within the church. The monks caught up
the candles round the shrine and using them as
weapons drove back the servants of Nevill.
Two suits followed, the one before the Pope

M V.C.H. Dur. ii, 153.

at Rome for hindering the divine offices, and
the other before the bishop's justices for
assault, but both parties in the end agreed not
to proceed on the earnest entreaty of some who
strove to mediate between them.

We have now come well into the reign of
Edward I and the restless episcopate of Bishop
Bek. A franchise such as that of Durham was
not likely to escape the king's notice, while Bek
was not the man to let his liberties and dignities
suffer any eclipse if he could help it. For
nearly twenty years no collision took place, but
troubles began in 1293, when the king made a
review of franchises and titles. He acted with
promptitude, seizing all such liberties into his
own hands for due scrutiny and decision.
Accordingly, for the time being, he resumed into
his own hands all the jura regalia of the pala-
tinate. A regular inspection was carried out,
as has been said in another volume,^* and the
final award notifies various matters of right
which affect the city of Durham as well as
others which touch the bishopric more generally.
In these clauses the importance of Durham
comes out very clearly. Thus the bishop held
pleas of the Crown at Durham ; he had his own
gallows and mint within the city ; he had his
own market and fair. The market was the
Saturday market, which is, at least, as old as the
time of St. Godric in the 12th century. The
fair refers chiefly to that at the Translation of St.
Cuthbert (4 Sept.), but also to the spring festival
on 20th March. The document shows that
the prior had the old Elvet liberties still, as he
had had them since the days of St. Calais. This
document belongs to a period when the King
of England was already trying to get a hold in
Scotland through John Balliol. Next year the
prior was deputed by the king as his commissary
to collect all dues accruing to the Crown within
the bishopric. This brought him, as similar
action brought the various collectors elsewhere,
into grave disrepute with the commonalty of the
bishopric, undoing the popularity of the last
priors. Bek was much troubled by the ampli-
tude of the prior's position, which had been
steadily growing. It was, possibly, in part to
regain the importance of earlier bishops that Bek
became a builder. In various ways he asserted
himself, and gained a prestige which the last
bishops had somewhat lost. He built the
magnificent hall at the castle, so long attributed
to Bishop Hatfield, and in all probability placed
there the two ' seats of regality ' which Bishop
Fox altered in or about 1499. These, it may
be conjectured, were thrones for his dual
capacity as bishop and as ruler of the palatinate.
Before the one, no doubt, the barons of the
bishopric took their oaths of allegiance, and

39 r.C.H. Dur. ii, 152.

CITY OF DURHAM

before the other the clergy of the diocese gathered
to take the oath of allegiance to the bishop.

The expedition of 1296, when Edward I
passed through Durham, took many men from
the palatinate across the borders into Scotland,
and this service outside the bishopric proper
led them to formulate a claim, which they had
long tacitly held, that no obligation of service
outside the palatinate was incumbent upon
them. Durham men were again at Falkirk in
1298, returning without permission before the
campaign was over. The warlike Bishop Bek
remonstrated with the deserters, who pleaded
the immemorial right of bishopric men to serve
only between Tyne and Tees, on the ground that
they were the privileged guardians of the body
of St. Cuthbert. The bishop flung them into
his prison at Durham, an act which incensed the
bishopric barons and free tenants to the utmost,
until the movement assumed the proportions of
a serious rebellion. One outcome, which the
bishop probably did not desire, was the growing
popularity of the prior, with whom the offended
men of Durham sided as against the bishop.
We have no specific date in the chronicle for
the building of Auckland Castle and Chapel,
but it is not improbable that Bek, the builder
of both, erected the magnificent new abode as a
residence which would prove more pleasant
than Durham Castle and the immediate neigh-
bourhood of prior and convent. The feud
between bishop and prior continued, despite
the good offices of the king, and was intensified
in 1300 by a sudden attack upon the prior's
lands carried out by Bek's command. The
bishop seized some of the prior's manors into
his own hands, taking their rents and destroying
the parks. Scenes recalling those of the time of
Bishop Philip were now enacted, when a regular
siege of the abbey began. Armed men sur-
rounded it to prevent all approach of food or of
messengers. Down below in the valley men
broke up the prior's aqueduct, which seems to
mean the conduit crossing the river and bringing
water to the cathedral and Palace Green. Bek
was determined to oust Prior Hotoun, and
although he was not personally responsible for
every act of violence which now took place, he
was sufficiently to blame. Hotoun and his
monks held the monastery and its surroundings,
but the superior force of Luceby, the prior of
Bek's choice, beat in the doors of the cloister and
let his partisans into the church. In the general
hubbub Luceby was actually installed and by
the bishop's support he was kept in position.
Prior Hotoun was thrown into prison, but
managed to escape and take his appeal to
Rome.'*" It was the famous Boniface VIII who
heard this appeal and in the result the prior

obtained a favourable decision, though he died
before he could be reinstated. A sentence of
Boniface when examining the adherents of the
bishop proves incidentally the great prestige
and importance of the prior's position at this
time. Bek urged that Hotoun had resigned his
office voluntarily, but Boniface brushed aside
the suggestion, saying that no one who knew
what it was to be Prior of Durham would ever
voluntarily give up the position.

The strife between bishop and prior cannot
have failed to absorb the attention of the city
of Durham with its various jurisdictions depend-
ing on one or other of the two chief figures.
And yet another of the various struggles in
which Bek was engaged must have had a more
vital effect upon the citizens generally. The
circumstances have been set out in another
volume*^ and are concerned with a long con-
stitutional dispute between the bishop and the
commonalty of the bishopric. One point in
this, namely the question of service outside the
boundaries, has already been named. The
commonalty complained at the Parliament of
Lincoln as to various infringements of their
rights. These do not concern us generally,
though the decisions, no doubt, eased the people
from certain miscarriage of justice, and other
grievances which they preferred. Right of free
entry to St. Cuthbert's shrine was allowed to all
men of the bishopric ; hunting was made widely
possible ; and various other rights were assured.
The document clearly shows that Bek had very
greatly tyrannized over the country at large, but
its silence about the bishopric boroughs makes
it probable that these in general, and Durham
in particular, were quite able to hold their own.
The evidence of the Assize Roll of 1243 as to
the strength of the burgesses of Durham is
thus supported after an interval of sixty years.

We have now definitely entered the i^th
century, which is one of the darkest of all the
centuries of local history. In the past the
troublers of the peace had often come from
within, but in and after Bek's day they came
from without in the shape of Scottish invader,
or of pestilence and famine. The first rumours
of troubles with the Scots were brought into
Durham in 1277, and after a respite they revived
in 1296, the year of the desolation of Hexham.
Edward's operations in Scotland kept further
invasion at bay for a number of years, but in
and from 1308 the troubles merely died away
in winter to revive with the new spring of each
year. Soon after his marriage in 1308 Edward II
would seem to have been with his wife at Dur-
ham, for a single roll of Bek's episcopate belonging
to that year contains the receipt entered by the
bishop's oflScial : ' And for "js. lod. of the

Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tra (Surt. Soc), 78. " F.C.H. But. ii, 154.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

meadow at Durham because the King and
Queen took the whole of the first crop.' The
meadow in question was close to the city and
in the neighbourhood of Franklyn Wood, which
was the bishop's special preserve. For Edward's
expedition into Scotland in 1309 a special order
was received from the king to raise forces in the
bishopric. Next year, as the Scottish menace
pressed more threateningly, alarm grew, and
we find an instance recorded of money banked
within the castle at Durham for safety's sake.''-

Bek died in 13H, receiving interment within
the cathedral instead of the chapter house.
With his successor's appearance in Durham
wc get the splendid palatinate register of Bishop
Kellaw (1311-18), the only palatinate record
that has survived. Since it is chiefly occupied
with the general affairs of the bishopric as a
whole, we cannot expect to find much detail
concerning Durham in particular. A few points
of local history, however, are mentioned in it.
We have, for instance, the bishop's confirma-
tion''^ of the foundation in 1312 of the chapel
of St. James on the New Bridge of Durham, or
Elvet Bridge. This chapel was situated at the
north end of Elvet Bridge and existed on this
site until the dissolution of the chantries. At
the south end a chapel had already been founded
by William, son of Absalon, between 1274 and
1283. Another grant of the same period as the
chapel of St. James was the right of free fishery
between the old and new bridges within the city.
It should be noticed that the conveyance of this
privilege from the bishop to the prior and con-
vent describes the old bridge as lying ' between
the market of Durham and South Street.' As
there is no mention of Silver Street the words
seem to suggest that the name now given to the
descent from the market place to the bridge was
bestowed at some later period. Kellaw's Regis-
ter also shows us incidentally that the church of
St. Nicholas was in disrepair in 1312, when a
survey was ordered by the bishop.**

The most interesting local topic in Kellaw's
Register is the Scottish aggression. A letter
from the bishop in 131 1 excusing himself from
attendance at a Council in Rome, to which he
had been summoned by the pope, illustrates
the position at the time. He says that in
September Brus and his confederates swarmed
into the diocese burning churches, boroughs,
towns, crops, in their way. They spared neither
sex nor age and were already preparing an
invasion to outdo their former severities, so that
a general flight was in progress. The fears of
the bishop were verified, but his presence
seemed to put some heart into the citizens of

« Reg. Pdat. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.), i, 441.
'^ Ibid, ii, 1 173.
" Ibid, i, 144.

Durham. A commission was issued to levy
contributions for the see, and various assess-
ments were made. Perhaps an indulgence of
forty days granted by the bishop at this time*^
to all who should listen to the preaching of the
gospel in Durham Cathedral may be connected
with the general fear felt as the Scots drew
nearer. Next year (13 13) the Scots crept up
nearer and nearer to Durham. The suburbs,
at all events, if not the city itself, were fired by
Brus's troops. The vague time-marks, how-
ever, make it impossible to date this calamity^*
with any precision, if it actually took place, and
it seems curious that an event of such magnitude
should receive no confirmation from any writer
except the two chroniclers. Was the rebuilding
of the barbican before the North Gate a con-
sequence of this fire, or was the defence added
in view of the approach of the Scots ? At all
events in May 1 3 1 3 the bishop's order went forth
to estimate the loss to the rector of the North
Bailey Church and some others whose houses,
abutting on the North Gate, would have to be
taken down in the process of building the wall
of the barbican."

There are other traces of taxation and trouble
about this time. In the previous year the king
wrote to the bishop concerning a complaint of
the commonalty of the city who had been sum-
moned, unjustly as it appeared, to pay tallage to
the bishop.''* Eventually, however, the king
did not merely acquiesce in the levy, but com-
manded the bishop to exact it. In 1315 the
king notified the bishop that he had assented to
the grant of murage by the latter to the city of
Durham. This had clear reference to recent
Scottish trouble, for the king's writ says : ' The
men of your Liberty of Durham have suffered
loss beyond calculation owing to the constant
ravages of the Scots who have pillaged and burnt
excessively in those parts, and all the more
frequently because there are no mihtary fortresses
or towns defended by walls wherein to find
refuge or shelter for the security of themselves
and their goods.' The petitioners beg that the
king would allow the grant of murage on
things for sale which come into the city.^*
This was in May : then came the most severe,
perhaps, of all the invasions so far, the Scots
sweeping right up to Durham. It might have
been thought that the land was bare, as though a
swarm of locusts had passed over it, for after
the great descent of 13 13 a terrible murrain had

*5 Reg. Palat. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.), i, 250.

*^ Hist. Dunelm. Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), 94.
So Lanercost Chronicle.

" Reg. Palat. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.), i, 338.

*8 Ibid, ii, 863 ; cf. ibid. 920, 935.

*' Ibid. 1071. See Pollock and Maitland, //»/<.
of Engl. Law, i, 162 ; Lapsley, Hist. Palat. Dur.
277.

CITY OF DURHAM

fallen upon flocks and herds, followed by such a
famine that grain of aU kinds was sold at starva-
tion rates. The chronicler even says that
women ate their own babes, so famished were
they. But the Scots knew that some oases
remained, and that wealth was stored up in
Durham, so that at the end of June 1315 they
threw themselves right into the county and
made, it would seem, for Durham. The city
was probably fuU of refugees, and of driven
flocks and herds, but bishop and prior were
away, and perhaps it was useless to try anything
like a siege. The Scots rushed off to Bearpark,
where the prior was, and surrounded the park.
Prior Burdon got the alarm and managed to
flee on horseback in the direction of Durham,
the Scots in hot pursuit, and although they
failed to catch him they seized his carriage
and equipage with practically all the contents
of the house at Bearpark.^" Glutted with
booty, Brus made o5 to Chester-le-Street.
The men of Durham conferred together and
hastily carried out a house-to-house visitation
of the city and neighbourhood in order to
purchase a truce from the Scots. This was not
the first occasion on which the commonalty of
the bishopric tried to arrange truces. Other
instances can be quoted, but this coUeaion has
the interest of being carried through by the
Durham members of the community.*"^ There
was little respite, for next year on St. Swithun's
day so vast a flood came that all the lands
adjacent to streams were flooded, carrying off all
the crops in indiscriminate ruin, breaking down
mills, bursting the dams, rushing into the
houses, as the waters rose, and drowning men,
women and children. Once more murrain,
pestilence, and general want fell upon the city
and neighbourhood.

The threatening cloud did not lift for some
time. The Scots had been not merely aggressive
but insolently overbearing since 1 3 14, when the
battle of Bannockburn was fought. The
minority of David of Scotland gave the English-
men new hope, and at Dupplin in 1332 the
English took heart of grace. Next year when
the king was on his way to the great triumph of
Halidon Hill he stopped at Durham, where a
quaint episode described by the chronicler took
place. As our authority is Graystanes himself,
who in that very year was elected to be Bishop of
Durham, it may be presumed that his tale is
true. He records that Edward HI was being
entertained by the prior. After nearly a week
had passed, Queen Philippa arrived and drove
to the monastery gate, and made her way to
the prior's house. After supper she went to

w Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 96.
^* See the whole matter explained by Lapsley,
op. cit. 122.

bed, and then one of the monks plucked up
courage to tell the king of the traditions of the
abbey and St. Cuthbcrt's dislike to the presence
of women. At the king's suggestion the queen
threw a cloak over her and made her way across
the Palace Green to the castle." A requisition
had already been made for baggage carts, and
these had been concentrating at Durham,^'
whence the move was made northwards towards
Berwick, near which the English revived at
Halidon Hill the success of Dupplin.

Bishop Bury succeeded Beaumont in 1333.
This celebrated lover of books made Durham
not merely the resort of men of learning, but a
home of books. Chiefly impressive to the poor
were his bountiful gifts of money, for he had a
regular scale of largess to be distributed when-
ever he drove between Durham and Auckland,
or Durham and Newcastle. His first appearance
in the city was in June 1334, when he was
enthroned by Prior Cowton within the cathedral.
Afterwards he gave a great banquet in the castle
hall, at which a brilliant assembly was present —
Edward HI and Queen Philippa, the king's
mother, Isabel of Boulogne, David H King of
Scotland, the two archbishops, John Stratford
of Canterbury and WiUian la Zouche of York,
five bishops, seven earls with their wives, all
the great men north of Trent, many knights and
squires, several abbots, priors and monks, and
also an innumerable throng of the commonalty
of the bishopric.'*

It is during Bury's episcopate that we get a
little group of references to St. Margaret's
chapel in the Old Borough, which may indicate
some extension in that direction. St. Margaret's,
since its foundation in the 12th century, had
been a chapel of ease to St. Oswald's. Various
documents suggest that the parishioners were
not quite content with the subordinate position
of the chapelry. In 1343 Prior Fossor became
cognizant of the fact that a baptismal font had
been erected without any reference either to the
bishop or to the prior, who was patron of St.
Oswald's. The prior had it removed, to the
great indignation of the people in the Old
Borough, who made a bitter complaint to the
bishop in the castle. He tried to mediate, and
ordered a parish meeting within the chapel to
discuss the question whether the font should
remain against the will of the monastery, or
on the express understanding that it was by the
prior's grace. In the end the font was allowed
to remain on condition that there should be no
prejudice to the prior's rights.'* The bishop

'- Hist. Dundm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 117.

^^ Cal. Close, 1333-7, P- i°o ; ^'''- ^'"- i330-4>
p. 446.

'* Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 128.

'' The documents are printed in Dean Kitchin's
Richard d'Aungcnilk of Bury (Surt. Soc).

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

proved a further kind friend of St. Margaret's.
The parishioners were evidently extending their
church, and had begun a south aisle, in which
was an altar dedicated to St. Thomas of Canter-
bury. Unfortunately their means did not
suffice to complete the work in progress, so that
the bishop was moved to send a brief to the
clergy of his diocese asking them to contribute.

Meanwhile there had been a recrudescence of
Scottish troubles, and in 1341, according to
Froissart, Durham itself was burned, but the
assertion is otherwise unsupported, and it has
been supposed to refer to Auckland or some
other town.'* The neighbourhood of Durham
was rarely quiet in these days for long together,
and, if the Scots receded, the ways were infested
with robbers who did much damage. In fact
the dangers of the roads must have kept the
pilgrims from approaching the city, so that the
annual fairs were probably much impoverished."
With the Battle of Durham in 1346, when the
men of Durham largely contributed to the suc-
cessful issue of the battle outside the city, a
temporary improvement began. So far as the
Scots were concerned, they were no further
trouble for a long time, but a far greater evil
than any of the Border invasions fell upon the
neighbourhood in 1349 with the advent of the
Black Death. It does not seem conceivable that
the city escaped, but numerous and pathetic as
are the details of the ravages in the bishopric at
large no very clear tradition has survived of
mortality in Durham itself. It may be argued
from a request for money to repair the cathedral
in 1359 that the abbey was much impoverished^
by the Scottish wars, and perhaps references to
mortgages show that the times of pressure had
obliged some owners to raise money, while
money-lending in Durham appears to have been
profitable.'^ Bishop Hatfield, however, was
able to find workmen in 1350 when he entered
into a bond"" with a certain John of Northaller-
ton to rebuild the roof of the castle hall.

The Cursitor records, which exist from the
time of Bury onwards, contain a good many
references of some interest as to the conveyance
of property in those parts of the city belonging
to the bishop. We find the lease of a messuage
and garden on 'the place of Durham,'** of
' a place or plot in Owengate,' of ' a place of
land . . . under the moat of the Castle of
Durham,' of ' one close called Spetelplace
formerly occupied by men who were lepers, and
now lying waste without occupation of any

** Arch. Ael. xiv, 362.

" Cal. Pat. 1 343-S, p. 67 ; Dep. Keeper'' s Rep.
xxxi, 100.

'8 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 191.
'' Dep. Keeper's Rep. ixxi, 153.
«oibid. 113.
*i Ibid, xxxii, App. i, 300.

lepers,'""'- of 'a piece of land of the waste of
the lord outside the north gate of Durham to
the south of the said gate between the postern
there and a certain round tower situated in the
wall of the castle behind the tenement of the
Master of Kepier Hospital.'*' Thus we have
proof that in the 14th century houses abutted
on the Palace Green, that there were plots of
land leased out below the keep, that the name of
Owengate is at least as old as the century in
question, though probably much older. The
reference to the old Spitalplace shows that there
were other hospitals than Kepier and Sherburn
in the neighbourhood.

Another lease mentions Jebet Knoll," and this
is, no doubt,the little eminence in fuU view of the
city on the north-west which is still called Gibbet
Knoll. Another speaks of the Tolbooth in
Durham, and conveys a shop under it.*' Many
other references to the Tolbooth, which was re-
erected by Tunstall in the i6th century, show
that it must have been a building of some size
standing in the market-place and with shops
leased out below it. Again in 1398 ' William
Warde took from the lord a place of the waste of
the lord under the walls of the Castle of Durham
on the east, viz., in length from Kingsgate to the
Quarry where John Lowyn digs stones, and in
width from the wall of the aforesaid Castle to
the water of Wear to hold and enclose in sever-
alty.'** Other parts of the city named in these
rolls of the 14th century are Clayport, Saddler-
gate, Feshewerrawe or Fleshewergate, Alverton-
gate, North and South Bailey. All these names
survive to-day, with very little change.

If we had more evidence for the period before
Bury and Hatfield, we should probably get proof
of many changes and improvements in mediaeval
Durham, and of quickening trade. The first
reference, that has been noted, to the inclosing
and paving of the city, other than the mention of
murage above, is in 1379, when Bishop Hatfield
made a grant of tolls for the purpose of inclosing
and paving,*' but no light is thrown on the
details of what was done. In the previous
year the commonalty of the bishopric made a
clamosa querela to the bishop, representing to
him that the butchers, fishmongers, inn-keepers,
and vintners were asking prices higher than
those allowed by recent statute. A special
commission was issued to the judges to hear the
complaint, and to put an end to such offences.**
The grievance does not refer to Durham alone,
of course, yet the Durham tradesmen probably
bore their share.

** Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 13, fol. 454 (Skirlaw's 17th
year). *' Ibid. fol. 465.

*■• Ibid. fol. 257 d. (Skirlaw's lothyear).
*' Ibid. 6* Ibid. fol. 479.

*' Dep. Keeper's Rep. xxxii, App. i, 275.
** Lapsley, op. cit. 1 36.

CITY OF DURHAM

Some of the references in the lines above have
to do with the episcopate of Skirlaw (1388-
1405). A year before his consecration trouble
was occasioned by some men who broke prison.
Possibly this indicates that the building, which
was then on the west side of Palace Green, was
ruinous. At all events, Skirlaw made it his
business to build a new gaol, which was after-
wards completed by Langley, and continued to
be the ordinary gaol of the city until 1820. An
important little valor of Skirlaw's first year
informs us not only as to the building of the
prison, but as to other matters connected with
its immediate neighbourhood.

This interesting document states that the
castle with all houses and rooms was in good and
thorough repair. Within its walls stood the
abbey and two parish churches and between the
lower gates of the castle and the graveyard of the
abbey was a space called ' le Place ' containing
by estimation 2 acres with the houses intended
for the offices of the Chancery, Exchequer and
Receipt ; a hall for the Pleas of Justice ; a
granary ; a large grange ; and various other
rooms on the west side of the said space pertain-
ing to the old gaol before the lord built anew
the tower called ' le Northgate ' at the entrance
to the castle where his gaols now are by his
ordinance ; and a house for coining money
built on the east side of the said space. These
buildings returned nothing because they were
occupied by the constable, chancellor and
moneyer. The mint, which was held by Alulkus
of Florence, the lord's moneyer, was then worth
40J. a year, but at the time of the change of the
coinage of the money of England brought in
20 marks. The city of Durham with its rents,
services, courts, customs, fines on the citizens,
proceeds of two water-mills, ovens, fair and
market tolls and all other profits and com-
modities belonging to the said city, escheats,
forfeitures of lands and houses, if any, was let
to farm to Nicholas Hayford and his fellows at a
term of six years for no marks a year. The
constable had a parcel of land called Harden-
fcld, lying near Washington, to support a
chaplain celebrating within the chapel of the
same castle. There was there also a [wood]
called Franklyn, full of great oaks, containing
by estimation 300 acres. A certain meadow
called Le Bishopmeadow containing by estima-
tion 27 [acres] was let for 106/. Sd. a year.
John Cook held a house once belonging to John
Morpathe. John Runkhorn, chaplain of the
chantry of St. James upon the new bridge of
Durham, held a house and a . . . . with a meadow
called Millmeadow. Margaret Corbridge held a
tenement in the Bailey near Owengate, once
belonging to Hugh Cor[bridge]. The com-
moner of Durham held a tenement in the bailey,
once belonging to Robert of Leicester. John

Dighton held a tenement in the North Bailey
once belonging to Peter Mainsforth and ren-
dered 3/. John Arceys, chaplain, holds a
tenement, newly approved, on the Place near the
inn of the Archdeacon of Durham, once the
property of William Orchard and rendered ijs.
The same chaplain held a place there newly
approved, once belonging to Master John Hag-
thorp, and rendered izd. Geoffrey Langton,
rector of the Church of St. Mary in the North
Bailey, held a tenement without the North Gate,
near a vennel there and rendered 5/. a year.
The Almoner of Durham held within the Bailey
aforesaid a tenement with a garden formerly
Lightfoot's, and rendered 3/. a year. John
Aslacby held a certain stage adjoining the tene-
ment of Ralph Warshop before his door and
rendered id. The heir of John Lumley held a
tenement formerly belonging to Alan Goldsmith
in Saddlergate in Durham, and rendered i6d.
WiUiam Werdall held a tenement in Saddlergate,
once belonging to the said Alan, and rendered
4£/. a year. Thomas Colvell held one place
upon the moat, on the western side of the
tenement once belonging to John Malleson,
which used to render 14^. but was then occupied
by those employed by the lord on building of the
new tower 4^. . . . held a garden on the eastern
part of the same bridge once belonging to
Robert Herlesey and before that to Agnes
Brown and rendered ^d. a year. Thomas Clerk
held a tenement formerly belonging to John
Marshall within the North Gate near the tene-
ment of Thomas Smith. Thomas Gray, knight,
of Houghton, held a tenement in Owengate, and
rendered 3d. a year. The Prior of Durham
held a tenement in Saddlergate, once belonging
to John Appleton. He also held a tenement
called Wearmouthplace within the North Bailey
once belonging to Robert Greenwich. The heir
of William Catterick held a tenement formerly
William Fleshcwer's under the moat towards the
old bridge and rendered 6d. John Wyrethorp
held a garden under the Castle Moat formerly
John Woodcock's and rendered izd. John
Killinghall held a garden outside Kingsgate
once Henry Klidrow's and renders 2/. There
is in the same place a garden lately in the occupa-
tion of William Auckland, lying waste and
unoccupied. William Huddlestone held in right
of his wife, a tenement near Owengate on the
south side and formerly John Cutler's and ren-
dered at St. Cuthbert's Feast and in Septem-
ber one pound of pepper. John Runkhorn
held two waste places under the arches of
Elvet Bridge, and a parcel of ground, and
rendered lod. John Dighton held a tenement,
formerly Robert Walton's, and previously
William Lanchester's, in the North Bailey, and
rendered 6d. a year. Thomas Goldsmith held
a shop under the Tolbooth once J. Cusson's

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

and rendered 6s. %d. Agnes Cupper held a shop
under the Tolbooth, and rendered los. a year.
Thomas Plumer held a place under the moat,
once John Chester's and rendered 6d. a year.
Thomas Smith held a tenement formerly the said
John Chester's and rendered \zd. a year. There
is in the same place a tenement, formerly John
Maidenstan's in the Bailey of Durham. He
rendered at the Feast of St. Cuthbert in Septem-
ber one pound of cumine. ' He does not know
where it lies, so let inquiry be made.' There
was in the same place a house formerly Ede
Barbon's, which was then waste and out of
occupation. Ralph Shotton held a garden
under the Castle Moat formerly William Ward's
which had usually paid 2J., then only lid. Thomas
Bulman held a garden under the moat rendering
lid. Thomas Walworth held a garden there
and rendered izd. Joan Clerk held a garden
there and rendered lid. Llias Harper held a
garden near the said Joan's, formerly William
Orchard's, towards the Wear which had usually
paid lid. a year. Isabella Fenrother held a
garden on the waste reclaimed near Kingsgate
on the south side, rendering 6d. John P.Jman,
chaplain, held two gardens there, each
rendering 4^/. Roger Wright held a garden
formerly Matilda Raven's, usual rent of which
was lid. There is there a garden lying between
the garden of Matilda Raven and the garden of
Richard Ic B. . . garth. John Kay, chaplain,
held a vcnell formerly Theodore Coxside's in
Saddlergate, rent 2d. Margery, who was wife
of Hugh Corbridge, held a place of ground near
her own house under the Castle Moat, containing
30 ft. in breadth, and in length 38 ft. and
rendered zd. a year.*'

The document seems to be a return of all
rents let out to farm in Durham itself by the
bishop. As has been seen in Boldon Book, the
city was even then at farm, and in the 14th cen-
tury the grants of one or other section of the
bishop's property are not infrequent. Thus in
1386 Fordham in a deed enrolled granted to John
Le\vyn, Walter Cokyn, Roger Aspour, Henry
Sherburn ' the borough ' of Durham to farm
with all rents, services, etc. appurtenant thereto
for the term of six years. A year later Thomas
Tudhoe, and John Custson surrendered the farm
of ' the vill ' of Durham to Ralph de Eure the
steward thereof who demised the same to others
in turn. It is by no means improbable that the
valoT quoted above refers to the steward's state-
ment of particulars in connexion with the
demise here named. The details are in some
respects a help to forming a picture of Durham

*' The valor is numbered Ministers' Accounts
R. 220196 and is preserved among the Palatinate
Records in the custody of the Ecclesiastical Com-
mission. It was first used by Dr. Lapsley, but has
only recently been transcribed in full.

in 1388. The castle was in good repair, as of
course it would be after Hatfield's work upon it.™
St. Mary, in the South Bailey, was already a parish
church. Around the Palace Green were two
sets of buildings. On the west side were the
earlier exchequer and chancery courts, the court
of justice, the old gaol, and certain buildings of
store. The old gaol had been recently super-
seded, and as the document speaks of extensive
work on the new gaol it is probably safe to say
that Fordham, or more probably Hatfield, built
the new fabric. All these houses were official
and produced no rent. On the east side stood
the mint, to which we shall recur. On the same
side, as we know, though the document does not
say so, was the inn of the Archdeacon of North-
umberland, and beside it were other houses.
Apparently a careful distinction is drawn be-
tween the Bailey, the North Bailey, and the South
Bailey. There is no difficulty as to the last two,
but Margaret Corbridge's house and garden may
suggest that the Bailey was the space behind
Owengate and below the castle mound. If so
her garden may perhaps still be identified as the
garden inclosed and still in that position. The
rector of the North Bailey church seems still to
have lived outside the north gate, as a previous
reference in 131 1 makes clear. There were
houses and gardens below the moat, both on the
FramweUgate side and round towards Saddler-
gate. There were several gardens below the
Bailey wall, and between it and the river.
Finally there were two instances of quaint
mediaeval tenure, but nothing is here said of
Castle- Ward and other duties.

Attention must be drawn to the mint. The
valor places it on the east side of Palace Green.
It was under the management of a Florentine,
but it was not long in his hands. Seven years
later ' William Ward took from the lord a house
or a place in the Castle of Durham called
Moneyer's house together with another room
beyond the gate called Owengate, to hold until
some moneyer should come who wishes to make
money in the same.'" This suggests that the
moneyer had a residence, perhaps, on the north
side of Owengate, whilst his mint proper was on
the south side of that street. This not only
works in with local tradition " but is supported
by a document of 1455 which leases ' on the
east of the Place of Durham ' and ' South of
an ortus {sic) called Coneyorgarth ' a parcel of
the lord's waste." Obviously the Coneyorgarth
or Mintersgarth was on the south of Owengate.
References to the mint in the 15th century are
pretty frequent. In 1460 one Norwell of

'" Hist. Dunelm. Script. Ires (Surt. Soc ), 138.
1 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 13, fol. 152. (Skirlaw's
7th year).

" Cf. Surtees, Hist, and Antiq. of Dur. iv, 3S.
" Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 15, fol. 720.

CITY OF DURHAM

Durham, coiner, entered into bond with certain
persons to pay so much to the bishop for the
farm of the coinage, delivering up the dies and
instruments used after the expiration of a year.^*
He was also to answer to the bishop for any
defect. In 1473 a goldsmith of York was
licensed to make the coining dies,'* but in 14.76
the grant was to one William Omoryghe, gold-
smith of Durham, to make, grave, and print
coining irons for the mint of the bishop of
Durham, under the supervision of John Kelyng,
Chancellor of Durham, and John Raket." In
1490 there was another bond on the appointment
of mintmaster," and in 1493 there was a bond
in ;^200 entered into by five tradesmen of Durham
for the due execution of the office of keeper of
the mint of Durham.'* The mintmaster was
one of the five, and his name was William
Richardson, merchant. The danger of false
coining naturally led to such precautions as these
bonds and covenants suggest, and that vigilance
was needed is attested by the fact that in 1475
false money had been issued, for which oflence
the king's pardon was sought and obtained."

It is now necessary to return to the history of
the city in the 15th century. The period opens
with many evidences of founding and repairing.
Much of this is due to Cardinal Langley, who
became bishop in 1406. He left his mark upon
Durham in various ways. It is, once more, a
little difficult to assign dates to his work, but it
is probable that the considerable changes at the
north gate of the castle are to be attributed to
the early years of his episcopate. At all events
in 141 3 a lease of a chalk-pit and quarry at
Sherburn was granted to Thomas Alanson on
condition of rendering 120 horse-loads of chalk
' to the works of the castle of Durham.' ^* The
chronicler ascribes to Langley ' the whole of
Durham gaol, and the very costly stone gates of
the gaol, where in old times was the ancient
gateway at that period in disrepair.' ^^ Until
Langley's time the gaol was in an entirely
different part of the castle precincts, and he
built the great gaol tower over Saddler Street
which lasted until 1820. It is not improbable
that the older gaol occupied the site of the
exchequer buildings rebuilt by Neville about
1450. In any case it must have been near them.
Langley's rearrangement of the ground at the
top of Saddlergate and behind Owengate,
towards the castle, cannot be followed in detail,
as no exact description survives, and later
adaptation introduced alterations. There were,
however, various alleys and spaces running back

'* Dep. Keeper^! Rep. xxxv, 107.

'^ Ibid. 102. "* Ibid. 142.

" Ibid, xxxvi, 13. '* Ibid. 52.

'9Ca/.P<j/. 1467-77, p. 511.

^^ Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 14, fol. 533.

" Hist. Dundm. Script. Ires (Surt. See), 146.

towards the mound of the keep, both above and
below the great gateway. In 1453 there was a
lease to Richard Raket, clerk of the exchequer,
of ' a small garden lying next the wall of the
castle which leads from the north gate to the
tower of the castle . . . and a parcel of waste
land lying next the said wall between the tene-
ment of Ralph Earl of Westmorland and William
Prior of Durham on the one part, and the said
wall as far as the entrance which leads to the
great house of the seneschal in the said north
gate on the other part.' '^ All the parts here
named appear to be on the Palace Green side
of the great gate.

Langley, probably, pulled down a good deal of
old work on the west of the Green. There had
been a wall from the keep to the cathedral
running along the east side of the Green, origi-
nally built by Flambard, and its foundations can
still be traced underneath existing houses.
When the cardinal founded in 14 14 his two
schools, the one for grammar and the other for
music, he probably destroyed this wall. For a
description of the schools and for the story of
their refoundation by Cosin in the time of
Charles II, the reader must be referred to the
first volume of this series. Cardinal Langley
also founded the chantry in the Galilee, and
restored the Galilee itself, at considerable cost.
Under the chantry his tomb in time was placed.*^
In the midst of these operations a terrible \asit
of pestilence fell upon Durham in 1416,** and
also, later, in Langley's last year, 1438."' In
between these two pestilences occurred one of
the most notable calamities in Durham history,
when in 1429 a terrific thunderstorm burst *^
over the city and destroyed the upper part of
the central tower of the cathedral. Prior Wes-
sington wrote a pathetic account to the bishop
concerning the damage done. The storm was
not only terrible but quite unheard of in those
parts, lasting from ten o'clock at night to seven
next morning. Just before i a.m., when the
monks were at matins, a crash so aw^ul came
that they thought the building was collapsing.
Probably at this time the wooden top of the
bell-tower was struck, but the fire was not dis-
covered until the storm abated, and then until
noon the flames gained an increasing hold,
whilst the molten lead began to pour through
the roof on to the pavement below. The people
rushed up to the church as the news of the con-
flagration spread, and at last by their efforts and
prayers the flames subsided after raging for about
twelve hours, whereupon monks and populace

8= Dur. Rcc. cl. 3, no. 15, fol. 612.
** Hist. Dundm. Script. Jres (Surt. See), 146.
s-* Dep. Keeper^ s Rep. xxxiii, 1 10.
** Ibid, xxxiv, 227.

*^ Hist. Dundm. Script. Tres (Surt. See), p. ccxrii ;
Arch. Ad. ii, 59.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

sang a Te Deum. The concourse was all the
greater because it was Corpus Christ! day, a
general holiday, when all the trade gilds
walked in procession. Probably Wessington's
work of repair in the cathedral was partly in
consequence of the damage done by this storm.*'

Beside Bishop Langley's chantry in the
Galilee, served by the masters of his two newly-
built schools,** several other chantries were
established at this time by clerical donors, and in
143 1 St. Margaret's Chapel at last received the
status of a parish church."

The Corpus Christi gild, whose inauguration
is much earlier, probably, was refounded in
1437. To this gild Thomas Billing had granted
permission to inclose and cover a well in his
manor of Sidgate near Framwellgate, and to
bring the water by a subterranean aqueduct to
the market place of the city for the use and con-
venience of the men and burgesses thereof. Such
is the chartered beginning of the main fresh-
water supply of the centre of the city, a supply
which has only been superseded by other means
within the memory of men still living. Bishop
Neville confirmed the arrangement in 1451.*"

It was in this same year that the earliest
extant incorporation of a special trade fraternity
took place, and as had been the case in London
the first incorporation was granted to the
weavers. The Assize Roll of 1243 shows that
such trade was vigorous in Durham two cen-
turies before this date, so that as in the case of
the Corpus Christi gild Neville's charter is
probably an incorporation of an existing society.
The ordinance follows more or less the usual
lines of such documents. Corpus Christi day
was the trade festival when the gildsmen walked
in procession, and were to ' playe or gar playe y^
playe yat of old times longes to yair crafte at
yair aliens costage after the ordinance of the
two wardens, and ilka man sail be at y* said
procession yearly when his oure is assygned
by the wardens and at all other meetings under
penalty of 6d. to the Bishop and 6d. to the lights
of the crafte unless reasonably excused.' This
company and others acted on strictly protec-
tionist principles, of course, and were allowed
' to take to prentes noe Scotfesman nor noe
Scotteswoman on payne of 6s. 8d. to the Bishop,
and 6s. Sd. to the lights for ilk defautc.' A few
years later a dispute sprang up between rival
branches of the craft, and an inquisition was
held at Durham to decide the matter, when it
was ruled and the decree enrolled that ' no one

*' Hist. Dunelm. Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), p. cclxxii.

88 Ibid. 146.

8' All the details are set out in Surtees, op. cit. iv,
127, from the register of the prior and convent.

** Dep. Keeper's Rep. xxxiv, 200. The supply still
operates and forms a reservoir in case of fire or other
need.

of the said craft is to make the work of the other
under a penalty of 100 shillings.' "'

The cordwainers were next in order of enrol-
ment. In 1458, and by confirmation in 1460,
this company was incorporated in much the same
way as the weavers had been.®- Then came the
barbers, whose oldest extant ordinary is in 1468,
from which it appears that, as usual, the term
barbers is intended to comprise surgeons as well.
In later days they affiliated certain other trades
to their fraternity.''

Other trades in the city were perhaps not as
yet incorporated, or they may have been re-
founded after the Reformation. In 1448, for
instance, the fullers and the shoemakers were
prohibited from employing any native of Scot-
land in their craft.*'

In the 15th century the shrine of St. Cuthbert
was a great attraction still, and pilgrims flocked
to the city as they had done for more than four
centuries, bringing demands which the various
companies were able to supply abundantly.*^
In the main the century was peaceful, for
Scottish troubles were rare, and the astute
opportunism of Booth saved city and bishopric
from reprisal when the Yorkist side became
supreme. When we turn to the conditions of
life in Durham at this period there is little to
guide us. In 1417 a fatal accident at the butts
near Framwellgate shows that archery was
practised by the inhabitants. We have already
seen the allusions to the mystery plays of the
gilds, an observance which no doubt took up a
large amount of time and preparation as May
approached year by year. In 1492 a chance
entry suggests a large unwritten chapter in local
history, which if it could be recovered would
entertain the reader with that long list of Durham
characters who have played their part in the life
of the city and have passed away. Two shoe-
makers became bail for the good behaviour of
' Thomas Smyth, minstrel, of Durham, other-
wise called Piper whom the Lord Bishop had
pardoned for all felonies and other offences.' "*
There was fishing in the river, and the Wear then,
as now, was a salmon river. How far it was
generally open to all does not appear, but in
1390 and again in 1437 commissions were
issued to observe the ' fence months.' This, of
course, was in accordance with the statute of
Westminster the Second.

The end of the 15th century witnessed more
building in Durham. Bishop Fox carried out

^1 Dep. Keeper'' s Rep. xxxv, 1 30.

*2 Curs. R. 3 Booth, T. m. 6 d.

"* Some of the details are given in Surtees, op. cit. iv,
20-1. For the general fortunes of the trade after
this see V.C.H. Dur. ii, 314-15.

"* Dep. Keeper's Rep. xxxiv, 224, 244.

"^ Surtees, loc. cit.

"•^ Dep. Keeper^ Rep. xxxvi, 7.

CITY OF DURHAM

the changes associated with his name in the
castle, dating their conapletion, perhaps, by the
legend which is still to be seen over the kitchen
hatch, viz. 1499. This was the year in which he
was the means of concluding the prospective
marriage between James IV of Scotland and the
Princess Margaret of England. The bride's
youth postponed it for some four years, and Fox,
meantime appointed Bishop of Winchester,
came back in the royal retinue proceeding to
Scotland to give a royal feast to Margaret and
the noble company that assembled in the hall.
Possibly Fox's elaborate changes were designed
to make this banquet worthy of the match which
he had so largely brought about. A visit from
Lord Darcy, destined many years later to be a
rebel leader, gives an interesting side-light. He
said to Fox : ' My lord, both I and my lady was
in all your new works at Durham, and verily they
are of the most goodly and best cast that I have
seen after my poor mind, and in especial your
kitchen passeth all other.'

Princess Margaret's visit to Durham is the
most picturesque event, perhaps, in the history
of the city ; it gives, moreover, a sort of farewell
description of the mediaeval monastery on a
festival occasion.*' In connection with it,
too, we find elsewhere for the last time recorded
how the shrine of St. Cuthbert was still visited,
and how cures were reputed to be worked there.'*
A far more detailed account of what the great
monastery was in its very latest years is given
in really fascinating detail by the author of
the Rites of Durham, which was written in
1593 by one whose memory went back to its
sunset days in the twenties and the thirties.'*

After the visit of the princess, the next con-
spicuous event is the Scottish invasion of the
bishopric, and the great EngUsh victory at
Flodden-i"* Ruthall the bishop, who was with the
king in France, hurried back to Durham, and from
the castle superintended the Durham musters.
From the castle too he wrote to Wolsey a full
account of Flodden,* telling him how the
Durham people ascribed their triumph to the
intercession of St. Cuthbert, and how the King
of Scots' banner, sword, and ' gwyschys,' or
armour for the thighs, had been brought to
the cathedral. The banner was hung up near
the feretory.^ The signal triumph must have

" It is given in Leland's Collectanea, iv, 258,
under the title of the ' Fyancells of Margaret.'

^^ Hist. Dunelm. Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), 152-3.

" Published by the Suttees Society.
loOBest local account in Arch. Ael. v.

^ Quoted ibid, v, 175, from L. and. P. Hen. VIII,
i, 4461-2. See also ibid. 4523 for Ruthall's account
of his Auckland hospitality.

* The general aspect of the feretory and its
surroundings is described in Rites of Durham (Surt.
Soc), 4-s, 94-5.

brought much satisfaction to the city which
had been harassed by the Scots.

Just before the Scottish war. Bishop Bain-
bridge had made a grant of some importance
to the people of Durham when he gave the
prior and convent all the right bank of the
river between Elvet and Framwellgate Bridges
below the castle and cathedral walls down to
the Wear, and also the river itself between
those points, reserving ingress and egress for
all the castle folk and right of winning stones
for the walls with full access to them. The
reason of the grant is ' lest the prior and convent
and their successors in time to come should be
troubled, disturbed, or annoyed by ill-disposed
persons in their prayers and other divine offices.' *
Then they were able to police and guard what
Durham calls ' the Banks ' on both sides, the
other side being theirs already. The bishop
lost what in later days, when trees were planted,
came to be the most beautiful part of the
peninsula.*

From this we pass on to mention the classic
reference to Durham so often quoted from
Leland's Itinerary. The writer paid his visit
to the city on the eve of the great changes,
but probably before the demolition of the
shrine of St. Cuthbert in 1538.

The town self of Durham standeth on a rocky lull,
and standeth as men come from the south country
on the ripe of Wear.^ The which water so with his
course natural in a bottom windeth about, that from
Elvet, a great stone-bridge of 14 arches, it creepeth
about the town to Framwellgate Bridge of three
arches * also on Wear, that, betwixt the two bridges,
or a little lower down at St. Nicholas, the town
except the length of an arrow-shot is brought in
insulam. And some hold opinion that of ancient
time Wear ran from the place where now Elvet
Bridge is straight down by St. Nicholas now standing
on a hill,' and that the other course part for policy,
and part by digging of stones for building of the town
and minster was made a valley, and so the water-course
was conveyed that way, but I approve not full this
conjecture.* The close itself of the minster on the
highest part of the hill is well walled, and hath
divers fair gates. The Church itself and the Cloister
be very strong and fair, and at the very east end is

^ The grant is given in Hist. Dunelm. Script. Ires
(Surt. Soc), App. no. cccwiii.

* Trees were not planted on the castle and cathedral
side until late in the l8th century. In Bainbridge's
day the land in question was ' vastum,' and the
' Bishop's Waste ' sur\ived as a name until within
living memory.

^ Coming in from Brancepeth through Crossgate
he has South Street pointed out to him as it runs
along the river bank.

* Now shortened to two.

' An intelligent anticipation of what geology has
told us ; see below, p. 63.

* A wild theory : still the banks have been much
hollowed out for the sake of stone.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

a cross-aisle beside the middle cross aisle of the
minster church." The Castle standeth stately on
the north-east side of the Minster, and Wear runneth
under it.

Leland adds some words as to recent im-
provements at the castle, which would be
those of Fox, and then concludes : ' The building
of Durham Town is meetly strong, but it is
neither high nor of costly work.' Obviously
Leland had no eye for anything outside the
peninsula itself.

Leland had no anticipation of the great
changes which even then were setting in.
Tunstall the bishop was very little in Durham.
When the supremacy was agitated in 1532,
special messengers came to Durham as well
as to Auckland and Stockton to seize any
' books bearing on the king's cause.' i" In-
cidentally, we find how ill furnished the castle
was, for the visitors found ' such a little house-
hold stuff.' Tunstall soon came down, and
in Durham preached the king's supremacy
very convincingly. In the next year or two,
the people of Durham had to witness the
visits of royal commissioners and the virtual
suspension of the bishop's powers in his own
capital." Then came the monastic visitation
at the end of 1535, but the visitors could find
no flaw in the morality of Durham Abbey,
though certain local superstitions were held
up to ridicule. All the royal action was a
blow to the bishop's power, and still more
severe was the act of resumption in 1536,
which was the greatest diminution of the jura
regalia that any bishop had yet suffered. *-

Before the year was over, the first act of the
Pilgrimage of Grace had been carried out,
which was not entirely a religious demonstration,
but largely, as one of the leaders said, a rising
' under Captain Poverty.' " The Durham in-
surgents bore away the banner " of St. Cuthbert
as their ensign.

The rising collapsed about March 1537,
when Norfolk held his assize in Durham castle,*^
an event of great significance, for here was the
royal power over-riding the paramount authority
of the bishop in Durham. ** A year later came
a catastrophe which meant more to the trades-
men and inhabitants of Durham than any
diminution of episcopal independence. The
shrine of St. Cuthbert was despoiled in March
1538, close to the spring feast and fair of the

• The nine altars which form an eastern transept.

1* Earls of Westmorland and Cumberland to Crom-
well on 2 May, L. and P. Hen. VIII, v, 986-7.

" V.C.H. Dur. ii, 31-2. 12 Ibid. 163.

" L. and P. Hen. Fill, xii (i), 615.

" It was broken in the fray ; cf. Dur. Acct. R.
(Surt. Soc), 483.

15 See Engl. Episcopal Palaces (Piovince ofYork), 157.

" r.C.H. Di,r. ii, 163-4.

saint, and the very centre of the arch upholding
the fabric of mediaeval Durham at once fell in."
It was a loss of means to very many in the
city, and even of subsistence to some. A year
before, another rebellion would have been the
result, but men had learnt to fear the king's
mailed hand, which after the Pilgrimage of Grace
had hit hard. A horseman on the London
road said to a man of Durham : '* 'Is there
none that grudgeth with such pulling down of
abbeys in your country ? ' To this the wayfarer
replied : ' I trust no, for if there be any such
they keep it secret, for there hath been so sore
punishment.' In 1539, a conversation in Dur-
ham Castle gives a glimpse of the reign of
terror that had set in when at dinner in hall
one present declared that the Prior of Mount
Grace would never surrender his charterhouse."
But he did, and, before the year was out, the
great Benedictine abbey of Durham had sur-
rendered,-" an event which, to the speaker in
the hall that day, would have seemed unthink-
able.

So the shrine was despoiled of the saint's
body, and the abbey came to an end. To the
citizens of Durham it must have seemed as if
the glory of Durham had departed. But it
was intended to re-constitute the foundation
on a secular basis, and an interim constitution
was drawn up.^* Under this, the prior acted
as guardian, the estates and property were
administered by his direction, and the household
carried on by a sufficient staff until the details
were settled with much debating and alteration
of plan. No doubt the people of Durham were
given to understand that a new and, perhaps,
a better order was designed. For the present
it was ordered that all debts and e.xpenses should
be duly paid. All superfluous servants were
to be discharged with six months' wages in
advance. It is probable that a large amount
of the abbey plate went up to London ' for
the King's majesty's use.' As for the church
services, daily matins at 6 and Mass of Our
Lady were ordered to be sung according to the
use of Sarum."^

1' See further below, p. 29.

IS L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (2), p. 277.

13 L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (2), 750.

^o The correct year is 1539 and not 1540 as generally
given — e.g., V.C.H. Dur. ii, 32.

^1 The directions to commissioners are given in
Harl. MS. 539, fol. 147-50, from which the account
in the text is given as a supplement to V.C.H. Dur.
ii, 32.

^"^ Various schemes were propounded between
1539 and 1541. At one stage it was proposed to
found what was virtually a university in Durham
with readers of humanity, divinity, physic, etc.
There were also ' alms for poor householders ' to
the sum of ,^66 13/. \d. yearly. (Aug. Off. Misc.
Bk. xxiv.)

CITY OF DURHAM

The erection of the new foundation in 1541
has been described elsewhere.^' Not the least
important part of the establishment was the
reconstitution of the ancient grammar school.^*
Further changes took place in the cathedral
in the autumn, when many of the relics were
turned out and the shrines were broken dovvn.^
In December, as two bills ^' in the Cathedral
Library still attest, the place where St. Cuthbert's
shrine had been was levelled and covered in
with a marble slab."

Gloomy years now followed. War broke
out with Scotland in 1542, and the passage of
troops to and fro kept the city in excitement.
Special requisition was made on the townsfolk
for transport service,-* and Tunstall came
down to the castle to superintend the levies.
Next year rumours were brought in of a French
fleet off Hartlepool,^' and some confused story
about local insurrection.^" In 1544, one of the
most severe in the long series of plagues befell
the city and neighbourhood.'*

So the reign of Henry passed to its close.
In Edward's first year, the pressure of drastic
change was felt in the dissolution of Kepier
Hospital, and particularly in the suppression
of the Corpus Christi gild, round which so
much of local trade had centred.'^ The old
plays and functions came to an end now entirely,
or, at all events, in large measure. The citizens
saw with curious eyes, if not with indignation,
the visitors sent round in the summer of 1547
to inaugurate the changes. Next year, in
connection with Scottish affairs, a commission
from London came to search the palatinate
records in Durham. It was soon after this
that the city became an important item in the
programme that the Duke of Northumberland
was scheming. The intention was to make
Durham the capital of a northern principality
over which the duke was to preside, whilst
his son Guilford Dudley should be Prince
Consort in the south to Lady Jane Grey ruling
in London. In forwarding this design, the

" V.C.H. Dur. n, 32.

^* The chief authority for the history is Mickleton
MS. xxxii, Ivii, Ixix. See further below. A good
summary is in Durham School Register.

^* We get the date of the spoiling of the shrine
as March 1538 from the movements of the com-
missioners as foUowed in the State Papers, and the
date of the general destruction of shrines (R. VV.
Dixon, Hist. 0/ Ch. 0/ England from Abolition of Roman
Jurisdiction, ii, 12-72). The description is in Rites
of Dur. (Surt. Soc), 102.

2" Printed in Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), 741-2.

*' The date of the paving is given in the bills named
in the text.

^* L. and P. Hen. Fill, xvii, 1040.

29 L. and P. Hen. Fill, xviii (i), 755, 814.

3» Ibid. 884. 3' Ibid, xix (0,931.

S2 Rites of Dur. (Surt. Soc), 69.

duke meant the castle to be the residence of
the new northern ruler, suggesting that ' his
Majesty receive both the castle which hath a
princely site, and the other stately houses which
the bishop hath in this county.' The king
did resume all the episcopal property in Durham
and elsewhere, but he did not make over to
Northumberland his heart's desire.*'

The reign of Mary soon restored what had
been torn from the see in Durham. The
palatinate power was restored to the bishop,
and he regained the castle as well. The queen
granted him the patronage of the prebends,
and so instituted a right which gave the bishop,
for the time being, the opportunity of filling
the stalls with men agreeable to himself. When
in 1554 the papal jurisdiction was restored,
Durham hailed it with satisfaction. Great
festival was held at the cathedral and the biU
still exists for ' Expens. maid the day that the
proclamation and bonefyrs war maid for the
receyving of the Pope in this realm agayn.' **

The interest of the early years, at all events,
of the long reign of Elizabeth is largely religious,
and will not be dealt with in detail here. The
sympathies of the city were very clearly with the
Marian order, which was now altered. In the
queen's first year the city formed one of the
centres of the great ecclesiastical visitation. **
The visitors made it abundantly evident that
the government would brook no opposition, so
that the citizens probably made up their minds
to bide their time in the hope that one more
rapid revolution of the wheel would bring back
what the visitors were driving away. It was in
a city so actuated that the planning of the
Northern Rebellion in 1569 kindled new hope
and interest. Every notice of Durham during
the closing months of that critical year indicates
suppressed excitement and strong antipathy
towards the government. The moment the
control of the government was relaxed the
inhabitants very largely joined in with the in-
surrection and were willing participators in the
events which centred round the cathedral.
When the premature movement had collapsed
in the gloomy winter days Durham bore a fore-
most part in the vengeance that followed. The
unfortunate Earl of Westmorland lost the houses
which he held within the city. In this way the

'•^ The story is more fully told in Engl. Episcopal
Palaces (Province of York), 161. For the general
connection, see R. \V. Dixon, op. cit. iii, 487, 506.
Northumberland's preposterous letter is in S. P. Dom.
Edw. VI, XV, no. 35.

'* Engl. Episcopal Palaces (Province of York), 163.
The triple arrangement of prebendal hospitality,
alluded to in later days as first, second, and third
class, is seen for the first time in the document there
quoted. The bill is in the Treasury documents.

'5 F.C.H. Dur. ii, 34.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

New Place near St. Nicholas' Church was con-
fiscated, and somewhat later became the pro-
perty of the corporation. Other tenements were
also transferred to the queen.

Just before this ebullition of Durham's latent
sympathy a civic event of great significance took
place in the issue of the first charter of incor-
poration. Until 1565 the old mediaeval order
continued, bailiffs and their underlings being
appointed by the bishop. There is no particular
clue as to the motives of the grant. The reason
may have been that the bishop might ingratiate
himself with the inhabitants, at a time when
Pilkington's letters show that he was sorely in
need of friends. More probably the real circum-
stances have to be sought in the altered condi-
tions of life in the city. A new Durham rose
which knew nothing of the old pilgrim bands,
of the trade which they brought, of the great
Cuthbertine fairs and festivals, of the sanctuary
privileges. It may be supposed that the
mediaeval trade was largely in connection with
monastery, pilgrims and fairs. The city itself
was not populous,^^ and the wants of its in-
habitants were readily supplied by the members
of the trades gilds whose origin we have marked.
Durham no longer attracted great crowds all the
year round, and its fairs have left no clear record
in their perhaps attenuated survival. Probably
the only direct compensation for the great blow
the changes had dealt to the city's trade was the
commencement of the proverbial hospitality
shown by dean and prebendaries during resi-
dence. A chapter act indicates that certain
lands were annexed to the individual prebends
in augmentation of hospitality, and the enact-
ment goes to prove that one of the distinctive
ordinances of the Marian statutes^' was to be no
dead letter. It directs that the prebendaries
' keep residence and hospitality.' One of the
earliest references to the custom belongs to the
reign of Charles I, when the ' Three Norwich
Soldiers,' whose charming diary still exists,
visited Durham, and were entertained in strict
accordance with the statute. It is probable
that such hospitality was not unequal in volume
to the entertainment of strangers by the monas-
tery, but what of the almoner's doles, the
corrodies, and the old customary subventions of
earlier dates f Apparently there are no Eliza-
bethan notices extant of such benefaction on any
large scale by dean and canons. It might on
reflection seem likely that no little bitterness
would exist among the keepers of lodging-
houses and taverns, who had been wont to
receive pilgrims into their houses, and amongst
the sellers of objects of piety who had to deplore

" See below, pp. 42, 46.

8' Stat. 16 in Hutchinson, Hist, and Antiq. of
Dur. ii, 163.

the passing of their trade, and yet had the
mortification of seeing dean and canons lodged
more comfortably and luxuriously than their
monastic predecessors. It has been suggested
that a traditional jealousy between city and
cathedral is due to a condition of affairs which
made the chapter bless the new, and the towns-
men deplore the old. But, on any showing, the
trade of the city was precarious in the later
i6th century, and probably more precarious
than in later times.

How far Bishop Pilkington was concerned to
improve the trade may be questioned, though
its need of patronage can scarcely be doubted.
The charter is dated 31 January 1565, shortly
after the bishop's appearance in the north and
before the Rebellion of the Earls, with its
attempted swing-back to older conditions. It
seems to be modelled upon the ordinary charter
of the time, which may be illustrated at Hartle-
pool and elsewhere. The subservience of the
corporation to the bishop is defined at every
point. The twelve assistants bore office during
good behaviour and for so long a period only as
the bishop should think fit. An oath was taken
in the bishop's presence or in that of his chan-
cellor, and the burgess undertook to keep his
lord's counsel. The rules, decrees and regula-
tions should be subject to the bishop's approval.
In fact, the bishop preserved a rigid control over
his corporation of Durham. The first alderman
was Christopher Surtees, who was probably of
the same family as Robert Surtees, the historian
of Durham, though not a direct ancestor.^*
The family furnished other aldermen or mayors
in later days. Christopher Surtees and his early
successors have left no record of their tenure of
office. They raised no voice of protest that has
left any echo from the rebellion of 1569. Pos-
sibly the magistrates were overawed, but more
probably the majority of the citizens desired the
old times and the old conditions back again.

Pilkington was concerned not only for the
incorporation of the city but for the reformation
of manners therein. To this end he erected a
Consistory Court in 1573, which undertook to
survey the morality of city and diocese, and to
press pains and penalties for sins against the
public decency. He ordered his own procedure
and appointed Robert Swift, one of the Durham
prebendaries, as his official. Some of the acts
of this court survive, and these, together with
various contemporary references to church dis-
cipline, bear witness to the rigorous measures
which were employed in this connection. Such
a regime had been first commenced by the
visitors of 1559, acting under Royal Com-
mission.'* Pilkington pressed it forward, not

'' Surtees, op. cit. iv, 168.

'' Injunctions of Bp. Barnes (Surt. Soc), p. xvii.

CITY OF DURHAM

as prelate only, but as Higli Commissioner under
Letters Patent of 1561.'" Bishop Barnes, his
successor, continued the policy, and was par-
ticularly zealous in disciplining his diocese/^

About this time we get the commencement
of several parish documents which throw some
light upon life in and near Durham. Thus we
have the Gilesgate Grassmen's Accounts from
1579. It was the duty of the Grassman to
take charge of the common lands of the parish.
In the parish of St. Giles these lay to the east,
on what is known as Gillygate Moor. The two
officers elected yearly on the Sunday after
Ascension Day presented their accounts on going
out of office. The returns are interesting
mainly from the narrower parochial point of
view as giving some brief notes of local changes
and local names. Thus we appear to trace the
surrounding of the moor dike with a quickset
hedge about 1580. Houses and allotments for
the poor of the parish had been apportioned on
the moor."*- The vestry books of St. Oswald
begin in 1580, and are largely of the usual type
of churchwardens' accounts, with notes of
repairs to parish buildings, while entries here
and there reflect passing occurrences. These
accounts of St. Oswald's are of some importance
owing to the large extent of the parish in those
days, far beyond the boundaries of the city.

The latent sympathy of many in the city with
the older order is a constant factor in Durham
life, so that a cathedral set and a set of irrecon-
cilables were characteristic of the place for
many a long day. How readily this latter
portion of the populace took the side of the earls
in 1569 has already been seen. The disappointed
rebels acquiesced from that point with an ill
grace, and were probably ready to join in any
new enterprise if occasion offered. At the time
of the Armada there was considerable fear of
some sympathetic movement, and an elaborate
muster was made. Reference has already been
given to the romantic side of the story in the
chequered fortunes of the Jesuit and secular
missionaries who began to give trouble from
about 1580.'" Durham was largely a centre
from which they worked.

A great deal of local Roman Catholic history
is interwoven with old Elvet, which was their
particular resort." Gibbet Knowie, or Knoll,
near the present county hospital, was the scene
of several executions. In 1591 four seminary
priests were put to death on one day, and a story
was long told in Durham which is worthy of

*' Pat. 3 Eliz. pt. X, m. 34 d.

" V.C.H. Dur. ii, 37.

« Mem. of Si. Giles's, Dur. (Surt. Soc), lo.

« y.C.H. Dur. ii, 38.

■" The name ' Popish Elvct ' is still recalled in
Durham. Many of the old Roman Catholic county
families had residences in Elvet.

some primitive martyrology and evidently made
a deep impression. The young bride of Mr.
Robert Maire of Hardwick was present with her
husband, and the pair were so much moved by
the constancy of the dying priests that they both
went over to the Roman Church, to which their
descendants have belonged ever since. The lady
was niece of John Heath, who had settled at
Kepier some years previously, founding a family
long connected with the city and ultimately
the ancestors of the Vane-Tempests. Her father
was Mr. Henry Smith, who diverted his estates
from his ' graceless Grace,' as he calls her, and
made them over in large measure, as we shall see,
to the city of Durham.

It may be supposed that there was some stir
of trade after the incorporation of the city. At
all events, more than one trade gild was estab-
lished or confirmed in Elizabeth's reign, viz., the
mercers, grocers, haberdashers, ironmongers and
salters in 1561, the fuUers in 1565, and the
curriers and chandlers in 1570. The charter of
the last-named shows the same subservience to
the bishop which is characteristic of the city
charter. The title of the fullers' company is
' Clothworkers and Walkers.'*-' The latter name
is still seen in Walkergate, near St. Nicholas'
Church, which has been recently revived instead
of the colloquial and customary Back Lane. The
oldest of all the city gilds, that of the weavers,
was refounded, or at all events rehabilitated
towards the end of the reign.** Some reference
will be found above to the inception of the earlier
gilds,"" but it may be convenient to repeat here
the chronological order of their commencement
so far as it is known : Weavers 1450, cord-
wainers 1458, barbers 1468, skinners and glovers
1507, butchers 1520, goldsmiths 1532, drapers
and tailors 1549. Constant changes, however,
were made in the lilies and the composition of
the gilds in the 17th century. The gilds, with
their curious inclusion of unallied arts, were
probably incorporated together according to
locality. Then the mercers and their allies
centred round the market place, whilst modern
names indicate the habitat of walkers, saddlers,
and fleshers. Recent use, however, has merged
Fleshergate into Saddler Street (properly Gate),
and Sutor Pell, the old locality of the cobblers,
has long since given way to Elvet Bridge. There
does not appear to be sufficient evidence to
follow the development of trade under the super-
vision of the gilds during the Elizabethan period.
The general impression given by a cursory survey
of their meagre records for that time tends to
show a stagnant condition of affairs in this par-
ticular respect. It is not improbable that some

*^ Surtces, op

« Ibid.

*' See above, p. 26.

cit. IV, 21.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

of the minor unions jusiified their existence as
social clubs rather than as serious commercial
organizations. Thus the cordwainers ' paid for
the minstrcll ' i8^. in 1568, in 1575 ' to William
Weddrell our mynstrcU ' iSd., in 1578 ' to the
waytts ' zs. In 1588 the drapers and tailors
have an item ' gyven to the mynstrall at our
dinner p. ^d.'' There are entries, too, of
special benefactions to deserving and necessitous
persons, and occasionally a payment for some
public festivity, as, for instance, in 1599, when
one company 'paid for y* tar barrels I2(/.,' no
doubt at a time of thanksgiving for the passing of
the plague.

But the most enduring excitement in Durham
during the last years of the i6th century was the
constant search for Jesuits and seminary priests,
to which allusion has already been made.''* The
prison in the north gate of the castle above
Saddler Street was often fuU of recusants, not to
mention the debtors who were constantly there.
The first recorded benefaction for the latter was
made in 1572 by John Franklyn of Cochen Hall,
who bequeathed a small annual sum to the
prisoners and other poor people of the city.''*
In the Armada year there was some stir in
Durham in connection with the probability of a
Spanish descent upon the coast, and prepara-
tions were made, apparently, to defend the city
against any sudden incursion,^" but the pikes
and the corselets were never used in battle array.
A visit from Bothvvcll in 1593 seems to have
caused little interest.^!

The long reign ebbed out miserably. There
were several visitations of plague, with no evi-
dence of any activity on the part of the new
corporation in preventive measures. A severe
outbreak in 1589 had been preceded two years
earlier by a failure of the crops, which brought
prices up to famine pitch, as the parish registers
attest with much detail." As in the days of the
Judges, such scarcity was aggravated by marau-
ders. The Scots, who had been comparatively
still for many a long year, made frequent incur-
sions into the bishopric if not into Durham
itself. A letter of 1595 from the Secretary of
the Council of the North says : ' Raids, incur-
sions and frays [arc] more common into the
Bishopric than heretofore on the Border.'*' In
1598 the keeper of the gaol at Durham described
in much detail the robberies perpetrated by the
Scots. But locally all these troubles and
rumours of mischief paled before the terrible

«8 V.C.H. Dur. ii, 38-9.
^' Surtees, op. cit. iv, 29.
so Cal. Border Papers, i, 610.
" Ibid. 874.

S2 Registers of St. Nicholas, St. Oswald and St.
Giles, sub anno ; cf . Surtees, op. cit. iv, 6.
■*3 Cal. Border Papers, ii, 103.

plague of 1598, which broke out again in the
autumn of the next year. This pestilence was
long remembered for its appalling mortality,
nor did the gloom it occasioned lift for some
years. It may be said to have disorganized the
city and neighbourhood. The St. Nicholas
register records of 1597 : ' In this year was the
great Visitation in the Cittie of Durham.' The
summer assizes were postponed because of its
violence. It first broke out in Elvet, and there
was soon a general flight of all who could leave.
The poor had booths and huts made upon the
moors outside Durham, but they died off rapidly,
so that, as one account says : ' poor Durham
this year was almost undone.' The gaol did not
escape, and twenty-four prisoners were carried
out for burial from it. In addition to these 400
died in Elvet, 100 in St. Nicholas, 200 in St.
Margaret's, 60 in St. Giles', 60 in the North
Bailey; and Durham was not alone in the dis-
aster, for the disease spread to many of the towns
and villages in the neighbourhood.

The one bright spot in a time of terrible gloom
was the institution of Smith's Charity in 1598.
This eventually became the main conduit into
which the minor city charities were brought.
Henry Smith, to whom reference has already
been made,'^ was a prominent citizen. He had
married the daughter of John Heath the elder,
of Kepier, and was doubly identified with the
city. By his will he left real and personal estate
of some value to the city of Durham, ' chiefly
that some good trade may be devised for the
setting of youth and other idle persons to work
as shall be thought most convenient whereby
some profits may appear to the benefit of this
city, and relief of those that are past work and
have lived honestly upon their trade.' Before
long, as we shall see, this benefaction became the
means of promoting the cloth trade in Durham,
and after many vicissitudes, frequent inquiries,
and several new schemes, the charity still exists
as an important factor in the charitable funds
of the city.*5

The Elizabethan period was not marked by
much building in Durham. A return of 1564
had noted the decay of Elvet and Shincliffe
Bridges. Elvet Bridge was newly built in 1574.
In 1588 the county house was erected on Palace
Green.** This building was of wood, and was
used by the justices for the dispatch of business.
A legend over the door of an upper room for the
jurors contained the words ' God preserve our
gracious Queen Elizabeth the founder hereof
25 July 1588.' Separated by a passage from the

*■' See above, p. 31.

** Surtees has collected an account of Smith's
Charity (op. cit. iv, 26), and modern summaries are
given by Carlton in his Dur. Charities.

*6 Mickleton MS. xxxvi, fol. 317.

CITY OF DURHAM

wooden county house was a court room for the
judges of assize, which was built over the
bishop's stables. Cosin made great changes in
these buildings some eighty years afterwards.

There are several references to ' decays in the
bishopric ' ^' in contemporary documents, and
mention is made in one paper under date 1593
of decays in bishopric houses,^* but there is no
special mention of Durham itself in this con-
nexion, though a story is preserved of the poor
accommodation found by a queen's messenger
who visited the city in 1594.*° A note of 1589
speaks of wanton damage to Neville's Cross
during the night.*"

With Elizabeth's last year we reach a landmark
of considerable local importance in the charter
of Bishop Matthew, which superseded the
earlier charter of Pilkington. He was one of the
few men in high office in the bishopric who really
knew Durham before his elevation. He had been
dean for thirteen years, and in that position "*
exercised wide influence as High Commissioner
and member of the Council of the North. To
this intimate knowledge of the place and its needs
we may attribute the new grant. Attention has
been already drawn to the bondage of the city to
the bishop's will : dummodo episcopus non contra-
dixerit had been its keynote, at least three times
repeated in Pilkington's charter. There had been
no increase in the trade and well-being of Dur-
ham, and the troubles of the last decade of
the sixteenth century had greatly exhausted
the resources of the district. Bishop Matthew's
charter was an honest attempt to improve
matters by giving the corporation greater inde-
pendence, so increasing their energy and self-
respect. Complaints had been made in recent
years that the grants of various bishops were
somewhat nebulous. Probably Pudsey's charter,
still preserved at that time in the city archives,
had been vaguely cited and misunderstood, as
has been its fate in still more recent days.'-
The bishop now granted a mayor to be elected
annually with twelve aldermen appointed during
their good behaviour, and without the obnoxious
provision of submission to the bishop's pleasure.
There was to be a common council of twenty-
four annually elected out of the twelve chief
crafts or gilds which by this time had received
incorporation. Thus in the order of the charter
two were elected by the mercers, grocers, haber-
dashers, ironmongers and salterers ; two by

" e.g. Cal. Border Papers,u, 323 ; S. P. Dom. Eliz.
cclix, no. 3.

68 S. P. Dom. Eliz. Add. xxxii, no. 83.

6' Cal. Border Papers, i, 931.

'"//rcA. Jel. xiii, 215. Cf. Rius 0/ Dur. (Surt.
See), 28.

«i r.C.H. Dur. ii, 38.

*^ S. P. Dom.'Jas. I, no. 72.

3 33

the drapers and tailors ; two by the skinners and
glovers ; two by the tanners ; two by the
weavers ; two by the dyers and fullers ; two by
the cordwainers ; two by the saddlers ; two by
the butchers ; two by the smiths ; two by the
carpenters and joiners ; two by the free-masons
and rough-hewers. Thus the common council
consisted of thirty-six persons, a number
which was maintained.*^ Much is made of the
authority given to make laws and ordinances
for the city, but it is provided that these are not
to be repugnant to any statutes of the realm.
Fuller grant of fees is made than under the
earlier charter, and hberties and customs held
by charter or prescriptive right were confirmed.
The very amplitude of the privileges confirmed
led to dispute in a future that was not very
distant. It was not difficult to press a good many
claims under cover of 'custom and prescriptive
right.' For the present, however, there was no
friction, and the improved administration of the
city was soon seen when another visitation of the
plague came, but with inconsiderable damage,
owing to the excellent measures taken by the
corporation to prevent the spread of infection.**

With the accession of the house of Stuart
greater prosperity came to Durham. The Tudors
had never been its friends, and never visited the
city with the exception of the memorable stay
of Princess Margaret.*^ In 1603 her great-
grandson James VI of Scotland and I of England
passed through on his way to the south, and
from this point, for nearly half a century, several
royal visits were paid, which had the effect of
directing some attention to the place, and were
certainly appreciated by the inhabitants. An
interesting account of the king's progress sur-
vives. He entered by Framwellgate Bridge and
was met in the market-place by the corporation
in all the glory of their new livery, with the
Mayor of Durham, James Farrales, at their head.
Reference was made to ' so great a sorrow as
had lately possessed them all,' and this is as likely
to refer to the still recent visitation of the plague
as to the late queen's death. The cavalcade
then passed up Saddlergate and into the castle,
where the bishop received his Majesty attended
by a hundred gentlemen in tawny liveries. An
act of clemency marked the occasion, the king
signing a royal warrant for the release of certain
prisoners in the gaol.

Events of considerable civic interest took
place in Durham during the next few years.

*' For further details of this Charter see below,
p. 56. It is set out in full in Hutchinson, op. cit.
ii, 29 etc. or 23 etc.

** Surtees, op. cit. iv, 160. See their regulation in
Mickleton MS. xci, fin.

** See above, p. 27, and V.C.H. Dur. ii, 28; NichoU's
Progresses oj Queen Elizabeth, iii, App.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

In 1606 Matthew Pattison,'* the son of a burgess,
and either son or brother of John Pattison,
mercer, mayor in i6o8, presented a seal of fine
design to the corporation. The seal is an excellent
piece of mediaeval art representing a bishop
vested, mitred and holding his staff in his
left hand, raising his right hand in attitude of
blessing. He stands in a niche under a trefoil
arch with canopy rising to three spires between
which are the sun and moon. On either side of
the shafts of the niche is a shield of England
ensigned with a mitre, the rim of which is not

The Seal of the City of Durham

heightened with the coronet of the Palatinate.
Below the figure of the bishop are the arms of
the city. The legend is in Lombardic capitals :

s' COMVNE CIVITAt' DVNELMIE. The gift of the

seal probably coincided with a royal confir-
mation of Matthew's charter in February
1606. There is no evidence to show how or
why this confirmation was made by the king.
In the light of subsequent
events, it is possible that
some representation was
made by the city to the
king, and that he was not
unwilling to do the citizens
a favour notwithstanding
the fact that the action
was in derogation of the
bishop's authority. The

CiTV OF Durham.

Sable a cross argent
voided gules.

seal is stiU in use as the
official seal of the cor-
poration. The arms of the
city of Durham given at
the visitation of 1615" and used for some time
later are as here shown. In the eighteenth
century it became usual to adopt the arms
of the see : azure, a cross of St. Edward or,

" Perhaps the engraver of an excellent map of
Durham in British Museum (1595). It is of great im-
portance, being older than Speed's well-known map.

*' The reference is Heralds' College C.32, fol. 4b.

between three lioncels argent. This adopted
episcopal coat has been assumed by the city in
lieu of its own achievement, and has been
widely usurped by the county as well."*

In the summer following the intrusive Letters
Patent of James I referred to above, Bishop
Matthew was transferred to York. For the second
time a Dean of Durham was appointed bishop.
The new prelate, William James, seems to have
been very much the college don. He was pro-
bably a better Ecclesiastical Commissioner
than dean or bishop. His tenure of office in the
deanery left little trace, but as bishop he came
into collision with the city at a point where the
new corporation were exceedingly sensitive. In
the mediaeval constitution of the city the chief
officer was the bishop's baihff. Until Pilkington's
charter this official, with the name of the bailiff
of the borough and city of Durham, had been
responsible to the bishop for collecting a variety
of dues, such as land-male, rents, tolls, profits,
fines and amerciaments of courts, fairs, and
markets. In effect he was, until the charter of
incorporation, the chief magistrate of the city.
More particularly there had been time out of
mind an ancient borough court which the bailiff
and his underling, the steward of the borough,
held in the Tolbooth. This building stood
at the side of the market-place, and consisted of
shops and stalls on the ground floor, surmounted
by an upper story containing a court-room of
some size, which was used for the borough court
and for other civic purposes. The building had
been rebuilt by Bishop Tunstall, and bore his
arms emblazoned upon it.*°

Over the holding of the fortnightly court
and other privileges fierce strife arose between
Bishop James and the corporation. On the
natural interpretation of the charter of 1602
the mayor was the proper president of the
court under the new constitution. This, at all
events, was his own contention, and friction
had been of long standing on the subject,'"
but had only become acute at the time when
Bishop James was appointed. The bishop main-
tained that the mayor was usurping authority
over the court, and accordingly took upon himself
to revert to the old arrangement of holding the
court under the presidency of a bailiff to be
appointed. He nominated Edward Hutton as

** The ofEcial Durham heraldry is somewhat com-
plicated. The best treatment of it is in the Herald
and Genealogist for 1872, where vnll be found an
excellent paper by Mr. W. H. Dyer Longstafle on
' The Old Official Heraldry of Durham.' There is
also a more recent paper by Dr. J. T. Fowler in the
Durham University Journal ioT 1885, p. 108.

"" Hist. Dunelm. Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), 155.

'" So we gather from the Exchequer Deposition,
which is the chief source of information as to the
history of the strife.

Plan ok tiii; City or Durham c. i6ii
{]W J. Speed)

CITY OF DURHAM

bailiff, and John Richardson as steward. When
these gentlemen took their seats in the court
room on Mayor's Day 1609, and proceeded to
open the court in the bishop's name, they were
opposed by a concerted arrangement between the
six mayors who had served under Matthew's
charter. One of them tried to pull the bailiff
out of his chair. Another coming to his aid
succeeded in hustling the unfortunate man
out of the Tolbooth, whilst confederates seized
the bishop's court books and threw them into
the street. Below in the market-place invective
was heard against bailiff and steward, many of
the inhabitants congregating about them and
calling aloud to commit them to the stocks or
even to duck them in the pant hard by. At
last with much ado the two officers effected their
escape from the crowd, carrying the tale of their
outrageous treatment to the bishop. It was not
possible to brook an insult such as this, and
Bishop James hoping, it may be, to make an
example of the rebellious corporation began a
suit in the Court of Exchequer instead of
dealing with the matter, as he might have done,
in the ordinary assize. The suit was heard in
Easter Term 1610. The depositions of the
various witnesses in response to the lengthy
interrogatories form one of the most useful
sources of information that we possess in regard
to the corporation history. Opportunity was
taken not only to discover the main question at
issue but to elucidate other matters, such as the
customs of the city in respect of fees, commons,
fairs, and so forth. The hearing was adjourned
from term to term, being completed in June
1610, when the Exchequer decree was issued.

The bishop recited all the rights for which
he contended, laying claim to all the local courts,
fees, commons, and their privileges. He asserted
that the mayor merely pretended that he was
principal of the courts to the manifest disherison
of the bishop ; that the defendants being of the
greatest wealth in the city had conspired to
deprive the bishop of his rightful possessions
in the city ; that they had tried to usurp
privileges, and, in order to give colour to their
action, had procured and obtained a new
grant of incorporation and in virtue of this
strove to challenge and take away the privileges
mentioned ; that before and since the assault
they entered the tolbooth and claimed certain
rights — e.g., the clerkship of the market, assize
of bread and ale, etc. ; that they started new
tolls, erected a mayor's court, nominated their
own steward ; that they set forth in speeches
their claim ; that they used the common lands
as their freehold ; that they held court leet for
cases determinable only in the sheriff's turn.
The defendants in their responsive plea urged
their charters. They asserted that the city
was a body corporate by prescription. They

produced what is evidently Pudsey's charter in
order to prove their mediaeval corporate status.'*
They claimed gilds, tolbooth, '^ clerk of market,
courts leet, borough court as belonging to the
corporation. If they conceded that the bishop
was in the last resort the owner of the common
lands they had the right of pasture thereon.
They claimed all burgages, messuages, and
tenements in the city connected with the cor-
poration as theirs. Then with some historical
retrospect they mentioned controversy before
Privy Council upon such matters as were now
in dispute. After Pilkington's incorporation
there was no difficulty, they said, until recently.
Finally they laid stress on the fact that they
enjoyed their liberties until Edward Hutton
and John Richardson by the bishop's appoint-
ment disturbed them. The bishop in reply
to this reaffirmed his points. He funher said
that the town was governed by the bishop's
bailiff until about 10 Elizabeth, when Richard
Raw, then bailiff, assigned the office to some of
the burgesses, reserving his fee of 20 nobles.
Then the town got a grant from Pilkington of
alderman and assistants with courts, fees, etc.
After Raw came William Mann, as bishop's
bailiff, who assigned as Raw did. Under
Bishop Hutton the townsmen renewed their
grant of alderman with the grant of a new fair,
but these two grants were not confirmed. The
clerkship was an ancient office granted under
patent. The bishop strongly maintained his
rights over the commons. Once more the
defendants replied denying the bishop's seisin
of streets, wastes, soil, and burgages : these had
always been corporation property. The tol-
booth was not the bishop's, and any building
thereon had been merely of devotion and
Christian charity for the relief of a poor cor-
poration. Raw and Mann made no assignment
of fees as alleged. Burgage fines were not paid
to the bishop, nor did the gilds originate with
him. Eventually the final hearing came on in
London. Serjeant Hutton, Mr. Prideaux, and
Mr. Topham were counsel for the bishop, and
for the mayor and other defendants Serjeant
Nicholls, Mr. Davenport, and Mr. Brown. It
appeared that the bishop was seised of city and
borough, of the courts, fees and so forth, and
that the appointment of baihff rested with him,
whilst all the matters claimed by the city were
his. Accordingly it was ordered that the
bishop should hold the tolbooth, shops and
houses, fees, markets, fairs, and the old rights
of stallage, pickage, and scavalhire, appointing
his bailiff to receive the same. In fact, all
the points in dispute were conceded to the
bishop, and it was decreed that the defendants

'* See below, pp. 54-5.
72 See above, pp. 22, 34.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

should erect no new fairs, hold no courts, and
receive no fees."

The decision was a triumph to the bishop,
and a bitter disappointment to the city. Neither
side was wholly in the right, but in view of the
unequivocal phrasing of Bishop Matthew's
charter granting courts and fees to the cor-
poration it is difficult to see how the Court of
Exchequer could fairly reach the conclusion at
which they ultimately arrived. It was not
disputed that the corporation had in point of
fact exercised many of the privileges which were
in question, and it could not be gainsaid that
the charter of 1602, confirmed by the king
himself, gave good title to these rights as the
city contended.'* It does not appear that the
bishops had consistently appointed bailiffs
since 1565 nor that the mayor's bailiff had been
prohibited from holding courts and taidng fees.
It would seem probable on a review of the
whole evidence that the city had gained am-
biguous concessions from a weak bishop, and
had improved upon these despite sundry ques-
tions and objections raised from time to time
in Elizabeth's reign.'* Then came the charter
of 1602 and the Letters Patent of 1606'* which
the corporation doubtless hailed as bestowing
upon them all that they had usurped. At last
Bishop James called in question the whole
tenure of their independent privileges, with the
result sketched above. But the townsmen did
not forget their discomfiture, and the bishop
probably regretted his triumph in the long
embitterment which followed. Next year his
hands were full with the case of Lady Arabella
Stuart, for whom he was bidden to prepare
rooms in Durham Castle. It is not wonderful
that Bishop James broke down under the strain
of his cares, and was obliged to seek for a change
at Bath," where he nursed his feelings as well
as he could. As we shall see, the feud with the
town can be traced for some time, and this is
seen in the next episode of Durham history to
which we now pass.

In the spring of 1617 King James paid a
memorable visit to Scotland. His passage
through the bishopric was a local event of
considerable interest. Much preparation was
made for it. In the city a memorial of the
occasion was erected which was long a prominent
feature of the market place. Reference has
been made above to the transference of the

'3 The P.R.O. reference is Mickleton MS. i, 368,
or 25-7.

'* See Hutchinson, op. cit. ii, 34, 35, 36.

'* This is behind the preamble of 1 602 (Hutchinson,
op. cit. 30). He says to Salisbury (S. P. Dom. Jas. I,
L. no. 72) that the citizens ' in their pride usurp
things never granted, and chaOenge things not
grantable.' '« Hutchinson, op. cit. 37 or 28.

" Cal. S. P. Dom. 1603-11, p. 573.

Gillygate sanctuary cross to the site of the
pre-Reformation lolbooth. It would seem prob-
able that the marble cross then set up was
already much weathered when it was placed
within the market area. Thomas Emerson,
a retainer of the Nevill family who now in his
old age lived in London, presented the city
with a new market cross covered with lead and
supported by twelve pillars of stone on which
he carved the arms of his ancient masters ' for
the ornament of the city and the commodity of
the people frequenting the market of Durham.'
This cross was ultimately removed in 1780 and
its place was then taken by the Piazza of nine
arches which stood until, within living memory,
the P Hs of local phrase"* was taken down.

The king reached Auckland as the bishop's
guest on Maundy Thursday. Perhaps on his
own initiative, but more probably at the sug-
gestion of some one in position, James sent a
messenger to the mayor to announce his inten-
tion of visiting the city in state on Easter Eve.
Preparations were made for his reception, and
with such elaborate care that previous arrange-
ment is at once suggested. The mayor, George
Walton, on horseback, met the king's retinue
on Elvet Bridge, where the aldermen and council
stood round him as he made a speech to the
monarch. This speech records that the king
' finds this city enabled with divers liberties
and privileges.' It goes on in a strain which is
clearly intended to reflect upon the bishop's
attitude : ' all sovereignty and power spiritual
and temporal being in yourself, your Majesty
was pleased to give unto us the same again
and also of gracious bounty to confirm them
under your great seal of England.' The refer-
ence is, of course, to the intrusive confirmation
of Matthew's charter in 1606. A presentation
of a silver bowl was next made to the king.
The procession was then formed, the mayor
riding over the bridge in front of the king;
another halt was made in the market place,
apparently where a stand had been erected
from which an apprentice recited certain verses
which," poor as they are, could scarcely, perhaps,

"* The Tees-side endeavour to say Piazza.

'* The verses have the value of a political ballad,
since they give a view of the real feelings of the
tradesmen of the city at that time in a way which
the general history can so rarely convey :

Durham's old city thus salutes our king !
Which entertainment she doth humbly bring ;
And can not smile upon His Majesty
With show of greatness, but humility
Makes her express herself in modern guise.
Dejected to this north, bare to your eyes
For the great prelate which of late adored
Her dignities, and for which we implored
Your highness' aid to have continuance,
And so confirmed by your great dread severance.

CITY OF DURHAM

have been prepared since the two days' notice
of the visit which the king had given. They
show clearly how the corporation were seizing
the opportunity in order to steal from the king,
if it might be, some concession or privilege, at
the least, though no doubt they ventured to
hope for the restitution of the liberties they
had so recently lost.™

The king made no recorded response to the
effusion of the corporation, but continued his
progress to the cathedral and spent the next
few days mainly at the castle, which he ulti-
mately left on 24 April. At the castle some-
thing took place which had a tragic ending.
For some neglect, perhaps, or for some other
reason the king took the bishop aside and
soundly rated him ; whereon the unfortunate
prelate took it so much to heart that he fell
ill and died in less than three weeks. It may
be that King James hectored the bishop on
behalf of the corporation whom his majesty
had already tried to serve by his ill-considered
confirmation of the 1602 charter. Whether
this is so, or whether some other neglect were

But what our royal James did grant herein,

William our Bishop hath oppugnant been.

Small quest to sway down smallness, where man's might

Hath greater force than equity or right.

But these are only in your breast included,

Your subjects know them not, but are secluded

From your most gracious grant. Therefore, we pray

That the fair sunshine of your most brightest day

Would smile upon this city with clear beams,

To exhale the tempest of ensuing streams.

Suffer not, great prince, our ancient state

By one forced Will to be depopulate.

'Tis one seeks our undoing, but to you

Ten thousand hearts shall pray, and knees shall bow ;

And this dull cell of earth wherein we live

Unto your name immortal praise shall give.

Confirm our grant, good king, Durham's old city

Would be more powerful so't had James's pity.

The ' great prelate ' is Bishop Matthew who gave
the charter of 1602. ' WiUiam our Bishop ' is, of
course. Bishop James. ' Secluded from your grant '
refers to the recent Exchequer decree. ' Ancient
state ' : they still hark back to one of their main
contentions, viz., the ancient grant by Tunstall
and long before by Pudsey of what was in dispute.
' Ten thousand ' is, of course, no allusion to the
population of Durham since that had not reached
10,000 two centuries later. ' Dull cell of earth '
must convey their sense of the lack of trade expansion,
vnth possibly some allusion to the ungenial climate
of Durham.

" There is e\'idence that the corporation preferred
a petition to the king when he was at Durham, and
this was referred, apparently, by the king to Sir
Thomas Lake and others. S. P. Dom. Jas. I, iciii,
no. 121. See further as to this and the statement
prepared on the bishop's behalf to rebut the mayor's
claims under Jurisdictions, p. 58.

charged against the bishop,*" it is certain that
his funeral took place at night, obviously to
avoid any hostile demonstration. When two
months later a more popular appointment was
made in the person of Bishop Neile, the delayed
obsequies were more fitly celebrated, but mean-
while, the night after the interment, riots
occurred in the city with threats of damage to
the bishop's property, intended as a civic
protest against the action of the late prelate."

It was no doubt the triumph of the bishop
in the Exchequer suit which quickened the
local desire for Parliamentary representation.
The matter was first mooted at this time at a
meeting of quarter sessions in 161 5 when the
gentlemen assembled considered the proposal.
In 1620 there was drawn up ' the humble
petition of the knights, gentlemen, and free-
holders of the County Palatine of Durham
together with the Mayor and Citizens of the
City of Durham.' On this was framed a bill
giving two members to the county, two to the
city, and two to Barnard Castle.*- The bill
was passed by the Commons in 1621 and was
thrown out by the Lords. The agitation began
again in 1626 and in 1629.*^ Cromwell was
the first to grant representation to city and
county. Cosin withstood its continuance after
the Restoration, nor was it again allowed
until 1675. The surrendered liberties of 1610
were not forgotten meanwhile. Whilst the
king was in Durham in 1617 John Richardson,
who had been so roughly handled in the tol-
booth fracas, drew up under seventeen heads
' by way of breviate ' a description of ' the
form and state of the government of the city
of Durham used since the time of Edward III.' **
The case is stated very much from the bishop's
point of view, and the corporation are attacked
for ' their discontented humour and clamour.'
Later in the same year the mayor wrote up to
London wishing to know when ' the vindication
of the city liberties can be heard.'** It does
not appear that any such appeal was really
tried, but instead Bishop Neile effected a com-
promise. In 1627 he demised to Thomas
Mann, Thomas Cook, Thomas Tunstall and

*' The Durham story is that the king found the
Castle beer too new ! Mickleton gives different
accounts : in one place ' Some neglect or some other
reason ' ; in another, a neglect due to some of the
bishop's officials. (Mickleton MS. i, fol. 395*.)

** S. P. Dom. Jas. I, xcii, no. 33.

*^ It was also proposed to unite the divisions of
Bedlington, Norhamshire, and Islandshire with North-
umberland (S. P. Dom. Chas. I, x, no. 64).

** The subsidies and forced loans quickened the
desire. Cal. S. P. Dom. 1627, p. 121.

** To be found in Mickleton MS. i A, fol. 105. See
also under Jurisdictions, p. 58.

" S. P. Dom. Jas. I, iciii, no. 121.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

William Walton, the borough of Durham and
Framwellgate, including the tolbooth and its
appendages, with fees, courts, markets, fairs,
etc. The grant was for twenty-one years and
the yearly payment ;^20. Accordingly these
three citizens, of whom Mann became mayor
in 1630, farmed the city until the grip of the
Scots was laid upon Durham in the troublous
days that followed. **

In the recent dispute a variety of small
rights and dues connected with the fairs and
markets had come into question. The new
farmers of the city had considerable difficulty
with one of these which figures largely in the
controversy. Scavage, otherwise Schevage,
Schewage, or Skewage, but often locally spoken
of as Scavell, was a very ancient toU taken
from merchants and others for wares exposed
for sale within the liberty. In Durham the
toU was of ancient right and had been exer-
cised, it is probable, for hundreds of years.*'
The local custom was to exact it in the name of
the bailiff or other officer at the ringing of what
was called the corn bell. The seller of corn,
or other grain, of oatmeal, and of salt, had to
pay a measure from every bushel of twelve
gallons. The measure was a reputed pint.
In point of fact, however, the pint had come to
be rather more, and was frequently heaped up
by the officer. It was said that at Darlington
and Auckland the measure was smaller, and
this was urged as a grievance. Sometimes the
due was farmed out for a fee paid. The farmers
under the lease of 1627 worked the due them-
selves at a considerable profit, using the larger
measure and heaping up the grain. Persons
who lived at a distance had been put to con-
siderable inconvenience by the delay occasioned
in taking the tax, so that the afternoon of fair
or market day was often reached before they
were able to open sale, and sometimes they
were constrained to pass the night in Durham,
riding home on Sunday. Against these griev-
ances one Margaret Forster made petition to
the bishop, and a Durham chancery suit was
the result. It was ordered that the old arrange-
ment be continued, but with certain modifica-
tions. Henceforth the scavage measure was to
be a uniform pint, and ' shall not be upheaped
but by hand-stroke, and even stricken by the
taker.' The corn-bell was henceforth to be
rung at noon, and, if it was not rung, the sellers
should be at liberty to begin the sale. The whole
question had been further complicated by the
claim of certain people, e.g., the tenants of
Newton Hall, to be quit of the due, and also by

** Given in Mickleton MS. i, fol. 410J.

*' A statute of Parliament under Henry VII had
forbidden scavage, but the Act did not, apparently,
affect Durham.

the uncertainty as to whether corn sold privately
on other than fair and market days should be
liable to toll. Freemen of the city naturally
claimed to be toll free, but the farmers had
been exacting the due even from them, though
of ancient right, goods and cattle belonging to
freemen had paid no due.*''

Some evidence of the interest taken by the
Corporation in their position and prestige is to
be seen in a compilation of 1626 in which George
Walton, mayor for that year, drew up an inven-
tory ' of such things as doth belong to the said
city,' for which the mayor was answerable.
Several of the items had been dispersed, but
were collected by Walton and handed over to
his successor. These possessions consisted
partly of old grants, including the charter of
Pudsey, partly of newer grants like Matthew's
charter, and partly of recent rentals, decrees,
and commissions. More interesting than these
were the Corporation plate, consisting of a
silver-gilt bowl, a drinking cup, the seal referred
to above,*"' a mace. All these articles have been
lost, and the book,*'" later known as the Cor-
poration book, disappeared within living memory.
The existing Corporation plate, other than the
seal, is of later date.*''' The evidence also refers
to one or two benefactions of then recent date.

The Arminian movement was now beginning
to attract attention, and for some years to come
the ' innovations ' in progress drew on Durham
the eyes of England. All this has been recorded
in a previous volume.** The dispute figures
largely in State documents of the time.** The
outstanding event of the story from the point
of view of the city was the visit of the King
in 1633. Again great preparations were made,
and the roads were repaired for the regal pro-
gress. Another visit was made in 1639*" in
which the city took special interest, holding a
meeting ' to set down a convenient and fit
taxation and sessment to be raised and levied
out of the several trades and occupations within

*'* The account given above is made up from the
various depositions and orders. See for the final
order Hutchinson, op. cit. ii, 40-2 or 31 ; and for the
depositions Dur. Rec. cl. 7, no. 35, 43.

*"• See above, p. 34.

*'° A summary is given in Surtees, op. cit. iv, 159.
A copy of the lost book exists in the Rawlinson MSS.
at the Bodleian Library. *'" See below, p. 4I.

«* V.C.H. Dur. ii, 43.

** For a general account see S. P. Dom. Chas. I,
clirrii, no. 61, and for the bishop's defence ibid,
clxxivi, no. 107-8.

^ An interesting diary survives with some account
of Durham in the turmoil of the King's stay, B.M.
Add. MS. 28566. Edited by Mr. J. C. Hodgson in
North Country Diaries: Surtees Society, no. 118. A
description of the city in 1617 has already been
mentioned (above, p. 36).

CITY OF DURHAM

the said city and suburbs.' Unfortunately the
question of proportion led to some bickering,
and a suit in the Durham chancery.'* The
occasion of this visit was the King's northern
progress in connection with the first Bishops'
War. The cloud which then hung over the
north disappeared for the time being, but only
to gather again next year.

One or two local changes prior to the great
dividing line of 1640 may be mentioned in
passing. In 1614 an important partition of
the commons of Crossgate and Elvet was
effected. A commission of six was first ap-
pointed to arbitrate and an award was made
embodying their decision.'" In 1630 Kepier was
granted away from the Heaths to the Coles,
who in 1674 ^°^'^ ^^ ^° ^^^ Musgraves. In 1631
the Abbey bells were recast. In 1632 a house
of correction was built on the south side of
Elvet Bridge,'^ an inscription on the door giving
that date. This place of imprisonment was
used as a lock-up until 1821, when the new gaol
at the end of Elvet was built.** In 1633 when
King Charles came to Durham ' a way was made
for him to come in at Elvet Head,' thus passing
from the Shinclifle Bridge round Nab End
and along the Hollow Drift.'^ In 1637 the
old church of St. Mary-le-Bow was disused and
lay waste until its rebuilding fifty years later.
The tower fell in, bringing with it a large part
of the western portion of the church.** In the
same year a suit was instituted in the Durham
Chancery against Cuthbert Billingham, a des-
cendant of the original 15th-century Billingham,
who had given the water conduit which supplied
the market place. The water had been recently
diverted and the result of the suit was to restore
to the citizens the interrupted supply. A little
later than this the Bishop's Mill was rebuilt
below Crook Hall with a straight dam across the
river some 200 yards below its present position."

The second Bishops' War in 1640 made
Durham a military camp held sometimes by
Scots and sometimes by English troops. This
began in the summer when soldiers were
billeted in the city on their way to repel the
Scottish army. After Newburn fight they came
running back, and their rapid passage was the
signal for a general flight of the church party
from Durham, leaving castle and cathedral to
the Scots, who soon followed up their victory.
There was undoubtedly some sympathy in the

»i Mickleton MS. i, fol. 387.

'■- Surtees, op. cit. iv, 66-7.

'3 Register of St. Mar>'-Ie-Bow.

^ Surtees, op. cit. iv, 56.

«5 Ibid. 39.

»* The great thorn which was a feature of the
churchyard for at least two centuries perhaps perished
at this time (Ibid.).

" This evidence is given in a later suit.

place with the covenanting party, though this
probably vanished as the Scots held city and
palatinate in their grasp, and the unfortunate
inhabitants were forced to pay an indemnity
of large amount." The Scots were inclined to
be somewhat reckless, and Durham tradition
has preserved instances of iconoclasm perpe-
trated by them in the cathedral and elsewhere."
They destroyed the cathedral organ which had
been set up in 1621, and the old font, doing
other damage elsewhere in the city.'*" The day
of their departure in August 1641 was gratefully
remembered, but they went only to return in
1644, and to stay much longer. The Civil
War had broken out in the meanwhile, and the
Scots again occupied Durham on their way
to Marston Moor,* after which the Royalist
cause went down in the north. This second
invasion was further aggravated by an outbreak
of plague in 1644, the worst visitation since
1598.2

The disturbed state of Durham during the
Commonwealth and Protectorate is seen in the
irregular way in which the local records are
kept from this time until the Restoration.'
For this reason it is not possible to follow the
history of the city with any great detail. Dur-
ham saw Charles again in 1647, when he passed
through in custody of the Scottish commis-
sioners. At this time the church lands (and
these included most of the city) had been con-
fiscated and placed in the hands of trustees for
disposal.* There is practically no light as to
what happened in detail in Durham. Probably
dean and chapter property and episcopal lands
and houses were leased out : their sale in such
uncertain times is scarcely likely to have been
carried out widely. One or two sales we can
trace. The castle was bought in 1650 by Sir
Thomas Andrews, draper, and Lord Mayor of
London (1649). He died before the Restora-
tion,^ and the disposition of his property in
Durham is not known. In 165 1 the trustees
sold to the mayor, aldermen and commonalty of
Durham ' all that the borough of Durham, with
the rights, members, and appurtenances thereof,
also the office of baileywick, all markets, fairs,
court of pie-powder, toUs, courts.' * In fact,
everything which the bishop had claimed in
the dispute of 1610 was sold outright under
this instrument to the persons specified. Then

'8 See F.C.H. Dur. ii, 48-9 and the notes.
*' Rius of Durham (Surt. Soc), 163, 269.
loo Ibid.

* Perfect Diurnal, Burney Newspapers, no. 18.

* As the Parish Registers seem to prove.

' Mem. of St. Giles's, Dur. (Surt. Soc), 69 n.
«See V.C.H. Dur.'n, 51.

* Between I Nov. 1659 and May 1660.

* The deed is in Mickleton MSS. xxxvii, fol. 137.
See below under Jurisdictions, p. 57.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

the arrangement of 1627 was abrogated before
the lease of that year expired.' Apparently the
corporation had gone on with some modification
introduced, it is probable, by themselves. Then
we hear of a recorder and town clerk in 1649.*
Petition was made in 1650 for reconstitution of
the local courts of justice,' for the establishment
of a college at Durham,'" and for the continuance
of dean and chapter payments to the school.**
In July Cromwell passed through the city on
his way to the battle of Dunbar. After the
battle came the memorable imprisonment of
the Scots in the cathedral which did so much
damage to the building in the dull autumn days.
For the great number of sick and dying among
them, the castle was used as a hospital. The
survivors only left Durham in 1652.

It is, apparently, the case that the civic
sympathies were largely with the Parliament
throughout this disturbed period. This would
be the natural result of the corporation's long
struggle for independence which had now been
crowned with belated success, thanks to the
overthrow of bishop, dean and chapter in
Durham. In 1650, when the recent act for en-
forcing the engagement was put into operation,
there were great rejoicings at Durham, the
citizens expressing their resolution to stand by
the Parliament, and presenting Lt. Col. Hobson*-
with the freedom of the city. Another
letter of near date to this speaks of the strong
Parliamentarian feeling in the county. But
there were exceptions to it, even in the corpora-
tion, for next year a report was circulated that
the Mayor of Durham, one John Hall, had
slighted the celebration of the thanksgiving
day after the battle of Worcester.*' In 1653,
with the establishment of the protectorate
under Cromwell, a petition was sent up once
more" for representation in Parliament. Ac-
cordingly, in 1654, the city was, for the first
time, represented by a member, one Anthony
Smith, a mercer, who was again returned in
1656, after which there was no member for
city or county until 1675. The exclusion of
the county and city from the Parliament of
1659 called forth a petition for representation.*^

The Restoration was acceptable in the county,**
but not very largely in the city. The cries of
protest, which must have greeted the re-entry
of the church landlords upon the lands and
houses alienated since 1646, were doubtless
vigorous, but soon died away in the effervescing
loyalty to the throne which now became the
order of the day. Cathedral and castle had
suffered from the Scottish prisoners, and on
every hand signs and sounds of repair and re-
building were observable. It is noted by Cosin,
the great Restoration bishop, that ' the violence
of the times and neglect of men ' *' had deso-
lated the city. The bishop's carefully preserved
accounts show what was done in and round
the castle,*' whilst various references indicate the
widespread restoration of the college and the
furniture of the cathedral.*' The parish churches
had suffered, and were, to some extent, refitted,
as the parish books testify. A work of import-
ance was the new conduit to convey water from
Elvet Moor across the river to the college and
precincts, where it was carried again across
Palace Green to the Castle.-" It was probably
at this time that the old castle well, sunk by the
Normans, was finally abandoned, to be reopened
only in 1903. In 1664 the County House,
otherwise the Assize Court, built in 1588, was
pulled down, it may be surmised owing to recent
injury, and was rebuilt by the bishop. The
gilds were asked to contribute, but in general
refused to aid the prelate.^* Civic life, as
regulated under the Commonwealth, was at
first uninterrupted, but in 1662 commissioners
were appointed for regulating corporations in
the palatinate,22 and it is presumed that they
carried out the restoration of the corporation to
its former condition. The Assize system was
brought back, and the judges entertained as of
yore. 2'

But the years were not restful. Fanaticism
had sprouted during the anxious times.^-" and
soon developed into disaffection. The city
became the centre of the plot which is known as
the Derwent Dale plot. It was reported that
a large number of fighting men were ready in
Durham.^^ Indeed, Durham was no longer

' See above, p. 37.

* Surtees, op. cit. iv, l6o.

* For the point see Surtees, op. cit. iv, 9.

10 Fowler, Hist. Univ. Dur., V.C.H. Dur. ii, 52.

1* B. M. Burney Newspapers 35, 8 May.

*2 Hobson was Deputy Governor of Newcastle.
The statement comes from B. M. Burney Newspapers
35, 2 April.

*3 Founder of a Durham family. See the pedigree
in Surtees, op. cit. iv, 154; Burney Newspapers 39,
28 Oct. 1637.

** See above, p. 37.

*■"• Burney Newspapers 53, 31 March 1659.

" V.C.H. Dur. ii, 53.

" Hutchinson, op. cit. ii, 35-) or 275.

" Mickleton MSS. xx, passim, printed in Cosin's
Corresp. (Surt. Soc), ii, 356-83.

*• The correspondence of Sancroft and Davenport
gives details (Tanner MSS. in Bodl. Lib.). For the
state of the cathedral cf. Cosin's Corresp. (Surt. Soc),
p. xvi, summary of work done in Drake, Siege oj Ponte-
fract Castle (Surt. Soc), 260.

2" Particulars in Mickleton MSS. xx, 56.

2* Surtees, op. cit. iv, 21, 24.

" S. P. Dom. Chas. II, bri, no. 157.

*' Ibid, xliii, no. 131. ^4 ibij. Ixxviii, no. 6, 71.

*5 S. P. Dom. Chas. II.^xcv, no. 140.

CITY OF DURHAM

safe.'* The excellent precautions taken for
repressing the plague were largely effective,
though it was reported that one house at least
was infected in 1665.-' An interesting feature
of the post-Restoration period is the increasing
connexion of the members of the chapter with
ecclesiastical and political notabilities outside
Durham. Improving communication with the
south and the better type of prebendaries now
appointed, began to give the place a more
prominent position in the regard of the outer
world. Barwick, Bancroft, Brevint, Basire, all
prebendaries of Durham, and other important
men were good correspondents and well known
in the university and other circles. CosLn
himself was a strong connecting link between
the south and north. Within the city itself he
was no great favourite. Men remembered
ancient controversies. He kept a strong hand
on his rights. Though he was a good friend to
the neighbourhood in building almshouses,
founding and endowing his library, and so
bringing better trade to the city, he allowed
no concession of the independence which the cor-
poration lost at the Restoration. He strenuously
resisted the petition of city and county for
Parliaraentary representation.^' The question
came up again and again, and through the
bishop's pertinacity was constantly postponed
during his episcopate.

Bishop Crewe resided largely at Durham. He
seems to have made much of the place, and to
have entertained widely during his long episco-
pate of nearly half a century. The more the
castle is inspected the more numerous are the
traces of his residence, e.g., the extension to the
chapel, the rooms placed within the Norman
Gallery, the fine spout-heads bearing Crewe's
arms, the addition of the house now used as the
master's lodge.-' Various pictures at present
hanging within the castle give a rough idea of
Durham in his day, e.g., his gondola on the
river, his coach with six black horses, the gardens
sloping to the Wear below Silver Street, the
treeless banks, FramweUgate bridge with turrets
and centre chapel. Crewe gave way almost at
the outset on the question of Parliamentary
representation, so that Durham was duly repre-
sented from that time forth, the freemen of the
city being the electors. On the first occasion
there were 838 electors, a number which in-
creased in 1761 to ijOSO.*" It was probably at

2« S. P. Dom. Chas. II, c, no. 85.

*' Ibid, cxxvii, no. 33.

** Proceedings at Quarter Sessions 1666 in Allan
MSS. (Doc. of D. and C. of Dur.), \ii, fol. 34, and a
collection of documents in Hunter MSS. (ibid.), 24.

^' The records are meagre, but the evidence of
stone and brick supplements it.

'o A list of the burgesses returned is given in
Hutchinson, op. cit. ii, 60 or 45.

his instigation in 1681'^ that the city took its
share in the addresses which were pouring in
on the King.*2 It was the year of Absalom and
Achitophel and a wave of Toryism deluged the
country. The year 1684 saw Judge Jeffreys
going the Northern Circuit. London had sur-
rendered its charter to the King, and pressure
was being brought to bear upon corporations all
round the land to induce them to submit them-
selves to the King's right of veto." Of this
particular Assize, North said that Jeffreys ' made
all the charters like the walls of Jericho fall
dowm before him.' Durham was among the
number, surrendering Bishop Matthew's charter
to the bishop at the end of August.

In March 1685 Crewe, being then in London,
delivered a new charter to the city. It so closely
followed the old charter of 1602 that it is not
easy to see at first sight what object was gained
by the trouble and expense of drawing up a
document which gives no new privileges and
reserves no rights granted by Bishop Matthew.
Probably the bishop had intended little more
than formal compHance with the fashion set by
King Charles in securing the surrender of the
charter, and was glad to bestow it afresh on the
first available opportunity.** Yet there is one
important clause in the new document which
prescribes that the Mayor and aldermen and
councillors are ' to be conformable to the Church
of England.' Whether this was to be pressed,
however, or not does not much matter, since
the new charter soon passed into oblivion and
was not quoted at any subsequent confirmation.
At all events Crewe was on good terms with the
corporation, and it is to his gift that most of
the corporation plate is due, a silver tankard,
six silver candlesticks, a silver loving cup and
cover, and a silver whistling pot with cover
attached. The dates of the hall-marks vary
from 1672-3 to 1694-5. The hall-marks on the
candlesticks are illegible.*^

A few miscellaneous matters connected with
the later years of the 17th century may be
mentioned here. Crewe entertained royalty at
Durham in 1677 when Monmouth, not yet a
rebel, came to the castle, and in 1679 when
the Duke and Duchess of York were received
with all possible honour. In 1685 the re-
building of St. Mary's in the North Bailey
was completed. It was largely the work of
George Davenport, formerly Cosin's chaplain
and rector of Houghton le Spring. The old
bells were sold off, but a new tower was
added in 1702. An interesting account of

"^ Lodge, Political Hist, of Eng. 209-10.
^- Addresses in Mickleton MSS. xlvi, fol. 245.
•" Examen, 626, quoted by Lodge, op. cit. 229.
** James II succeeded 6 February 1685 and the
charter is dated 7 March.

•* Jewitt and Hope, Corporation Plate, i, 185.

41 6

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

post-stage communication with Durham at this
time has been preserved by Surtees.'* Regular
stage coaches did not yet run, though there is
a notice of a much earlier attempt to arrange
some kind of service.^'

A note of 1696 referring to the new coinage
speaks of the difficulty of obtaining ' current
money ' in Durham, a difficulty which is re-
ferred to in local correspondence on more
than one occasion. The recall of tokens in 1672
had been presumably compensated by the issue
of halfpence and farthings, but the * current
money ' of the quotation means crowns, half-
crowns, and shillings.'* In 1691 Durham had
its own baronet in the person of John Duch, one
of the Aldermen in Crewe's charter of 1685
and Mayor in 1680, whose romantic career has
always been a matter of interest to the citizens.^'
He, at all events, was able to amass a considerable
fortune in the city, and it seems probable that
trade was improving as time passed. A bene-
faction by George Baker which became operative
in 1699 was devoted to establishing a woollen
manufactory and did good service for a long
period of years.''" Wood's charity was an im-
portant help for prisoners."

Crewe's chief connection with the city of
Durham probably took place after the Revolu-
tion. He was not trusted by William and Mary,
and when in 1691 he became Baron Crewe, on
his brother's death, it was natural for him to
live much in the retirement of Stene, Auckland,
or Durham. His second marriage in 1700 to
Dorothy Forster of Bamburgh probably
tended to keep him in the north. The trium-
phal entry of the bishop and his bride into
Durham'- provoked great interest, and for the
next year or two there is evidence of his enter-
taining the city gilds at the castle.''^ There
is, however, no proof of any Jacobite sympathy
in Durham at the time with a solitary exception.''*
Mr. Smith of Barn Hall was titular Bishop of
Durham in connection with the non-juring
cause ;''^ the late dean was a non-juror;''* Mr.
Cock, vicar of St. Oswald's, founder of the
library there,'" and benefactor to the parish,
was also deprived as a non-juror. Otherwise the
local non-jurors are far to seek. The rising of
1715 awoke no response in Durham. No local

** Surtees, op. cit. iv, 160.

*' Burney Newspapers 52, I Apr. 1658.

^ Surtees, op. cit. iv, 161. At least sixteen local
sets of tokens are known.

»» Ibid. 53, 129. *• Ibid. 30. '»» Ibid.

*2 Bee's Diary, Six North Country Diaries (Surt.
See), 60.

*' Surtees, op. cit. iv, 21, 22.

** Six North Country Diaries (Surt. Soc), 200.

« Ibid.

4« r.C.H. Dur. ii, 60.

*' Surtees, loc. cit.

contingent was raised.'" When the body of
Lord Derwentwater was brought from London
to Northumberland it rested at White Smocks,*'
an inn on the direct road from Darlington to
Newcastle. Local tradition preserved the
memory of the fact, which as late as 191 2 was
recounted by a Durham resident aged ninety-
three, who had it from his grandfather as a
matter of personal remembrance.

The outstanding event of the i8th century
is the industrial revolution, but that did not
make itself felt until the reign of George IH.
The city of Durham did not, apparently,
increase much if at all in population until the
revolution began to manifest itself. If in 1635
the inhabitants numbered about 2,000,^" such
hints as we get through the earlier part of the
1 8th century cannot be adduced in proof of any
rapid increase. A visitor in 1780 describes
Durham as ' not populous,' whereas ' Sunderland
is a very populous place.' *' Yet from the point
of view of wealth there had probably been dis-
tinct progress. Means had improved after the
Restoration and money derived from the Church
was spent in the place. The Restoration
prebendaries were inclined to lavish hospitality
and at the end of 1662 a Chapter Act was
drawn up to forbid any extreme ' either of
parsimony or profuseness.'** Dean GrenviUe
records abundant hospitality in 1687.^' Such
a complaint as that which described the
city in 1617 as a ' cell of earth ' ^ is not heard
seventy years later. The residence of well-to-do
and often aristocratic prebendaries with their
families brought considerable gain to the
tradesmen. A local suit of Queen Anne's
reign goes to show that fancy trades were de-
veloping. The old gild of drapers and
tailors, which had the monopoly of the interests
they represented, roused themselves in 1705 'to
put off the manty-makers.' Accordingly next
year they sued four defendants otherwise
unknown for that they being ' foreigners ' did
infringe the liberties of the citizens, threatening
not only to continue but to introduce others
into the city, thus drawing away the greatest
part of the trade. The defendants incidentally
stated that ' mantoes is a forreigne invencion
and brought from beyond sea and not used in
England till about the year 1670.' One
deponent had lived with the Clerk of the
Spicery to Charles II and remembered the

'•* Richardson, Jcct. of the Rebellions.

*' Now Western Lodge.

60 See below, p. 46.

^1 Cf. Surtees, op. cit. iv, 165, -with Hunter MSS.
xxii.

52 See V.C.H. Dur. ii, 67.

*' (Surt. Soc), Granville, Remains, 139.

5* From the verses of the apprentice to James I,
above, p. 37.

CITY OF DURHAM

Duchess of ' Mazarene ' who came from beyond
sea that year and brought ' the garb of mantoes ' "
with her. Another said that the tailors, or the
major part of them, did not understand ' the
art of mantoe-making ' so well as women. She
had some spoiled by a man tailor in Durham
and believed that the women tailors ' are greatest
artists at women's work than men tailors.' The
suit is valuable^ as showing the kind of thing
that was bound to take place when local require-
ments outran narrow local means of supply.
It also shows, perhaps, that the Durham ladies
were anxious to encourage local industries in
order to serve their own convenience.

About the same time a scheme was mooted
which, if carried out, would have had large
influence upon Durham trade and life. As
early as 1705 the great Wear scheme was first
propounded. In that year an entry in the
books of the important company of ' Mercers,
Grocers, Haberdashers, Ironmongers, and
Salters,' founded or re-founded by Pilkington
in 1561, records that a sum was paid 'for
completing the petition and bill for making the
Wear navigable.' " The undertaking floated like
a vision before the imagination of the citizens
for the best part of a century. It reappeared in
1717, in 1754,^' ^'^^ '^ 1796. when it was
finally abandoned. The petition alluded to does
not seem to be traceable, but there is fuller
light for the later stages of the proposal. An
Act of 171 7 appointed a commission for twenty-
one years to carry out a scheme for making the
Wear navigable up to Durham. It was stated
that shoals and sand would have to be removed
between Chester-le-Street and Durham with
locks, dams, sluices and cuts. It was urged
that navigation to the city would benefit trade
and the poor, encouraging the woollen manu-
factory, providing carriage of lead, coals, lime,
stone, timber, deals, butter, tallow, etc., to and
from Durham, Westmorland, Cumberland,
Yorkshire, and other counties to and from
Sunderland, London, and other parts, British and
foreign, tending to the employment and increase
of watermen and seamen, and preserving the
highways. The corporation took up the scheme
with something like enthusiasm,^* and were

ready to place the accommodation of boats of
twenty tons burden or more. When the ques-
tion came up finally in i796,«o it was merged
with the much more extensive project of pro-
viding water conveyance between the German
Ocean and the Irish Sea, which was to link up
connections at various points with the different
northern cities. Plans and estimates were
prepared. A canal was to be cut from the
Tyne to Chester-le-Street, whence the idea of
1754 was to be carried out. The vision charmed
the more enterprising business men of the north,
but it put no money into the pockets of any.
Steam traction, which was at this time coming
within the range of possibility, was destined
ultimately to take the place of this elaborate
design of water communication.

There was some zeal for education in Durham
during the i8th century. Durham School,
rebuilt in 1661, on the Palace Green, soon
became, instead of a local grammar school, a
north-country public school of repute and wide
influence. We can trace from the Restoration
onwards not only the familiar city names such as
Salvin, Wilkinson, Hutchinson, Blakiston, Faw-
cett, Greenwell, Tempest, but representatives
of the historic families of Northumberland and
Durham, e.g., Hilton, Vavasour, Burdon, Grey,
Shafto, Blackett, Forster, Heron, Lambton,
Bowes, Calverley, Cole. One of the chief dis-
tinctions of the school is the succession of local
historians and antiquaries who drew their inspira-
tion from the venerable association of the old
school on the Green. Most famous of these is
James Mickleton (1638-93), without whom no
history of mediaeval or 17th-century Durham
would be possible.*! Local history owes very much
to Elias Smith, a notable head master (1640-66)
who did his best to preserve the cathedral library
through the Protectorate troubles, and to
Thomas Rudd, headmaster (1691-9 and 1 709-1 1),
who indexed the Cathedral manuscripts. Later
than these comes Thomas Randall (head master
1 761-8), who made a large collection of manu-
script material for local history.

There existed on the opposite side of the
Palace Green a smaller school of ancient founda-
tion ' for the bringing up of young children, and

*^ Mentioned, too, in Hudibras. See Knu Engl. Die.

^ The suit is summarized in Arch. Ael. ii, 166.
A peculiarity of the Drapers' Company is that it
admits all sons of a freeman to the privilege. Thus
the gild has always been powerful by reason of
number."!.

" Quoted in Surtees, op. cit. iv, 23.

'* A summary of the draft Act of 1754 is given in
Arch. Ad. ii, 118.

'^ The Gild took their share in forwarding the
enterprise (Surtees, op. cit. iv, 25). The Corporation
at this time were lengthening their cords and strength-
ening their stakes. The enlarged and improved town

haU was completed in 1754. Private enterprise was
also stimulated, for in the same year James Appleby, a
local chemist, broached to the Admiralty liis scheme
of making salt water fresh. {Table Book, Gent. Mag.
xxiv, 44.)

60 M. A. Richardson's Table Book, 1796, 1797.

*i Mickleton WTOte ' De SchoUs Dunelm,' an ac-
count which still exists in the Mickleton MS. xxxvi in
the University Library. It was copied and augmented
by RandaU (Randall's MS. [Doc. of D. and C. of
Dur.]). On this and further research was based the
description in V.C.H. Dur. i, 381. See too Earle and
Body, Preface to Dur. School Reg. (1912).

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

to be instructed in the catechism, and farther
made fit to go to the Grammar School and like-
wise to be taught their plain song and to be
entered in their prick song.' The relation of
this school to the more important institution was
the subject of some controversy in the days of
Cosin (1670-72) and Crewe*- (1674-1721). It
was supplemented in the 1 8th century by the Blue
Coat School, which was first founded in 1718 by
civic enterprise.*' The Corporation had admin-
istered, had often maladministered, the various
charitable funds, of which some mention has
been made above. In the opening years of the
century and under the will of the non-juring
Vicar of St. Oswald's, John Cock, some kind of
elementary instruction was given in the parish.
The scheme took effect in 1717. Possibly the
Corporation were provoked to jealousy by this
suburban scheme. At all events they lent two
rooms in the New Place near St. Nicholas'
Church rent free, and here rudimentary educa-
tion was furnished under their direction to a
foundation of six boys, though it may perhaps be
presumed that paying pupils were also admitted
to swell the meagre roll of scholars. The estab-
lishment grew in course of time and excited much
interest in city and county. The minute-book
begins in 1705 and bears testimony to this
interest, in the steady growth of the list of sub-
scribers, and the augmentation of the foundation.
Six girls were added in 1 736 and in 1 75 3 a bequest
from Mrs. Ann Carr made provisionfor seven more
boys. By the end of the century thirty boys and
thirty girls were being educated, and soon out-
grew the original premises.

Private schools existed in Durham in addition
to the public institutions named. The Grammar
School had a formidable rival for some time in
the establishment of a Mr. Rosse at the end of
the 17th century.** In 1732 a Quaker called
Glenn provided instruction for ' a great many
scholars both of his own persuasion and others.'
He was reputed to teach Latin and to ' pretend
to Greek.'** The first mention of a ladies'
boarding school noted so far is in 1757, when a
diarist's niece ' came to the boarding-school at
Durham.'** This establishment would per-
haps be in the North or South Bailey, where
living memory can trace a long succession of
girls' schools.*' There was also a famous ladies'
school by ' The Chains ' in Gilesgate.

62 See V.C.H. Dur. i, 382.

** The best account is in Surtees, op. cit. iv, 26.
C. M. Carlton's Hist, of Dur. Char, gives a mass of
useful information.

" F.C.H. Dur. i, 382.

•^ Surtees, op. cit. iv, 165.

•* North Country Diaries (Surt. Soc), 207.

•' Visitation returns at Auckland Castle prove
three or four dames' schools to have existed in Cross-
gate only.

Attention has already been drawn to the ex-
clusiveness and rigid protection of the City trade-
gUds. One instance has been given of an inva-
sion of these privileges.** It is by no means the
only case that might be cited. In 1699, for
instance, when much building was in progress,
the masons' company, with its wide inclusion
of * Free-masons, Rough masons. Wallers,
Slaters, Paviours, Plasterers and Bricklayers,' in
fact the whole building trade, strove to oust all
competition of country masons in the college. The
carpenters and joiners subscribed to the expenses
of the suit. It was urged that ' foreigners ' had
in many cases worked in the coUege, castle, and
elsewhere without interruption and a plea was
put in that the places in question were not
legally within the city as incorporated, so that
the ' foreigners ' were not liable. Various other
suits*' may be cited of similar general import, aU
going to prove that the strictest protection was
exercised, whilst on the other hand there was a
constant tendency to override trade privileges.
Accordingly in 1728 a meeting of the Corpora-
tion was held, at which the principle of rigid
adhesion to the exclusion of outsiders was con-
firmed. All infringement of the rule was hence-
forth to be punished by heavy fines. Further,
because of some irregularity in admitting free-
men which had grown up it was ruled that all
admissions were henceforth to be under careful
surveillance. There were to be no amateur free-
men : all were to be approved by mayor and
aldermen, whilst apprentices were to serve their
time and to be actually taught the trade or
mystery.

The policy thus pursued had a result which
was perhaps not contemplated by the members
of the Corporation, who were naturally con-
cerned only or mainly about trade interests.
Ever since the Restoration it had been the
fashion to admit to gild freedom many of the
leading men in city and county, though quite
unconnected with the special craft.'" In this
way Percy, Lambton, Tempest, and other im-
portant names, appear on the lists of admission.
The decree of 1728 seems to have restricted the
honour to those who were able to take up their
freedom by patrimony, save in exceptional cases
as when the bishop was admitted. Now, since
the admission of the City to representation in
Parliament, the gild had been the electors, but
the new rule tended to restrict the increase of
the electorate. In days of growing political ex-
citement the privilege of a vote had an increasing

88 Above, p. 42.

•' Other suits of similar scope are on behalf of the
Mercers' Company in 1 71 8 (Dur. Rec. cl. 7, no. 75) ;
Goldsmiths 1720 (ibid. no. 77) ; Saddlers 1728 (ibid,
no. 79). Cloth workers, rather later, but undated
(ibid. no. 95).

'" See the names in Surtees, op. cit. iv, 20-5.

CITY OF DURHAM

value, and was no doubt coveted in proportion.
In 1757 Robert Green, a citizen of Durham,
made an attempt to override the principle of
the rule made in 1728, claiming to be free of the
Masons' Gild, although he had not complied
with the strict formalities prescribed.'^ The
case was taken to the King's Bench, and it was
ruled that Green had not made good his claim in
view of the explicit provision of the ordinance
referred to. His was evidently a test case and
the decision was not popular.

When the famous election of 1761'^ took
place. Tempest and Lambton, who had repre-
sented the city since 1747, were returned,
Ralph Gowland, of Durham, being an unsuccess-
ful candidate. Lambton died suddenly, and a
new election followed before the year ran out.
With this election pending, advantage was
taken of the recent decision to ' let in a shoal
of freemen.' The bylaw of 1728 was deUberately
rescinded by the Corporation, and freemen
were admitted peU-meU. No less than 215 of
these mushroom burgesses were entered on
the roll." Two candidates were put forward
for the vacancy in the representation of the
city, General Lambton and Ralph Gowland.
The new freemen carried the election in favour
of the local candidate, and Gowland was re-
turned by a majority of twenty-three. An
election petition soon followed, when Gowland
was unseated, his adversary being welcomed
into the city in procession amid great en-
thusiasm, which was not shared, it may be
presumed, by the Corporation, whose action
had been so signally rejected.

A stigma now attached to the Corporation,
which it was not easy to efface. Whilst it is
not easy to follow the exact steps taken, it seems
clear that dissensions arose among the aldermen
and councillors. Some of the aldermen were
non-resident, and this in violation of the charter.
Matters came to a crisis in 1766 on Mayor's
day, when attention was drawn to the abuse of
the provision of the charter. A suit in the
King's Bench followed, which deprived the
mayor of his position. A local writ of quo
warranto unseated four of the aldermen, and
a fifth resigned. Under the terms of the charter,
the number of seven aldermen present and
voting was prescribed as necessary for a valid
election. With only four aldermen no such
election was possible, and the Corporation
virtually ceased to exist. There appears
to be no record of what was done in this

'^ The documents are quoted in Hutchinson, op.
cit. ii, 43-8 or 34.

'2 Hunt, Political Hist, of Eng. 19.

" The names are given in Allan MSS. (Doc. of
D. and C. of Dur.) vii, fol. 70, and comprise gentle-
men, officers, clergy and others unconnected with
the city.

wholly irregular, if not invalid, and shape-
less civic constitution. Mayors were cenainly
elected until 1770, but from that point until
1780 no further municipal election took place.
There was no formal surrender of the charter ;
it was defunct. The gilds made petition to
Bishop Trevor for a new charter in the impasse
which had been reached. He soon after died,
but his successor. Bishop Egerton, in 1773
consulted the Attorney-General of Durham.
His opinion was that ' the powers and
authorities vested in the Corporation are
suspended,' and that ' it is impossible for the
Corporation to preserve or continue itself,'
a position of affairs much to be deprecated.
He advised the Bishop to exert his jura regalia
and to issue a new charter. After some delay
this course was adopted.

Accordingly, in 1780, the last episcopal
charter was issued. The document makes no
reference whatever to Crewe's abortive charter.
It was drawn up on the model of Matthew's
grant of 1602. It begins with a recital of the
main provisions of that instrument, and then
calls attention to the present deadlock in which
the ' corporation of the said city of Durham and
FramweUgate is incapable of doing any corporate
act, and is dissolved, or in great danger of being
dissolved.' It recalls the terms of the petition
for a new charter of incorporation unattended
by the inconveniences to which the old con-
stitution was exposed. The 2 October was
selected for the ceremony of bestowing the new
charter. The members of the corporation were
introduced to the bishop in what was called
the breakfast room at Durham Castle. This
room had been recently improved by Egerton,
and formed the lower one of two chambers
in a space cut off from the hall at its northern
end by Bishop Neile about 1620. The docu-
ment was received by Mayor Bainbridge on
bended knee, the aldermen put on their gowns,
and the oaths were taken. Outside in the hall
the freemen were regaled whilst the corporation
lunched with the bishop. In the courtyard
the townsfolk were entertained with a fountain
that ran with liquor. After this a procession
was formed, consisting of corporation, city
officers, constables, trades gilds with their
banners, who took their way to the town hall,
where speeches were made to the crowd assem-
bled in the market-place.'* The city was governed
byEgerton's charter until the Municipal Reform
Act of 1835.'^ A memorial of the turning point

'* The chief documents are given in Hutchinson,
op. cit. ii, 43-74.

'5 The charter virtually included those surrounding
parishes of Durham which had been suburban,
or at all events had been loosely connected with the
city. It enumerated the parishes of St. Mary-le-bow
and St. Mary the less, the castle and precincts.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

in Durham history was erected in the shape
of a Piazza, which took the place of the old
market-cross of 1617.

The year of Egerton's charter is the main
dividing line in the history of Durham in the
l8th century, as the events of 1640 and 1660
are landmarks in the previous hundred years.
Taking our stand at this point, we may look
back for a moment to notice other events and
characteristics not hitherto mentioned. The city
was not populous. There are no sufficient data
for very precise statistics. A traveller passing
through in 1780 lays stress on the fact that
' this place is very large, but not populous.' "
In 1732 there were 440 householders in the most
densely populated parish, that of St. Nicholas.
In the parish of St. Giles there were 120 house-
holders in 1753." No other estimate of the
period seems to be available. A hundred years
before this there had been 514 householders
in Elvet, the Baileys, Crossgate, Framwellgate,
Gillygate, and St. Nicholas. That may be held,
perhaps, to represent a total population of from
two to three thousand in 1635. The numbers
for St. Nicholas are 177 at that date, as against
440 in 1732 ; for St. Giles 73, as against 120
in 1753. At this rate it may be surmised that
towards the middle of the i8th century the
proportional increase since 1635 would bring
the sum total up to some point between four
and five thousand.'*

Communication with this small city was pro-
bably not very good. We have seen the attempt
to link it up with the outside world by
waterways, and the condition of the high
roads alleged as one reason for carrying out
the scheme. Regular communication with
Durham by stage coach, instead of by the
ordinary means of posting, was first planned in
1658.'* In October 1712 a great step forward

the cathedral and college, the chapehy of St. Margaret,
the borough of Framwellgate, the parishes of St.
Oswald and St. Giles as constituents of the City of
Durham and Framwellgate. (Hutchinson, op. cit. 66.)
It may also be noted that recorder, town clerk,
Serjeants at mace, and constables were all specifically
mentioned in Egerton's charter. There had been
recorders and town clerks at intervals, if not con-
tinuously, since 1603 (see Hutchinson, op. cit. 70-1),
but not by virtue of any clause contained in previous
charters, though Serjeants had been specified therein.
Another incidental point in Egerton's grant is the
transfer of Mayor's day to the anniversary of its
bestowal, viz., the Monday next after the Feast of
St. Michael the Archangel.

'8 See V.C.H. Dur. ii, 67.

" Surtees, op. cit. iv, 165 ; see above, p. 42.

'* The calculation is, of course, rather guesswork.
The muster in 1615 gave 560 men between sixteen
and sixty for all the parts enumerated above, save
the College and South Bailey.

" Burney Newspapers 52, April i.

was taken when in the Newcastle Courant it
was announced : ' Edinburgh, Berwick, New-
castle, Durham and London stage-coach begins
on Monday the 13th October 1712.'*** It was
added that the proposed stage-coach ' performs
the whole journey in thirteen days without
any stoppage (if God permit), having eighty
able horses to perform the whole stage.'** The
fare from Edinburgh to London was ^^4 los.^^
No local record has been traced to give an ac-
count of the fortunes of the coach. Probably
it did well, but there was not sufficient demand
yet for more local inter-communication. In
1748 a coach from Sunderland to Durham,
and from Durham to Newcastle, was put on
the road, but the roads were bad, and the scheme
did not pay. A post-chaise took the place of the
coach, but this fared no better, and was given
up.*^ As late as 1772 a posting journey from
London to Durham occupied a week.** Travel-
ling was not yet safe. Coaches were robbed
now and again,** and Faas or Faws, as they
were called, that is gipsies and perhaps high-
waymen, were still known to lurk in the neigh-
bourhood of the highway.** External events
were duly celebrated at Durham and anniver-
saries were kept punctiliously. In the midst
of the unrest caused by the Jacobite Rebellion
of 1745 Gunpowder Plot was remembered,
and volleys were fired in the market-place.*'
The king's birthday was observed, and on
occasion even a hogshead of wine was broached
for the people. The birth of Prince George
in 1762, afterwards George IV, was the occasion
of a great demonstration, and the city was
brilliantly illuminated.** In 1770, when Wilkes
was set free, the church bells were rung at
intervals through the day.**

Visits to Durham naturally increased in
number. We have various accounts of short
visits paid, as recorded in private correspondence
such as the journey of Lord Harley in 1725. He
describes the place and a meeting with Rudd the
Librarian and Master of Durham School, who
was then occupied upon his index.®" Twenty
years later Lady Oxford passed through Dur-
ham, and put up at the Red Lion " in the North
Bailey, 'an exceeding good and clean inn.'
Incidentally she says that the cathedral ' is

**• Burney Newspapers 52, April I.

*i Ibid.

*2 Table Book quoting the Courant, sub anno.

*' Ibid, quoting Ettrick's Diary.

** Cosin's Corresp. (Surt. Soc), 342.

*« Table Book, 1762. *« Ibid, passim.

*' Richardson's Ace. of the Rebellions, 17.

** Table Book, 1753 and 1762.

*' Ibid, sub anno.

'o MSS. of Duke of Portland (Hist. MSS. Com.), vii,

74-

M Now Hatfield HaU.

E^lS^nr^iBr^

- "5 - ^ ^ -

CITY OF DURHAM

now cleaning and repairing.' ^^ More elaborate
printed accounts appear in books published at
intervals. The North of England and Scotland in
1704 describes the city and speaks of the badly-
weathered stone of the cathedral." In 1720
Magna Britannia gives valuable information
about the then fairly recent rebuilding of the
prebendal houses.** In 1724 H. Mell's New
Description of England and Wales speaks of the
good trade and the many gentry residing in
Durham.'* Pennant's description of Durham
in his Tour to Scotland, 1769, has often been
quoted. Grose's Antiquities with one or two
pictures executed in 1775 gives some historical
details."® The Beauties of England, IJJJ, has
some account of the place."' Sullivan's Obser-
vations during a tour through parts of England,
Scotland, and IV ales, in a series of Letters 1780 has
a gossiping reference to the city "* in which he
says that ' some of the inhabitants . . . com-
plain of being priestridden.' Allusion is made by
SuUivan to the banks of the river : ' the good
people have not been inattentive to their
improvement . ' "* Dr. Spence, Prebendary of Dur-
ham (1754-68), has the credit of laying out or
improving the banks.*"" Grimm's drawings
taken about 1790 illustrate many interesting bits
in Durham buildings and Durham life.*

No time of invasion or straitness afflicted the
city in the i8th century like the Scottish occupa-
tion of former days. Life was more secure.
Yet more than one trial befel the populace in
the lower parts of the district. In 1722, for
instance, there was a severe flood long remem-
bered as ' Slater's Flood.' There were also
floods nearly as bad in 1752 and 1753, but these
three visitations paled before the calamity of
1 771, which swept away or greatly damaged
most of the bridges in the county, and at Dur-
ham broke down three arches from Elvet Bridge,
carried avs'ay the Dean and Chapter Bridge
(100 yds. above the present Prebend's Bridge),
the Abbey Mill on the left bank, and buildings
on Framwellgate Bridge.^ In the winter of
1739-40 a severe frost continued for many
weeks. The ice on the Wear was strong enough

S2 Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), vu, 182.

•3 Op. cit. z6.

M Cox and Hall, Mag. Brit, i, 638.

»» Mell's New Description, 307.

'* Grose's Antiquities.

" Brayley and Britton, Beauties of Engl, ii, 165-6.

'* Op. cit. Letter 22.

*" There arc no trees shown on the cathedral side
of the river about 1700 in a picture at the Castle.
Grose's Antiquities shows none there in 1 775.

100 ^ celebrated classical scholar and Professor of
Modern History at Oxford.
1 Add. MSS. 15537-48.

* A tract by W. M. Egglestone called the Weardale
Nick-Stick preserves a list of local floods, t^c.

to bear skaters from Durham to Chester-le-
Street, and a fair was held on the frozen river.*
The harvest of the following summer failed, and
food was scarce, entailing much suffering on the
poor. Grain merchants in the neighbourhood
took advantage of their extremity to make a
' corner ' in wheat in Durham and in New-
castle.* At the latter place local riots broke
out which occasioned a good deal of trouble.
Durham again took no part in the famous '45,*
but the billeting of soldiers in and near the
city was once more resorted to. Local volun-
teers were raised, and the Militia were called
out. The Duke of Cumberland hurrying up
to meet the Pretender passed through Durham,
and the opportunity was taken by mayor and
corporation to escort the prince through the
town.* In 1749 the great cattle-plague
occasioned a vast loss of beasts despite the
prompt measures taken in the county generally
to check the distemper. Riots had attended the
first attempts to put into force the Militia Act
of 1757 when Pitt made his re-entry upon office
conditional on the raising of a territorial force to
repel invasion.' This movement, however,
chiefly affected counties south of the Tees, but
when in 1761 local ballots were being taken,
resistance developed, and a meeting held in
Durham pledged the resisters to oppose any
enlistment for service outside the county.*
Durham had no concern with the spread of the
rebellion which presently took place in North-
umberland. In 1765 the first recorded coal-
strike took place, and lasted for several weeks ;
but although it must have affected Durham city
it left no permanent impression.®

The city buildings bore the impress of the
years now in review. In 1715 the old workhouse
or factory on the south of Elvet Bridge con-
nected with the house of correction at the
northern end ** was repaired and made over
to the woollen manufactory already mentioned.
In 1729 the Neptune which still adorns the
present Pant was first set up in the centre of the
market place beside the conduit.** Rather
later than this a good deal of building was in
progress at the castle when Bishop Butler set
Sanderson Miller to work on the northern

' Table Book, sub anno.

* Ibid. See I'.C.H. Dur. ii, 64. Cadogan's life
of Romaine refers to the riots in the county (op. cit. 2).

^ In fact one Swallow, a Durham jeweller, got
into difficulty for even toasting the Pretender.

* Details as for 1715 in An .4ccount of the Rebellions
with an account of the local disposition of troops.

' Summary in Table Book, sub anno.
8 Ibid. » Ibid.

*" See the order in Surtees, op. cit. iv, 56.
** Ibid. The tradition is that it signalized the
proposed union between Durham and the sea, as
recorded above, p. 43.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

terrace where the walls were dangerously out
of the perpendicular.** In 1752 extensive
alterations were made in the Town Hall when
Mr. George Bowes restored or adapted what is
now the mayor's parlour.*^ A year or two later
the members for the city, Henry Lambton and
John Tempest, refaced, if they did not entirely
rebuild, the front of the Town Hall. In 1760
the tower on the city side of Framwellgate
Bridge, so long one of its main defences, was
pulled down in order to give more easy access
to Silver Street. In 1774 one of the flanking
towers to the Great North Gate of the castle,
probably that towards the keep, fell in ruins.
Possibly the tower had been loosened by recent
excavation, of which some record exists.

The social life of Durham in the i8th century
is pleasantly illustrated not only by occasional
letters from bishops, deans and prebendaries,
which have survived, but by diaries. Jacob
Bee, a skinner and glover of Crossgate, who died
in 171 1, has left notes of local occurrences from
1 68 1 to 1707, taking up the story from the point
at which Davenport's correspondence fails us.
He is followed from 1748 to 1778" by the
really valuable local journal of Thomas Gyll,
Solicitor-General of Durham, and in 1769
Recorder of the city. These documents, par-
ticularly the latter, give a very fair idea of the
atmosphere of Durham life. The best idea,
however, may be gained from the pages of
Sylvestra, a novel published in 1881, and written
by Mrs. Raine Ellis. The authoress, who was
daughter of the well-known antiquary. Dr.
James Raine, edited the Diary of Fanny
D'Arblay, and by means of the general knowledge
of the times acquired by this minute work, in
addition to help gained from private memoranda
and correspondence, has written what is surely
a life-like portraiture of ecclesiastical Hfe in
Durham in the reign of George III. A few
of the details gleaned from the diaries may be
mentioned. In 1733 the first races were run
on the Smiddyhaughs, now the University
cricket ground. This annual institution con-
tinued until 1887 with little interruption. A
letter from James Gisborne, a Durham pre-

12 Interesting correspondence between the bishop
and Mr. Miller is referred to in An Eighteenth-Century
Correspondence (ed. Miss Dickins and Miss Stanton),
279. The friendship between Miller and Egerton
suggests that the period of Miller's influence at
Durham may have been prolonged. The particulars
of the decay in the castle are in Add. MSS. 9815.

18 Inscription within the room. Also recorded in
Table Book.

** The interval is partly filled by the north-country
allusion of John Thomlinson, curate of Rothbury.
All three diaries are printed and excellently annotated
by Mr. J. Crawford Hodgson in Three North-Country
Diaries (Surt. Soc).

bendary and rector of Staveley, describes in an
amusing way his stolen sight of the races in
1750, and shows how the race-week was at that
time an important social event. ^^ In 1735 a
Durham paper was started under the title of the
Durham Courant, but it had an ephemeral exist-
ence." No copy of it is known to have sur-
vived. Conjecture attributes it to the first
Durham bookseller of those days whose name
has come down to us, one Patrick Sanderson."
Dr. Hunter the antiquary was a friend of Sander-
son. In 1749 died in the Bailey Mme. Poison or
Poisson, a Huguenot refugee, whose card-
parties were a feature of life in the Bailey. In
1760 ' died old Mrs. Proud of the coffee-house.'
The longevity of many Durham persons was
notorious, and cathedral appointments often
survived in person or in connexion for a great
number of years." Thus, Sir John Dolben,
the last dignitary of Crewe's nomination, sur-
vived until 1756, closing the brief list of the
prebendaries who were Jacobites at heart. He
had been installed in 1718. In 1771 a small
theatre was opened in Saddler Street. It gave
its name to the adjoining vennel or passage
which was nicknamed Drury Lane and is still
so called. A document of about this time, or
a little earlier, hints at another side to Durham
life in the thieves ready to make their way into
the Baileys when bolts and bars were not used.
Hard by, too, were the unfortunate prisoners in
the great gaol vnthin the north gate of the castle,
who were visited by Howard in 1774. His
account of the prison is gloomy reading, and
Neild thirty years later regards the gaol as
one of the very worst .*'

Eighteenth-century descriptions of Durham
have been mentioned : it remains to chronicle
the first local guide-books to the city. The
earliest yet noticed is the compilation of the
antiquary Dr. Christopher Hunter, published
in 1733, when recent additions *" to the cathedral

1" Printed in Derbyshire Arch., and Nat. Hist. Journ.
v (1883).

1* Table Booh, sub anno.

1' Mrs. Waghorn's name appears in Durham
Cathedral 1733 ; John Richardson, bookseller, bought
Dr. Hunter's Ubrary in 1749 ; Sanderson published
an augmented edition of Durham Cathedral in 1767.
See further, p. 84.

1* In Mickleton MS. xci ad fin, " case of the copy-
holders."

1' Many details are given in Gent. Mag. (Ser. i),
Ixxv, 987-90 ; a summary in Engl. Episcopal Palaces
(Province of York), 191-4 ; below, p. 51.

2* The best summary of the alteration attempted
from time to time is given by Ormsby in his preface to
Services at the Reopening of Durham Cathedral, 1876.
Dr. J. T. Fowler gives a sketch of the history of the
book and its edition in the introducdon to his text
with excellent notes, 1902 {Rites of Dur. [Surt.
Soc.]).

CITY OF DURHAM

and, perhaps, improved travelling may have
combined to direct fresh attention to the build-
ing. He took the edition of the Rites of Durham
pubHshed in 1672 by John Davies, of Kidwelly,
inserting some rather useful notes of his own
in the body of the work and adding an appendix
containing notes of recent personages buried in
the church. A reprint was issued in 1743 and
published by John Richardson. After this
comes a larger edition of the foregoing under the
title The Antiquities of the Abbey, or Cathedral
Church of Durham. It is a reprint of Hunter's
work, notes, appendix and all, with a particular
description of the Bishopric or County Palatine
of Durham and a list containing the names of
the various officers of the Church up to the year
1767, which is the date of the book, a list of
eminent Durham men and other matters. The
description of the county is based upon the
Magna Britannia of Cox. The editor of this
rather inaccurate volume was a local bookseller
called Pat. Sanderson at the sign of Mr. Pope's
Head in Saddler Street.-"^ There is no reason
to think that Dr. Hunter, who left Durham in
1757,'- had amthing to do with this performance.
Apparently no attempt was made to improve
upon Sanderson's book for many years. True,
a puff of the Butterby waters-^ and of the
advantages of Durham as a health resort had
been published by Dr. Wilson under the name
Spadacrene Dunelmensis, but this was not a
book for visitors.-'' At length Robert Henry
Allan, son of the more famous George Allan, of
Darlington, having come to reside in Durham,
renewed the line of local antiquaries interrupted
by Dr. Hunter's death in 1783 and brought out
his Historical and Descriptive View of the City
of Durham and its Environs.-^ The date is
1824 and the book is the direct parent of all
subsequent guides to the city.-^

We may now return from this review to the
year 1780, and the new civic era then inaugurated
and so pass to the modern period. The history
of the years that intervene between Egerton's
Charter and the Municipal Corporations Act of
1835 is not marked by any very startling events
of local occurrence. Moreover, the internal

*^ For these notes see Dr. Fowler, Rites of Dur.
(Surt. Soc), Introd. pp. xiv-xx.

22 Gyle's Diary, sub anno.

2' It is quoted in Sanderson's Appendix.

"Much later, in 1807, Dr. Clanny, afterwards in-
ventor of a safety lamp, published J History and
Analysis of the Mineral JVaters of Butterby near
Durham.

*5 No doubt G. A. Cooke's County of Durham, a
convenient little book with map and itinerary, pub-
lished without date about 1825, was the chief through
guide for travellers.

*' It is reviewed in Gent. Mag. (New Ser.), xvii (2),
429.

record of what did take place is surprisingly
meagre. No very active antiquary was at
work to collect materials. Cade, who lived in
Durham from about 1775 to 1785, was engrossed
in speculation as to the Roman period. Hutch-
inson, who published the first volume of the
History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of
Durham in 1785, produced a second volume
in 1787, with a section of 320 pages relating to
the city and its environs, bringing it down to the
issue of the charter in 1780. His subsequent
researches until his death in 18 14 had to do with
localities and events outside the city. Mr.
R. H. AUan and Dr. Raine the elder, when they
came on the scene about 1820, were interested
in the more ancient Durham, making no col-
lection for their own days. Mr. Robert Surtees,
in his monumental History of Durham, is sur-
prisingly meagre in his record of events within
his own lifetime. The local newspapers do not
begin until 1814 and 1820, from which points
they are, of course, invaluable. The Newcastle
papers which cover the obscure years have no
very full tale to tell of Durham events. Our
transient glimpses reveal a certain amount of
activity. A woollen factory was started about
1780 behind St. Nicholas' Church, apparently
by the Corporation, and with funds of which
they are the trustees.-' The premises comprised
workrooms and a dye-house. What amount of
employment was given it does not seem possible
to determine. The lessee was Mr. John Star-
forth, under whose administration the work went
forward until 1809, when it was given up and
the premises were sold outright to Mr. Gilbert
Henderson. Under this gentleman the carpet
industry was introduced in 1814, giving some
repute for their manufacture to the city, and
providing increasing employment.-* It has
been already noticed that a wooUen manufactory
had been established by Elvet Bridge in 1715,^
and it is probable that it continued separately.
In 1796 on the south of St. Oswald's Church,
Messrs. George and Henry Salvin removed their
machinery from Castle Eden and set up a cotton
manufactory and built houses for their work-
people. This was the most considerable acces-
sion to local industry that had yet been made,
but it had a most unfortunate ending in 1804,
when the whole enterprise was ruined by fire.^"
This disaster and the coincident decline of the
woollen manufactory proved a heavy blow to

2' The rather obscure financial arrangements with
the Corporation are described by Carlton in his
Dur. Char. 9-1 1, 24.

28 In 1872, the date of Carlton's book, 700 persons
were employed in the carpet industry.

2' Cf. Surtees, op. cit. iv, 56.

**> Surtees, op. cit. iv, 85, and with more description
in Table Book from the Newcastle papers sub anno.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

local trade. The cotton factory had been set up,
no doubt with considerable anticipation, in the
very year that the great canal and river scheme
was revived and expanded. The city, too, was
improving, for the Act of 1790,^^ however
imperfectly administered, must have proved a
new era in the lighting, paving, and general
amenity of the place. In 1791 a new theatre
was opened, taking the place, it is believed, of
that mentioned above. In the same year the
old Claypath gate was removed. Two years
later the Durham infirmary, which had been
established in 1785, was ready to receive patients.
The occasion called forth a great display of
interest with a service at the Cathedral, a civic
procession, a public dinner, a special performance
of Cato at the theatre.'^

The French war soon absorbed attention,

and its echoes were heard even in Durham.

In 1795^' a French privateer had landed its

crew on the Northumbrian coast, raiding the

seat of Lord Delaval, and recalling to men's

minds the incursions of Danes in far distant

times. In the summer, encampments of local

levies were established at the chief convenient

spots for troops to occupy along the coast line

or near to it. In 1797 when banks all over

the country were feeling the strain caused by

small tradesmen who were eagerly turning their

capital into ready money, the Durham banks

passed through a most anxious time.** A run

on them began, but, as was done elsewhere,

local men of means came forward to inspire

confidence.^ A declaration was signed by a

large number of gentlemen from the counties of

Durham and Northumberland indicating their

willingness to take banknotes from all the banks

in Durham, Newcastle, and Sunderland. Paper

money, save for sums under £1, came in this

way to be the means of exchange for some years.

In 1798, when the fear of invasion paralysed the

land, armed associations were formed in various

places. In Durham 500 men offered themselves,

and of these 300 were chosen and embodied

under Col. Fenwick.^ Their colours, presented

by Lady Millbank, were given some years later

to the University of Durham," and still hang

in the Castle Hall. A body of cavalry was also

raised, and the two corps remained under arms

until the treaty of Amiens in 1802 brought a

temporary peace. The bad harvest of 1799

aggravated the miserable condition of the poor

in the city. A time of great poverty followed, so

'^ See above, p. 5.

32 Table Book, sub anno.

33 Ibid.

3* Ibid, iub anno.

35 For the general position cf. Hunt, Political Hist.
387.
^ Table Book, 1798.
3' Minutes of Senate.

that in 1800 a public soup kitchen was opened
to relieve the distress.3'*

The war began again after the few months'
luU in 1803. The local volunteers were called
out again in November,38 and were not dis-
banded for ten years. The anxious months
dragged on, and in February 1804 tension
became acute. In Durham arrangements were
all complete for the volunteers to assemble
within two hours of summons on Palace Green.
A series of beacons was arranged, Gateshead
signalling to Pittington Hill, and Pittington
to Durham. 38 Otherwise, too, it was a
gloomy year in the city, the cotton factory hav-
ing been burnt down in January, throwing many
out of employment. Gradually, however, the
immediate fear of invasion began to abate,
though the clouds did not disperse for a long
time.

Meanwhile, some attention had been directed
to Durham in no very enviable way. John
Carter, the celebrated architectural draughts-
man employed by the Society of Antiquaries,
had visited Durham in 1795. The dean
and chapter, who had been carrying out the
extensive repairs begun in 1776, called in the
aid of Wyatt in 1798. His extraordinary pro-
posals, of which the draft may still be seen in
the Dean and Chapter Library, were fortunately
never fully carried out. He left his mark,
however, on the building, introducing what
Carter scornfuUy called ' his alterations and
modern conveniences.'

Men's minds were at the time full of the
French war, but even so the publicity of the
Gentleman' s Magazine gave the work done at
Durham wide notoriety.''" Public opinion,
however, in days of slow communication, was
not formed quickly enough to prevent the
destruction of the revestry with its mediaeval
furniture. It was puUed down in the very year
that Carter's letters appeared.
The same magazine which published the

3'" The bishop made a public appeal {Gent. Mag.
Ixix, 1079).

3« A sermon preached before the delivery of the
colours to the Durham Volunteer Infantry, 1803, by
Archdeacon Bouyer was published. This delivery
seems to mean re-delivery. Col. Fenwick resigned
his command, which was taken by Mr. Shipperdson.

3' The interesting arrangements are described in
Arch. Ael. v, 163.

** Carter exhibited his drawings to the Society of
Antiquaries in and from 1797, taking a view a week at
their meetings. His book on Durham was published
in 1801. Wyatt's work being at that time well in
progress, Carter, in his interesting series of letters
on the Cathedral given in the Gent. Mag. for 1802,
explained to the world what Wyatt was doing (op.
cit. Ixxi, 1091 ; Ixxii, 30, 133, 135 (Wyatt's plan),
228, 399, 494). In Ibid. Ixxii, 327, ' A.L. ' describes
from eye-witness the work of Wyatt up to 1800.

CITY OF DURHAM

doings of Wyatt gave further notoriety to
Durham, as stated above, owing to the con-
dition of the gaol, parts of which Neild described
as ' amongst the very worst in the idngdom.' "^
There can be no doubt that the local conscience
was touched. It was proposed to remove the
prisoners from Langley's gaol to a new site.
The scheme went farther, for it was decided
to built new courts as well as a new prison.
The County House or Assize Courts, an in-
convenient building restored by Cosin,^ was
to be transferred to Old Elvet, where, in 1809,
with full masonic ritual, and in the presence
of the bishop and others, the foundation stone
was laid.^' The building was opened in 181 1,
but the gaol was not finally ready until 1819.**
The year 1809 was also memorable for the
jubilee of George III, when large munificence
was shown to the poor.''* On this occasion
it was estimated that 1,000 poor families were
helped, the number, if correct, indicating the
strain and poverty of the times.''* And, indeed,
the shadow of trouble was never very far distant.
Colliery riots broke out in the autumn of the
jubilee year. The old gaol and the house of
correction at Durham overflowed with prisoners,
until some were drafted off to be guarded by
the volunteers in the Castle stables.""

The end of the war, as it was thought to be,
in 1814, was hailed with delight. A great
illumination marked the celebration of the
Allies' entry into Paris, and Buonaparte was
burned in effigy in the market-place.''* A few
months later the first number of the Durham
County Advertiser was published in Durham.
It had been originally the Newcastle Advertiser,
but was nowtransferred to Durham. The printer
and publisher was Mr. Francis Humble."** The
acute suffering that followed the peace of 181 5
does not seem to have been so much felt in
Durham as in some other parts. With the
accession of George IV began those discussions
and debates which a few years later bore fruit
in the ecclesiastical and civil changes of the
thirties, changes which brought in an entirely
new Durham. They came, however, from
without, and were forced upon the city to a
great extent, and there is little evidence of

*1 See above, p. 48.

*2 See above, p. 40.

*3 Table Book, sub anno. " Ibid.

** Dur. Advertiser.

*^ Table Book, sub anno.

*' Ibid. Oct. 1809. Colliery troubles did not
affect Durham directly, but indirectly, in lowered
markets and fairs, the effect was considerable. The
last great time of colliery strikes had been in 1793.

^8 Table Book, Apr. 18 14.

** Mumble's office was just outside the gaol-gate
in Saddler Street, and is now represented by the
Advertiser office vnth its enlarged premises.

active and sympathetic agitation within for
such a complete reshaping of the municipality,
and of the cathedral establishment, as the reign
of William IV brought in.^° The population
was increasing. The war, perhaps, and certainly
the failure of local manufacturers reduced the
numbers by nearly 800 between 1801 and i8ii,but
from the latter year they rose again rapidly until in
1821 they were over 9,800, an average increase
of 300 a year since the census of 181 1. The
augmentation must have been in the poorer
districts, as there is no evidence of wide building
operations on the peninsula.**

The coming changes were heralded almost
significantly by a series of local alterations.
Then in 1820 the great North Gate of the
Castle, which spanned the top of Saddler Street,
was removed, the apartments used for the gaol
being no longer necessary.*^ In the same year,
the old county house of Bishop Cosin's time*'
was pulled down, all assize business being now
transferred to the new centre in Old Elvet.
Bishop Barrington erected on the site a diocesan
registry office partly at his own expense, and
partly by subscription." In 1823 gas-works
were erected below Framvvellgate bridge, the
lighting of the streets constituting a new epoch
in the historyof the city** when it was introduced
in the following year. In 1825 a local event
of even greater importance took place in the
opening of the Stockton and Darlington railway,
the county, if not the city, leading the way
in the new enterprise. Nineteen years, how-
ever, passed before Durham itself was linked
with the outer world by a railway of its own.**
In 1827 a further revolution was inaugurated
when the London General Steam Navigation
Company began regular steam communication
between the Tyne and the Thames.*' It was,
perhaps, characteristic of the new spirit that
was now spreading when the dean and chapter
in 1827 gave permission to Mr. James Raine
to open the grave of St. Cuthbert in order to
dissipate the myth as to the body of St. Cuthbert.
Scott's Marmion had aroused interest in 1808,
and this was further spread by the opening of
St. Cuthbert's church in Old Elvet at the end
of May 1827. Raine's conclusions as published
by him in 1828 were vigorously opposed by
Dr. Lingard and Archbishop E)Te, and the

*" For the spirit in the country at large, of. Van
Milvert, Sermons and Charges, 525.

** Statistics in Surtees, op. cit. iv, 13, and in detail
V.C.H. Dur. ii, 273.

*2 See above, p. 2.

*' See above, p. 40.

** The building bears his arms. Public subscrip-
tions were asked, but it is not clear how this was done.

** See above, p. 5.

** See above, p. 4.

*' Table Book, sub anno.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

controversy was reopened in 1900.^ The shrine
of Bede was examined in 1830, and the present
inscription on the slab was added in 1831.^'
One or two other contemporary alterations
may be mentioned. In 1828 the approach to
Framwellgate bridge was improved, and the
old battlements were taken down.*" In 1829
the cathedral churchyard was levelled, the earth
being removed to the western end, and helping
to form the rise in the ground which is so
observable.*' In the autumn a public meeting
in Durham proposed the construction of a new
road from Framwellgate bridge towards Dry-
burn. The immediate occasion was the rumour
of a plan to run a road from Farewell Hall on
the Darlington Road to Neville's Cross, which
would divert traffic on the Great North Road
from the city. It was urged that the menace
to trade and property was considerable.*- Event-
ually King Street *^ was formed, and was opened
in 1 83 1, so called in the coronation year from
King William IV. It did not, however, obviate
the making of the road from Farewell Hall.

These last matters were coincident with the
Reform agitation. Durham itself did not rise
to any great enthusiasm. At the outset, the
cholera scare checked it, and although the city
did not suffer, the very severe visitation at
Newcastle and in Sunderland** brought fear
to the inhabitants. The fast day in 1832 was
observed in the city with great sincerity.*^ The
protest meeting, which was held in Old Elvet,
after the Lords' rejection of the Reform Bill
a few months earher, was a highly decorous
affair, though attended by more than 8,000
persons.** So was a second meeting held
after the resignation of the Ministry in
May 1832,*' and a third in June.** Mean-
while, the dean and chapter by an Act of
chapter in 1831 had approved the foundation of a
university, and the bill received the royal assent
in July 1832, whilst the charter bears date
1837. It will still be debated by some whether
the new foundation endowed by dean and chap-
ter and bishop was a sop to Cerberus, or the
long deferred realization of a plan which was
as old as the days of Henry VIII.** From the
point of view of the city at large, it was hailed
with great satisfaction, and it must be admitted

** V.C.H. Dur. i, 250. See Dr. Fowler's account
in Arch. lix. Canon Brown's articles in the Ushaw
Magazine on ' Where is St. Cuthbert's Body ? '
give the sceptical view.

*9 Arch. Ael. iv, 26.

*" Table Book, sub anno.

" Sykes, Local Rec. ii, 385.

*^ Table Book, sub anno.

*' Now North Road.

** Sykes, Local Rec. ii, 322-33. *^ Ibid. 347.

6* Ibid. 333. «7 Ibid. 358. «8 Ibid. 366.

«» F.C.H. Dur. ii, 72.

that the scale of expense for many years must
have brought considerable profit to local trade.™
Builders, furnishers, purveyors, tailors, and
others all received benefit from the new in-
stitution." The rapid increase of railway
communication after a very few years rather
damped the hopes of the promoters of the
scheme, who expected the new university to
rival the older foundations of Oxford and
Cambridge, not only in learning, but in numbers.
These years which saw the birth of the
university, and the altered scheme of cathedral
establishment, also witnessed the inauguration
of the modern civic constitution under the
Municipal Reform Act. From this point we
started for this general chronological review
of Durham history, and with it we now conclude
our survey. We have seen the boundary
commission of 1832 and its provisions. In
1833 ^ fresh commission was appointed, in
that epoch of commissions, to carry out an
exhaustive inquiry into local conditions. Two
years were occupied in this thorough investiga-
tion of the various municipalities. The report
made curious disclosures. The dependence of
the city upon the bishop was now regarded
as an anachronism, and, unless Durham were
to be excepted from the unifying procedure
recommended by the commission, the annexation
of the palatine jurisdiction to the crown was
bound to follow the provisions of the Municipal
Corporations Act. The most important clauses
in modifying the old constitution are the follow-
ing. The corporation was no longer styled
' Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the
City of Durham and Framwellgate,' but
' Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the City
of Durham.' '^ The Aldermen were now to be
six, the Councillors eighteen, and there were to
be three wards. The time-honoured Mayor's
day was changed to 9 November. Constables
superseded the old arrangement of 1790 and
1822. A police-office was erected. A com-
mission of peace for the borough was formed.
A clerk of the peace was appointed. The
Reform Act had given the franchise to many
who were not freemen of the city. The latter
were confirmed in their electoral privileges,
and in such property right as they had prior
to the passing of the Act. All gift or purchase
of the freedom of the city gilds was abolished.

'" The report of the Commission of 1863 gives
some details as to the general scale of living.

'1 The old and ruined keep, uninhabited since
the days of Bishop Fox (1501), was rebuilt 1839-41,
and fitted with rooms for undergraduates. Verdant
Green, written by a Durham graduate with the
sobriquet Cuthbert Bede (note the Durham names),
but really Edward Bradley, was originally a picture of
Durham life, but was adapted by the author to Oxford.

'2 Stat. 5 & 6 Will. IV, cap. 76.

CITY OF DURHAM

All the old exclusive trade-rights of the gilds
were swept away, and by this one blow a most
characteristic piece of Durham history ceased
to exist."

In fact the Municipal Corporation Act
metamorphosed the city in its civic aspect.
Next year, the annexation of the palatine juris-
diction to the crown '■• terminated the temporal
powers of the bishop, though the Act made
it clear that the sovereign did not abolish, but
assumed for himself those powers.'* Accordingly
the king is to-day Comes Palatinus and the city
of Durham, as capital of the palatinate, stands
in unique relation to the monarch.'* All this
legislation was rounded off by the various
acts considered elsewhere " which so greatly
altered the old ecclesiastical status in Durham.

Under the Municipal
JURISDICTIONS Corporations Act 1835
Durham was made up
of a series of jurisdictions built round the
central castle area over which the constable held
sway. To the north of the castle lay the
Bishop's borough, with its suburb of Framwell-
gate across the Wear. East of the Bishop's
borough lay the borough of Gilesgate — formerly
subject to Kepier Hospital — whilst within that
borough lay St. Mary Magdalen, a separate
jurisdiction subject to the convent. Elvct (both
borough and barony) and the old borough of
Crossgate on the other side of the Wear, which
were subject to the convent, complete the juris-
dictions.

Taking first the CASTLE AREA, it may be
remarked that the term ' the castle ' is now
restricted to the buildings at the northern end
of the cathedral plateau occupied by University
College, but in the Middle Ages the whole of this
plateau was called ' the castle.' Though the
North and South Baileys might be included as
part of ' the city ' they stoutly resisted any
attempt to treat them as part of the borough.
There is no trace of any such attempt before
the Dissolution, but when, in the 17th century,
the mayor and corporation of the borough were
gradually extending their influence through the
medium of the gilds, the bishop found it
necessary to make an order restraining the
mayor from coming with his halberts above the
Gaol Gates, otherwise called the North Gate
of the castle. Above these gates he asserted

" After the suit mentioned above (p. 42), the
history of the gilds is hard to follow on the trade side.
Probably the old regulations fell into desuetude.

'* See Lapsley, op. cit. 204 ; V.C.H. Dur. ii, 73.

" The Act {36^7 WiU. IV, cap. 19.

" This King George V recognized in 191 3 by his
grant of a sword to the city.

" F.C.H. Dur. ii, 73-4.

they had no ' magisterial ' or other jurisdiction
and the inhabitants of this privileged area were
subject to the constable of the castle and to his
court.*

The North and South Baileys form a street
with houses on the western side abutting on
the road on the one side and on the castle wall
on the other. Originally these houses were part
of the estate of the bishop's principal military
tenants — the barons of the bishopric — who
were responsible for the defence of the castle.
It was, however, the estates outside the city of
Durham which carried the burden of castle-
ward, not the houses in the Bailey. Thus,
when, in the 13th and 14th centuries, these
houses were sold, the vendors reserved accom-
modation for themselves and their horses when
they had to do their turn of duty in the castle.

In an inquisition on the death of Jordan de
Dalden in 1348 it is stated that his houses in
the Bailey were held of the bishop by barony
like the other houses in the Bailey.^ A typical
reservation of accommodation — a chamber and
stabling for four horses — will be found in
Reginald Bassett's conveyance of his house in
the Bailey to the convent at the beginning of the
13th century.^ Many of the families mentioned
in the 1166 return of knights' fees can be traced
as owners of houses in the Bailey, namely,
Dalden,* Fishburn,* Fitz Meldred,* Amunde-
ville,' Hilton,* Foletebe,* EscoUand," Basset,"
Lumley,i2 Eppleden," Brumtoft," Mon-
boucher," Dragon,** Ralph Fitz Roger," Kel-
lawe,** BruninghilP' and Conyers.^o

The Palace Green between the castle and the
cathedral was the centre of the Palatinate
administration. As we have already seen,-* the

* There are two cases on the subject, one in 1674
(Durh. Reg. Com. P.R.O. bdle. 52, Durh. Reg. Orders,
Vol. M (3), f. 289) dealing with the question of suit to
the borough mill, and the other about 1699 {Arch.
Adiana, ii, N.S., 208) deals with a question of building
by ' foreigners.'

2 Randall MS. i, 45.

* Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surtees Soc), 196.
« Randall MS. i, 45.

s Durh. Treas. Cart, ii, f. 264.

* Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surtees Soc), 196.

' Ibid. 197. 8 Ibid. » Ibid. 195.

10 Ibid. 196. 1* Ibid.

*» Durh. Treas. Cart, ii, f. 266.

IS Ibid.

1* Surtees, Hist. Durh. iv, 162.

15 Ibid.

*« Durh. Treas. i, 16 spec. 45. " Ibid. 57.

18 Ibid. 62. This deed indicates that at the end
of the 13th century during time of war the period
of service was 40 days.

19 Durh. Treas. Cart, ii, 267.

20 Inq. p.m. Simon Lane, 5 Hatfield; Randall
MS. i, 50.

21 See above, p. 24.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

courts,** the Exchequer, the Gaol and the Mint
were all situated there, and later, in the 17th
century, when the county began to return
members to Parliament, the elections took place
on the Palace Green.**

The government of this area appears to have
been vested in the constable of the castle. In
an order of 5 September 1674 ^^ '^ stated that
' the North and South Baileys are within the
Guard and Precinct of the castle of Durham
and the inhabitants thereof have done suit at
the court held within the said castle by castle-
guard tenure and never appeared at the city
courts or did any service there.' **

At the beginning of the 19th century the
first great change was made when the courts
and the gaol were transferred to Elvet, whither
the whole of the county administration offices
have gradually been transferred. The Palace
Green is now the centre of activity of the
Durham section of the University of Durham.

The BOROUGH OF DURHAM"^ before the
Municipal Corporations Act 1835, included the
parish of St. Nicholas and part of Framwellgate,
viz., ' both sides of the street from the Clock
Mill at the foot of Crossgate to the cross at the
head of that street (Framwellgate) leading to

** When the first regular court house was built
is unknown. It is evident from the ' Attestationes
Testium ' in connection with the ' Convenit ' that
no regular court house existed at the beginning of the
13th century. Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surt. Soc), 252.

« Mickleton MS. f. 94d, 106, I22d.

** Durh. Rec. Entry Bks. Decrees andOrders, bdle.4,
no. 3, f. 289.

^^ The materials for the history of the borough of
Durham are unfortunately somewhat meagre. With
the exception of the charters and some recent
minute hooks, the whole of the corporation papers
have disappeared. It seems that during the 19th
century a corporation official who had custody of the
missing documents had a dispute with the corporation
as to certain fees and claimed that he had a hen on
the documents in question. The dispute was not
settled, and every effort to trace the missing papers,
which apparently remained in the hands of the official,
has been unsuccessful. The Dean and Chapter
Treasury contains a considerable number of 13th
and 14th century deeds relating to houses in the
borough belonging to the convent ; also a paper book
of the time of Bishop Booth containing {inter alia)
copies of leases of the borough, the mill and the
furnace. The main source of Information, however,
is the Exchequer Depositions (Durh. East. 8 Jas. I,
no. 41), taken in connection with a dispute between
Bishop James and the corporation at the beginning of
the 17th century (see above, p. 35). Occasional re-
ferences are to be found in the Mickleton MS.
in Bishop Cosin's Library, Durham, and we have to
thank Dr. H. H. E. Craster for a reference to Carte
MS. 129 (ff. 250-284), where a number of documents
relating to the government of the borough In the 17th
century are copied.

Newcastle by the bounder of the burgages and
garths thereunto adjoining,'** i.e., Framwellgate
from its junction with Milburngate to the cross
which formerly stood at the point where Side-
gate diverges from the old road to Newcastle.
On the right bank of the river the boundaries are
clear, namely, the castle on the south, Gilesgate
on the east and the river on the other sides.

In the case of Framwellgate the exact area
within the jurisdiction is uncertain. It would
appear that Sidegate was without the borough,
but whether Castle Chare, formerly an important
exit from the town to Witton Gilbert and
Lanchester, was within or without the borough
seems doubtful. Generally speaking, the
borough may be described as the Market
Place*' and the streets leading out of it.

It is not known when the borough came into
existence, but as early as 11 30 it was sufficiently
wealthy to pay a fine of loa;.** The fact that
the pasture area for the borough burgages lay
across the river at Framwellgate seems to indi-
cate that it was established subsequent to 11 12
when Bishop Flambard founded Kepier Hos-
pital, and endowed it with Gilesgate Moor,
which otherwise would have been the natural
position for the borough pastures.**

The conjecture that the borough was founded
by Bishop Flambard is strengthened by the
facts that he cleared the population from Palace
Green, and had to find accommodation for it
elsewhere, and he built Framwellgate Bridge,
which gives ready access to the borough pastures.

The first charter to the burgesses of Durham
was that granted by Bishop Pudsey in or before
the year 1179. The text is as follows*": —

Hugo dei gratia Dunelm' Episcopus Omnibus
homlnibus totius episcopatus sui clerlcls et lalcls
Francis et Anglls Salutem, Sciatis nos concesslsse et
presentl carta confirmasse Burgenslbus nostrls de
Dunelmo quod slnt Uberi et quiet! a consuetudine
quae dlcltur Intol et uttol et de merchetls et herietls

*' Exch. Depos. ut supra.

*' The Market Place Is bounded by St. Nicholas
Church on its northern side and may originally have
been the churchyard which gradually became more
and more devoted to trade. It was in the Market
Place that the Tolbooth, the centre of the borough
administration, stood.

*8 Hunter, Mag. Rot. Scacc. (Rec. Com.), 130.

** It is not possible now to ascertain where the
arable area attached to the burgages lay ; a certain
amount of land would be available between Claypath
and the river, and in addition there was land at the
south end of Framwellgate Moor, but most of this
was held In connection with extra-burghal holdings.

^ The charter, with the bishop's seal attached,
is in the custody of the corporation. There is a
copy in the Durh. Treas. Reg. ii, pt. 2, f. 3.
We have to express our thanks to the late Mr. F.
Marshall, the town clerk, for permission to copy the
charter.

CITY OF DURHAM

et ut habeant omnes liberas consuetudines sicut
burgenses de Novo Castello melius et honorabilius
habent. Testibus, Radulpho Haget viecomite,
Gilleberto Hansard, Henrico de Puteaco, Johanne
de Amunde ville, Rogero de Coisncres, Jordano
EscoUant, Thoma filio Willelmi, Gaufrido filio
Ricardi, Alexandre de Helton, Willelmo de Laton,
Osberto de Hetton, Gaufiido de Torp, Ranulpho de
Fisseburn, Ricardo de Parco, Michaeli filio Briennii,
Ricardo de Puntcardum, Radulpho Bassett, Rogero,
Philippo filio Hamonis, Rogero de Epplindina,
Patrico de Ufferton et multis aliis.

It will be noticed that the deed does not
create the borough but merely grants certain
mercantile and other pecuniary privileges and
contains no reference to any right of self-govern-
ment. It might be thought that the grantees
were the members of a gild merchant, but of
the existence of such a body there is no evi-
dence.^i Of the privileges granted, the freedom
from toll was probably the most important.
According to a note of somewhat later date the
tolls exacted in the palatinate were — ' at Chester-
le-Street from those coming from the south and
at Sunderland from the north ; at Wolsingham,
Rainton, Houghton and Sedgefield from those
travelling north and at Norton from those
travelling south, and at Grindon Moor from all
directions.' The note finishes ' apud Dunelm
veniunt quieti et ibi dabunt tolnetum et capient
signa.'^^

Unlike the charter to Wearmouth, also
granted by Pudsey, the customs of Newcastle
are not set out.^^ The adaptation of the New-
castle clauses in the Wearmouth charter to
meet the conditions of the Palatinate should be
noted as likely to apply also to Durham — especi-
ally the ' appeal ' clause which permits the
burgess to defend himself ' per legem civilem,
scilicet, per xxxvi homines.'^ The Wear-
mouth charter is also of interest as indicating
the rights of the burgesses of Durham to take
both timber and firewood under conditions not
specified in that charter. The Gateshead
charter, also granted by Pudsey,*' contains
elaborate provisions limiting the right to wood
required for use and not for sale.

In an eyre held at Durham in 1242 the bur-
gesses claimed the exclusive right of buying and
selling between the Rivers Tyne and Tees,

'^ The reference in the Chester deeds to the gild
merchant at Durham, Hist. MS. Com. Sth Rep., 355,
is an error for Dublin : See Round, Feudal Eng. 465.

*2 Durh. Treas. Reg. ii, f. 184 d. The entry
was made in the 14th century.

" The Wearmouth charter is printed in Boldon Bk.
(Surtees Soc), xli. The Newcastle charter is in
Stubbs' Select Charters, 1 10. They can best be
studied for the purposes of comparison in Ballard,
Brit. Boro. Ch. 1042-1216.

** See Boro. Customs (Selden Soc), II, xx\'ii.

« Boldon Bk. (Surtees Soc), ili.

though they admit a doubt as to Sadberge,
then but recently added to the Palatinate.
That they were confident in their claim is shown
by their seizing the sheep of one of Robert Fitz
Meldred's men, which had been sold outside
the liberties of the borough without the licence
of the burgesses. As at this period Robert
Fitz Meldred was one of the most powerful men
in the Palatinate, the burgesses must have been
either very sure of their ground, or have acted
with a singular lack of discretion. The roll also
records the claim of the burgesses to seize by
way of distress the horses of the squires of
knights, and complaints appear of the action of
the burgesses in searching for dyed wool in the
country districts.^*

It is somewhat difficult to find any passage
in the Newcastle customs sufficiently wide to
cover the Durham claim to a monopoly of
trading.*'' Such a right was generally of pre-
Conquest origin,*^ and it is of interest to note
that the monopoly clause was omitted from the
Wearmouth charter. The power of distress
seems to be within the scope of the Newcastle
clause,** and the search for dyed wool indicates
that the burgesses of Durham claimed a mono-
poly of the wool trade.**'

The first reference to a lease of the borough
appears in Boldon Book,*^ but, beyond the
somewhat heavy rent of 60 marks, no other
information is given, except that the mill was
not included in the lease. From 1183 to
Bek's roll in 1308-9 no information has sur\'ived,
but in the latter year James the apothecary or
the spicer is stated to be the lessor of the
borough and the mill.^ The rent was ^^66
I3J'. 4//., which did not include the furnaces.
Unfortunately the names of the bailiSs for the
year in question have not survived, but Spicer
was bailiff in 1304 and 1306.**

There is in 1352-3 a reference to a lease for
three years of the borough to Sir Thomas Gray,
the bishop's steward, and John of Alverton, but
it was not until 1387 that we obtain definite

*« Durh. Assize R. (Surtees Soc), cases 284-291.
There is a separate verdict from each of the four
Durham boroughs.

3' Ballard, Boro. CA. 211.

** Ibid. Irs'i ; see aUo Chadwick, Studies in Anglo-
Saxon Inst.

*' Ballard, op. cit. 160.

*o Ballard, op. cit. 211.

« I'.C.H. Dur. i, 306, 327.

*2 Boldon Bk. (Surtees Soc), xiiii.

** The rubric in the roU under which the rent
appears is ' Reccptio de baUivis burgorum,' but
Spicer is described as ' firmarius.' It should be
mentioned that he was a bishopric ofiicial and died
rich — dabbling in municipal finance in the early part
of the 14th century was apparently not wholly
unprofitable. Kellati's Reg. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 1 10.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

information as to the terms of the lease." In
1387 the bishop (Fordham) leased to John
Le%vyn, Walter Coken, Roger Aspour and Henry
Shirburn the borough of Durham with all
manner of rents and services, courts and customs
belonging to the borough together with the
common furnace and the mill, and all profits
from the markets, ' skamelynghires ' and toUs
as well from residents as from strangers. The
lease also included the right of licensing inn-
keepers, a toll of "jd. from each tenant of the
Prior of Durham who sold goods in the great
fair of St. Cuthbert in September, and all fines
for breaches of the peace within the borough.
The bishop reserved to himself all escheats and
forfeitures, and also the right to have his corn
ground on certain terms. The lease was for
six years and the annual rent was ^^83 13J. 4^/.
with a provision for allowance in case of the
breakdown of the mill or common furnace, and
for reduction in case of war or pestilence.
This appears to have been the form of lease
which was from time to time renewed to a
group of prominent burgesses who doubtless
acted for the general body of their brethren,
though of this there is no proof.** In 1435 there
was a lease to Hugh Boner, Robert Werdale,
WiUiam Conyers and William Smith for six
years, the rent being 84 marks.** Boner, it wUl
be noticed, was one of the bailiffs in 1421.*'

Bishop Pilkington's charter*^ granted, on
30 January 1565, that all the inhabitants in
Durham and Framwellgate ' sint et erunt re,
facto et nomine una societas et unum corpus
de se imperpetuum et habeant successionem
perpetuam.' The governing body consisted of
an alderman, twelve assistants and twelve in-
habitants — the first alderman and assistants
being appointed by the bishop, the former for
his year of office, the latter for life if the bishop
pleased. Yearly on 3 October the twelve
assistants were to elect twelve inhabitants, and
on the following day the joint body of twenty-
four were to elect an alderman for the ensuing

MDurh. Halmote Bks. P.R.O. A.ygd. Both
lessees were bailiffs in 1353. It seems doubtful if
Grey was a burgess.

** Durh. Cursitor R. cl. 3, no. 32, m. 8 d. Three
of the lessees, John Lew-yn, Walter Coken and Roger
Aspour, appear in the list of bailiffs at this period.

*' Durh. Cursitor R. cl. 3, no. 37, m. 12 d.

*' The other 15th-century leases are as follows:
27 Sept. 1466, lease of borough, mill and furnace for
one year, rent 90 marks ; 11 Jan. 1470, lease of tolls
and ' Scamylhire Burgi ' for one year, rent 60/. ;
9 Oct. 1473, lease of borough for one year, rent
£11 6s. 8d. ; 10 Jan. 147S, a similar lease. All the
lessees were tradesmen and the leases appear in Liber
Recog. et dimis. temp. Laur. epis'. (Durh. Treas.),
ff. iii, 174, 291, and 29.

*' The charter is printed in Hutchinson, Htjt.
Durham, ii, 21.

year. In case of failure to elect, the bishop was
to appoint. The corporation had power to
plead as the alderman and burgesses, to hold
property up to 100 marks in value and to have a
common seal, to make bye-laws and to receive
the fines for their infringement. The weekly
markets and the three fairs with the profits
incidental to them and to the piepowder court
were granted to the alderman and burgesses and
their successors. The city constables were
directed to obey the lawful orders of the alder-
man for the time being, and the charter ends
with a command that neither the alderman nor
the twelve assistants (the twelve inhabitants are
not mentioned) were to wear the livery of any
nobleman. It will be noticed that no mention
is made of the power to hold courts (other than
the piepowder court incidental to the fairs).

Bishop Matthew was the next to grant a
charter. In 1602 he incorporated the burgesses,
men and inhabitants — ' sint et erunt unum
corpus politicum et incorporatum in re facto et
nomine per nomen majoris aldermanorum et
communitatis ' — with power to plead, hold
property up to loo marks and have a common
seal. The aldermen, twelve in number, had
to be both burgesses and inhabitants ; they
were to hold office for life. On 3 October
in every year they and the mayor were to elect
the twenty-four — two from each of the twelve
gilds mentioned in the charter. The members
of the twenty-four had to be inhabitants, but
no burgess qualification is mentioned as in the
case of aldermen. The twenty-four, with the
mayor and the aldermen, were to form the
common council of the city, and on 4 October
of every year they were to elect one of the
aldermen as mayor for the ensuing year. In
like manner they had power to fill vacancies in
the bench of aldermen and in the number of
the twenty-four. They had power also to
appoint the city Serjeants and other corpora-
tion officers. In the case of elections of mayors
and aldermen the quorum must include seven
aldermen in the former case and the mayor and
six aldermen in the latter. Similar provisions
to those in Pilkington's charter, but in a some-
what fuller form, are contained as to bye-laws,
markets and fairs, with the addition that the
mayor is to act as clerk of the market. The
charter then proceeds to grant to the mayor,
aldermen and community a court to be held
fortnightly on Tuesday before a steward to be
by them appointed. This court had power to
deal with both real and personal actions without
limit as to amount, provided they arose within
the city limits. To enable this jurisdiction to
be exercised effectively, an extensive power of
attachment was given. The profits of this court
were to belong to the corporation, whose juris-
dictional powers were further increased by a

CITY OF DURHAM

grant of the view of frankpledge and the assizes
of bread and ale.^*

No 16th-century lease of the borough has
survived, but on 13 October 1627 the bishop
leased it to Thomas Man, Thomas Cook,
Thomas Tunstall and William VVaUton, of whom
both Cook and Man figure in the list of mayors.
The lease includes the Tolbooth with all shops,
houses and buildings under the same, borough
rents, landmales, rents, free rents, duties,
customs and services of the burgesses, free-
holders and inhabitants, benefit of admitting
freemen, markets kept weekly on Saturday, fairs
kept yearly from time to time, the profits,
commodities, perquisites, pickages, stallages,
scavilhires, scavilcorn or scavage corn, tolls,
customs, duties and usages of the said markets
and fairs, borough court, court leet, court
baron held before the steward of the borough
together with suit and service of burgesses,
freeholders and inhabitants at the said head and
other courts and all profits of court. The term
of the lease was 20 years and the rent [zo : in
addition the lessees were responsible for the
repair of the Tolbooth.^"

During the Commonwealth the borough, as
part of the bishop's possessions, was sold on
18 April 1651 for ;^200 to the mayor, aldermen
and commonalty of the city of Durham. The
parcels include all the propel ty, rights and
privileges set out in the 1627 lease together
with the house or building called the Tolbooth,
the office of Bailiwick, the court of piepowder,
passages, pontage, and the office of clerk of the
market. As the clauses relating to the borough
court are the only accurate source of information
on the subject, they are set out in full. They
are as follows : — ' the courts usually held within
city as well as courts leet, view of frankpledge,
courts baron and borough courts, with their and
every of their appurtenances, also the charter
court and court of pleas heretofore usually
holden or to be holden within the said city or
borough every Tuesday from fifteen days to
fifteen days before the steward there. Together
with suit and services from time to time of all
and every the burgesses, freeholders, freemen
and inhabitants of the said city of Durham and
of the borough of Durham and FramweUgate
aforesaid to the said courts respectively belong-
ing, with full power and authority to nominate
and appoint all officers and ministers incident
and belonging to the charter court, for executing
the precepts of the said court, and for the
hearing and determining of all and all manner
of actions, suits, plaints and demands, real and

*' The charter is printed in Hutchinson, op. cit.
ii, 29; see above, p. 33, as to circumstances attending
the granting of these charters.

M Mickleton MS. i, 4iod.

personal, as well as of debts amounting to any
sum or sums of money, as of accounts, trespasses,
detentions, deceipts, actions upon the case,
matters and contracts, whatsoever and all other
causes and pleas, personal, real, and mixed
happening or arising within the said city or
borough of Durham and FramweUgate, or within
the limits, bounds and precincts, to be levied
and offered in the said charter court, and the
parties, defendants in the said suits, actions,
plaints, and demands, to bring into the said
court by summons, attachment or distress, if
they be sufficient, and if they be found not
sufficient, that then by the attachment of the
bodies of such parties.'

With the Restoration the old state of affairs
was restored and the leases of the profits of
the borough continued to be granted.^^ In
1835 the Municipal Corporations Commissioners
reported that the toUs were leased to trustees
in trust for the mayor and his successors. The
rent was [lo and the lease was renewed without
fine although the corporation then let the tolls
for £213.^2

Bishop Crewe's charter granted in 1685 is, as
we have seen, almost exactly similar in terms to
Bishop Matthew's, and, as already stated, the
charter soon ceased to be operative.**

The circumstances in which the grant of a
new charter by Bishop Egerton in 1780 was
rendered necessary have already been stated.**
In general terms the charter confirms the rights
given by Bishop Matthew's charter; the points
in which it differs from the latter charter are
that the mayor isto hold office untU his successor
is appointed, that no quorum of aldermen is
necessary at an election, and that mayor, alder-
men and common councillors need no longer be
resident within the somewhat narrow borough
limits, but may be drawn from an area which
corresponds with that of the present city. The
power to appoint a recorder and town clerk is
also given.** This charter remained in force
until the Municipal Corporations Act.

We know little of the early government of the
borough. It had its court held at the Tolbooth
in the Market Place, and the burgesses were
apparently the burgage holders within the
borough. William Folker, in the middle of the
14th century, held five burgages in Durham, of
which four were held of the bishop by fealty
and three suits a year at the bishop's court at
the Tolbooth, and doing all other services as

*i This appears from the constant litigation as to
tolls in the i8th century.

^'^ Municip. Corp. Rep. 1835, p. 1515.

*' See above, p. 41.

** Hutchinson, op. cit. ii, 50. This charter is in
English.

** For lists of recorders and town clerks, see
Hutchinson, op. cit. ii, 70, 71.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

other burgesses. The other burgage was held
of the Prior of Durham by fealty and the pay-
ment of half a pound of pepper yearly. There
was usually also a small sum payable to the
bishop at the Tolbooth for landmale.^* In the
earlier deeds there is a distinction between an
ordinary tenement and a burgage, but this dis-
tinction later becomes lost."

From the series of deeds in the Treasury at
Durham which are dated ' in curia burgi ' or
' in plena curia burgi,' the first witnesses are
usually the bailiffs of the borough whose names
are followed by those of about half a dozen
other persons who, we may imagine, were bur-
gesses attending the court. These other per-
sons in turn appear later as bailiffs and the
former bailiffs fall into the position of ordinary
witnesses. There appear to have been three
bailiffs, and it is tempting to think that a new
bailiff was appointed each year to serve a term
of three years, but the evidence is too fragmen-
tary to confirm this view. Whether the bailiffs
were elected by the burgesses or appointed by
the bishop is not known. In 15 16-17 John Gowcr
was appointed by the bishop as the sole bailiff,
and after this date there was only one bailiff,
a salaried officer of the bishop holding office
for a considerable period. The bishop con-
tinued to appoint the bailiffs after the charters
of 1565 and 1602, as a result of which the scene
in the Tolbooth of 1609, already referred to,
occurred.^*

In 161 7 John Richardson, steward of the
borough court, drew up an important though
strongly biassed statement as to the government
of the borough.^* He said that the city by
prescription and for three hundred years had
been governed by a bailiff appointed by letters
patent from the bishops at a yearly fee, who had
rendered his accounts yearly at the Exchequer
of Durham. This statement, however, cannot be
substantiated by documentary evidence, for no
patent appointing a bailiff can be traced earlier
than that granted to John Govver in 1516-17.*"
That the bailiff, he goes on to say, had for a like
time a steward who kept the courts for the city
and borough, received the profits and accounted
for them.

It would appear that the earliest reference to
a steward of the borough court is to WiUiam

6* In 1835 the mayor's wife received this sum.
Municip. Corp. Rep. p. 1514 ; Durh. Acct. R. (Surtees
Soc), 704.

" D. and C. Rec. Repert. Magn.

^8 See above, p. 35.

s» Micldeton MS. lA, 10, 105. This statement
by Richardson was no doubt drawn up to rebut the
claims by the mayor on the occasion of the visit of
James I to Durham in 1617 (see above, p. 37).

«« P.R.O. Durh. Rec. cl. 3, no. 70, m. 18.

Fynimer appointed in 1447.'^ Thomas Roos
was appointed in 1457 with a fee of 26s. 8d.
payable by the bailiffs or farmers of the borough
out of the profits of the mill.*- In 1559 John
Taylfar had a grant of the reversion of the office
of steward or clerk of the courts of the boroughs
of Durham, Gateshead, Bishop Auckland and
Darlington on the death of Christopher Brown.*'
On the strength of Bishop Matthew's charter,
the mayor, aldermen and commonalty appointed
William Smyth of Gray's Inn, their steward to
hold the borough courts.**

The bishops, Richardson continues, for a
like time had ordained ' Corporations and Socie-
ties of Arts and Mysteries,' and made certain
constitutions as to freedoms and fellowships
by fines, compositions and penalties which the
bailiff by his Serjeants and officers and by the
wardens and governors of the several trades
had received for the use of the bishops. The
government by a bailiff so continued, according
to Richardson, until 8 Elizabeth (1565), when
Laurence Haley, then bailiff and servant to
Bishop Pilkington, by agreement between him
and some of the citizens, petitioned the bishop
to have an alderman ordained for the govern-
ment of the city. The bailiff at the same time
assigned his grant of the bailiwick to these citi-
zens, and the bishop made them a grant of an
alderman and assistants. The alderman, who
retained also the office of bailiwick, held the
borough court before the bishop's steward and
took all profits of courts, landmales, rents, fines
of tradesmen, free tolls of fairs and markets in
the bishop's name, and accounted for them to
the bishop, paying the steward's fee and taking
the yearly allowance to the bailiff. This form
of government continued until about 42 Eliza-
beth (1600), when a certain 'religious gentleman
possessed of great personal estate,' who can be
identified with Henry Smith, the founder of
Smith's Charity,*^ conveyed his property ' to
good uses to the City of Durham.' The then
alderman and ' others of that Society,' being
his executors, misemployed the estate and com-
pounded with the then bishop for a grant of a
mayoralty. The bishop incorporated them by
the name of a mayor and alderman. Their
charter was confirmed by an inspeximus of the
King which they ' ignorantly conceive ' to be an
immediate grant from the Crown. Eventually
the bishop's successor made an inquiry as to
the misemployment of the funds and procured
a commission under the Statute of Charitable

*i P.R.O. Durh. Rec. cl. 3, no. 43, m. 18.
62 Ibid. no. 45, m. 8.
*' Ibid. no. 77, m. 16.

*■« Micldeton MS. lA, p. 103. For later stewards,
sec Surtees, op. cit. iv, pt. ii.
** Ibid. p. 26.

CITY OF DURHAM

Uses. It was found by the commission that
only j^9 remained out of £1^00, of which sum
the mayor and aldermen were required to ac-
count for ;^400. The bishop was further offended
' with that crying sin of robbing the poor, and
perceiving their pride in government to be in-
tollerable,' and being also informed that the grant
of the mayoralty contained many things preju-
dicial to the jurisdiction of the courts incident
to the county Palatine, desired a conference
with the corporation. This they refused, and
a suit in the Court of Exchequer ensued, which
resulted in a decree in favour of the bishop.
Since that decree (161 1) the bishop had by his
bailiff governed the city and retained possession
of all the revenues and rights. Although fre-
quently petitioned, the bishop had refused to
renew the grant of the mayoralty.

With regard to the early courts of the borough,
we learn from the dispute of 1609 that the
ordinary borough courts were held at the
Tolbooth once a fortnight on Tuesday, and that
the head borough court, the ' plena curia burgi '
of the 14th-century deeds, was held twice
yearly at Easter and Michaelmas. At the latter
court, which corresponded to the ' curia
capitalis ' of the convent boroughs held three
times a year, the grassmen and trade searchers
were sworn, the bishop's burgesses did suit,
and the titles of heirs and purchasers of burgages
were presented and recorded, before such heirs
and purchasers were admitted as burgesses.
There seems to have been conflicting evidence as
to whether the burgesses owed suit at the
sheriff's tourn held twice yearly at the Moot-
haU on Palace Green, the explanation apparently
being that the suit claimed to be due was for
the rights of common on Framwellgate Moor,
which was parcel of the various burgages and
not in respect of holdings in the borough.

With the increasing control over the borough
by the gilds the time of the court was largely
taken up with their affairs and the enforcement
of their regulations. The Tolbooth had now
become the Guildhall,^* although there is evi-
dence that as early as 1434 it bore that name.*'
To enforce the orders of the court there were
stocks, a pillory and a ' duck pool.'

Owing to the disappearance of the borough
records it is difficult to trace the subsequent
history of the courts. Some of their local
government duties were transferred to the

•' That the gilds met in the Tolbooth in the 17th
century, see Mickleton MS. xxiii, Il9d; xxxii, Il8d.

*' Durh. Trcas. Almoners' Rental. After the
Reformation the Earl of Westmorland built a house
called the New Place on the site of the present
Town Hall. The Mayor's Chamber, which adjoins
the Town Hall, occupies the site of the old Gild
Hall.

vestry,** until the passing of the Paving Acts
brought the special Commissioners into exist-
ence. In 1835 ^^^ Municipal Corporation
Commissioners reported that the Durham
Corporation exercised no jurisdiction either
criminal or civil, but that a manor court of
very limited jurisdiction was held within the
city.*'

The OLD BOROUGH or CROSSGJTE
included that part of Durham lying on the north
or left bank of the Wear south of Framwellgate.
It was divided from the latter district by the
Milburn, a small stream rising in Flass Bog
and now covered over most of its length by the
modern North Road. From Elvet Barony it
was divided by the small stream running parallel
to Potters Bank.

The Old Borough comprised South Street,
Crossgate and Allergate (formerly Alvertongate),
a considerable area of arable ground known as
Bellasys,"* whilst the pasture area extended over
Crossgate Moor and over the adjoining Elvet
Moor, until the latter moor was divided off
from the former.

The evidence for a settlement in Elvet before
995 has been mentioned already ; the origin'*
of the Crossgate settlement may be found in the
junction of the roads from the west and south,
which meet where the church of St. Margaret
now stands, just above the ford over the Wear,
whereby travellers from the west proceeded on
their way to Wearmouth and the Raintons. The
first reference to the borough here is in 1141,
when, during the Cumin incident, it is mentioned
as follows : ' partem quoque burgi quae ad
monachorum jus pertinebat igni tradiderunt.''^
As the borough of Elvet is of later foundation,
this must refer to the Old Borough. It is sug-
gested that the Old Borough is the original
trading centre at Durham, and that the Bishop's
Borough was only founded after the division of
the estates between the bishop and the convent ;
a division which gave the Old Borough to the
convent and left the bishop without any area

** Longstaffe MS. ix. In 1646 Easter vestries of
St. Nicholas, two pant-wardens, four collectors, two
bridgemasters, two grassmen and two drivers were
elected. ** Municif. Corp. Rep. p. 1515.

'* In the Sacrist Rental for 1500 (Durh. Treas.)
there is a detailed hst of the arable holdings in
Bellasys belonging to the various burgages.

"^ The history of Crossgate in Durh. Treas.
Cart, iv, f. 90, see Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surt.
Soc), 192, is untrustworthy ; it is part of a case
relating to Bearpark Moor prepared with the object
of showing that the Old Borough had no existence in
the time of Richard I, and that the tenants therefore
had no rights on Bearpark Moor, the coronation of
Richard being the period of limitation of actions.
Pollock and Maitland, Hist, oj Engl. Law, ii, 81.

'* Simeon 0/ Durh. (Rolls Scr.), i, 159.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

specially appropriated as a trading centre.
Whilst the lands were held in common, there
would be no necessity for more than one borough,
and that borough would appear to have been
the Old Borough and not the Bishop's Borough,
which, until the Framwcllgatc Bridge was built,
was much more difficult of access from the
surrounding country than the Old Borough.

Though the founding of the Bishop's Borough
would doubtless draw some trade away, it was
the building of Elvet Bridge and the creation of
the borough of Elvet by Bishop Pudsey which
seriously affected the Old Borough. Until
Elvet Bridge was built, all traffic from the south
passed through the Old Borough along South
Street, but when a readier access to the Bishop's
Borough and the Castle was provided through
Elvet, the importance of the Old Borough was
seriously diminished, as its only thoroughfare
became the road leading to the west of the county
by Brancepeth and Willington. Of the trade
carried on in this borough we know but little.
The Marescalcia Roll of the convent for 1392'*
mentions a weaver, a tailor, a seller of wool,
several shoemakers, bakers and brewers. The
fulling mill at the west end of the dam just
below the cathedral would help to attract trade,
whilst at the Clock Mill'* on the Milburn,
which formed the northern boundary of the
borough,"^ the local corn would be ground.
The quarry at the southern end of South Street '*
and the convent stew-ponds and orchard " to
the west of South Street should also be men-
tioned. Lastly, Potters Bank recalls an industry
long extinct.'^

The burgesses of the Old Borough, unlike their
brethren of Elvet, do not appear to have obtained
any charter from the convent : their rights being
based on ancient usage, no such grant was
probably necessary. They do not appear to
have ever obtained the right to elect their bailiff
or to have leased the profits of the borough.

'8 Durh. Ace. R. (Surtees Soc), ii, 349.

'* The Clock Mill appears to have been the least
important of the city mills.

'^ The Milburn now runs in a culvert under the
' North Road ' for the greater part of its length.

'* In Durh. Treas. Almoner's Rental for 1424 the
quarry is stated to be next ' Farthlngcroft,' the small
field just south of the ' White Gates.' The quarry
belonged to the Sacrist ; a large amount of stone has
been worked from it in the Middle Ages ; there is no
trace in the accounts of any working in recent times.

" The new part of St. Margaret's Churchyard
was formerly the orchard (Durh. Treas. Almoner's
Rental, 1424). Until quite recently traces of tlie
stew-ponds were visible behind (west of) St. Mar-
garet's Rectory.

" No reference to actual working has been found
before the 17th century in the Chapter Records, but
the surname Potter was not uncommon in the Middle
Ages : see Durh. Acc.R.i^MTleei Soc), Index, sub nom.

As in the case of Elvet, the convent appears to
have retained direct control over the borough,
to have appointed the bailiffs'* and to have
received the profits. The centre of jurisdiction
was the Tolbooth, situate at the north end of
Crossgate,^ where the courts were held, and to
maintain his jurisdiction the Prior had a prison
in South Street.*'-

The survival of the draft entries for the Cross-
gate Court Book ^^ at the beginning of the
i6th century enables a fuller account of the
working of this court to be given than of any of
the other borough courts. First it must be
noted that Crossgate as well as Elvet was with-
drawn from the ordinary manorial jurisdiction
of the Prior and convent, whose Halmote Books
contain no entries relating to either Crossgate
or Elvet. The court sat every week if necessary
for the dispatch, of business,*' and thrice a year
- — in January, April and October — the ' curia
capitalis ' was held, at which a jury was sworn
to make presentments. In addition to debt
collecting, the work of the court was most
varied ; many are the injunctions against pigs
being allowed to run loose in the street; card
playing and other illicit games, and drinking
after 9 p.m. were forbidden ; bad language was
discouraged and bad characters required to
remove themselves. Ale tasters were appointed
and fines inflicted on ale sellers for not calling
them in, and bad meat was condemned. De-
spite much fining, the condition of the streets
left much to be desired owing to the presence
of refuse and manure.®* The use of the borough
well in the Banks for washing clothes was
forbidden, and the tenants of South Street
ordered to repair the vennel leading to it.
Tailors not of the Gild were reported as work-
ing, whilst a Scot was ordered to remove himself.**

'* The fact that there was only one bailiff and that
he held office for a considerable period is in marked
contrast to the Bishop's Borough and indicates that
the method of selection was different.

*" Durh. Treas. Sacrist's Rental, 1500.

*i Durh. Treas. Almoner's Rental, 1424. It was
evidently near tlie southern end of the street.

*2 Durh. Treas. The entries cover the period from
1498-1524. The 'curia capitalis' is stated to be
held before the sacrist, of whose estate the lordship
of Crossgate formed part. There are some older
rolls (Doc. iv, no. 229) relating to the latter part of
the 14th century, the entries in which relate almost
entirely to actions for debt.

*' In 1 501 the court sat on 23 days.

** The existence of pasture rights on the adjoining
moor was not an unmixed blessing so far as the
pubUc health was concerned. The cows were kept
in the houses, and the consequent accumulation
of manure must have rendered the houses unhealthy.
See below, p. 62, as to the Elvet regulations.

*^ ' William Maser is forbidden for the future to
show hospitality to any vagabonds or Scots for more

CITY OF DURHAM

The presentation of a criminal at the Sheriff's
tourn when the offence was committed within
the jurisdiction of the borough court is duly
noted. Over two hundred years later, in 1757,^
we find the same kind of offences being presented,
and the state of the streets, judging from the
numerous presentments for manure, had not
improved. In 1835 Crossgate became part of
the area subject to the corporation.

The BARONT AND BOROUGH OF
ELVET is that portion of Durham which
lies in the loop of the River Wear south-east
of the market place.*' It consists of Old and
New Elvet and the two continuations of the
latter, namely, Church Street, leading to the
south road to Darlington, and Hallgarth Street,
whereby Yarm and Stockton are reached.** In
addition to the urban area, Elvet formerly
included a considerable area of arable land and
a somewhat small moor, over which latter area
the inhabitants had grazing rights. Until the
Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, Elvet was
divided into the Borough and the Barony.
The former comprised the low-lying area north
of Raton Row (now Court Lane) and its con-
tinuation eastward along the north side of the
railway line ; ^ everything south of the Raton
Row belonged to the barony.

Though Old Elvet is now a cul-de-sac, in the
15th century it formed one of the main routes
south by Shincliffe, and was then known as
New Elvet, whilst New Elvet, then known as
Old Elvet,'" ceased to be the principal route to

than one day and night and not more than three
Scots.' This entry indicates the feeling of the burgesses
to their northern neighbours.

** Rolls for 1757 and 1764 exist in the Durham
Treasury.

*' The Dean and Chapter Treasury at Durham
contains a number of documents relating to Elvet.
In addition there are rentals and some court rolls.
References to it will also be found in the Hostellar's
accounts, as Elvet was under that official's special
jurisdiction. These all relate to the period before the
Dissolution ; for later periods the material is scanty.

** In the Middle Ages the terms Church Street
and Hallgarth Street were not used ; houses in those
areas are sometimes differentiated as being in Elvet
Superior. Durh. Treas. 4, 16, spec. 1 31.

** The boundaries of the Borough of Elvet are in
Prior Bertram's Charter, u 88-1 208. Feod. Prior.
Dunelm. (Surt. Soc), p. 199.

*• \ careful comparison of the boundaries given in
the deeds in Durh. Treas. 4, 16 spec, and I, 17 spec,
makes it clear that Old and New Elvet have changed
names. Ibid. I, 17 spec. 54, gives the Wear as the
northern boundary and the King's Highway as the
southern boundary in ' New ' Elvet. Ibid. 3, 17 spec.
46, gives the ' manerium de Elvethall ' as the boundary
of two tenements in ' Old ' Elvet. But the clearest
evidence is the 15th-century sketch (Durh. Treas.
Misc. Charters, 7100; see below, p. 63, n. l). When the

Shincliffe until the river washed away ' New
Way,' where it passed under Maiden Castle
Wood. Raton Row was formerly a much more
important thoroughfare, as it led to the Scaltok
MiUs.

Except for references in the forged foundation
charters of the convent,*"^ nothing certain is
known about Elvet until the grant of the
Borough Charter by Prior Bertram (i 188-1208).
Probably the original settlement would be on
the high ground somewhere near the site*- of
the Manor House, which stood in Hallgarth
Street just off the road from Shincliffe Bridge
to the Old Borough. When in 995 the Castle
plateau was occupied, the Elvet area would
develop as the best access from the south to the
Castle area.'* However this may be, at the end
of the 12th century the history of Elvet was
marked by two important events, namely, the
building of Elvet Bridge by Bishop Pudsey and
the foundation of the Borough of Elvet. It is
probable that these two events were connected.
Why the convent, which already had a borough
in Crossgate, should found another in Elvet, is
not quite apparent, unless the difficulty of com-
munication between the convent and Crossgate
is borne in mind. In addition, the level nature
of the Elvet area rendered it more suitable for
commercial purposes than Crossgate's uneven
surface. That the new borough of Elvet soon
became more populous and prosperous than the
old borough of Crossgate seems clear.**

change was made is doubtful ; the old nomenclature
was in force when the Repertorium Magnum (Durh.
Treas.) was drawn up in 1456, but a hundred years
later leases in the Dean and Chapter registers made
it clear that the change had taken place. .At iirst the
terms ' Old ' and ' New ' Elvet did not apply to
streets, but to areas, Old Elvet meaning the barony
district and New Elvet the borough. (See entries in
Repertorium Magnum, Durham Treasury.)

'1 On the forged foundation charters, see Feod.
Prior. Dunelm. (Surtees Soc), p. xxxiv et seq. It
must be borne in mind that the forgeries were made
early in the 12th century and may therefore be
accepted as evidence of the state of affairs then, and
the passage in the charter in the Liber J'itae (Surtees
Soc), p. 75, 'Aeluet ut ibi XL'* mercatorum domos
monachi ad usum proprium habeant, qui prorsus ab
omni episcopi servitio sint Uberi nisi forte merceries
ci\'itates sit reparanda ad quam non magis quam
de tot civitates mcrcatoribus opus ab eis exigitur'
as indicating the intention of adding a mercantile
community to the agricultural population of Elvet.

*2 Farm buildings and some ancient tithe barns
still mark the spot.

'* By Water Lane and King's Gate.

'* As e\-idence of this the Marescalcia Rolls of
the convent may be cited. When in 1392 the
weights and measures of the Old Borough of Elvet
were tested 22 tradesmen appeared from Crossgate
and 62 from Elvet — 20 from the barony and 42 from

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

Prior Bertram's charter** does not expressly
create the borough, but the phrase ' novo burgo
nostro ' implies that it had been recently created.
After defining the area of the borough the charter
gave the burgesses exemption from customs,
exactions and aids (courts and pleas excepted)
and the right of devising their lands. In return
a yearly rent of an amount not then fixed was
to be paid, and the burgesses were to grind their
corn at the convent mill — the multure being
fixed at I'sth. In addition the burgesses were
to have a market and a fair if the bishop granted
the necessary licence. At a somewhat later
period a further grant ^ was made, whereby the
burgesses had not to plead outside the borough
and were to have pasture for their beasts with
the men of Elvet (j.^., the barony) outside the
enclosed land of the hostellar of the convent.

The qualification of a burgess appears to have
been the ownership of a burgage in respect of
which a rent called landmale was payable to the
hostellar of the convent,*' in whom the lordship

the borough. Durham Account Rolls (Surtees See),
ii, pp. 346, 350. Again in the Convenit and the
Attestationes relating to the dispute between the
bishop and the prior at the beginning of the 13th
century all the references are to Elvet except one in
the Convenit. The greater importance of the
Scaltok (Elvet) mill as compared with the Clock
(Crossgate) mill may also be cited.

** This charter is printed in the Feod. Prior.
Dunelm. (Surtees Soc), p. 199. Bertram was Prior
II88-1208, but Bishop Pudsey's charter (ibid. 198)
indicates that Bertram's charter was made before the
bishop's death in 1 198. Pudsey's charter bears out
the statement in Coldingham, Scriptores Ires (Surtees
Soc), 12, that Pudsey made the borough of Elvet
and afterwards resigned it to the convent to whom it
belonged as of right. Unfortunately the order of
Pudsey's various actions in regard to the borough of
Durham, the building of Elvet Bridge and the borough
of Elvet, is not known. The effect on both the
borough of Durham and Elvet of the building of the
New (Elvet) Bridge must have been great. Until
it was built the main traffic between north and south
would pass through the Old Borough and Crossgate,
but immediately Elvet Bridge was built this traffic
would be diverted from South Street to Elvet and
the bishop's borough, to their great advantage.

** Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surt. Soc), 199. It
would almost appear that the grant as to pleas was
ultra vires, but the extract from the following deed
(Durh. Treas. 2, 17, spec. 27) shows that the grant
was acted on ' quod quidem burgagium ego Gilbertus
Araunam in curia Burgi prenominati (Elvet) die
Jovis proxima ante festum sancti Martini (a.d. 1294)
per quoddam breve de recto de Rogero de Fferye
coram Dominis Johanne Seleby tunc hostelario
Prioratus Dunelmensis et Johanne Skyreloe tunc loci
ejusdem senescallo ad hoc assignatis.'

*' Durh. Treas. Reg. ii, f. 21 d. Inq. p.m. 2
Fordham, Joh. de Elvet. The amount of landmale
was generally very small — l\d., though in one case
10 burgages paid \s. lid.

of both the borough and the barony was vested.
In addition the burgesses owed suit to the then
principal courts of the borough.

Of the government of the borough of Elvet
but little can be said, as none of the court rolls
have survived, and from the middle of the
14th century but little distinction seems to
have been made between the borough and the
barony. Before the year 1315 the profits of the
borough were leased,** but after that date the
convent did not farm them. Elvet was not,
however, treated like the ordinary manors of the
convent, which were subject to the jurisdiction
of the steward, who visited them three times
yearly when the prior's halmote courts were
held.** The Elvet tenants never appear to have
owed suit to these courts, but to have appeared
at a special court held for Elvet. This court
was held once a fortnight on Wednesdays at the
prior's manor house in Hallgarth Street for the
dispatch of ordinary judicial business, but three
times a year, namely, at Easter, Michaelmas and
Epiphany, a special court (curia capitalis) was
held, at which all suitors had to be present. *"*

The River Wear, one ol
RIFER, BRIDGES the most important physi-
JND MILLS cal features that influenced

the development of Dur-
ham, did not always follow its present course.
Formerly after flowing from Shinclifle Bridge

** This appears from a note in a list of tenants fined
' in curiis de Elvet hall et Novi Burgi ' for allowing
their animals to trespass in the demesne lands (Durh.
Treas. Loc ii, no. 14). The note goes on to state
that several rolls ' consumpti sunt partem per pluviam
partem per ratones et mures.' This may account for
the non-existence of any court rolls of the borough,
whilst a separate court was held for that area as
distinct from the barony. If any court rolls for the
borough had existed when the ' Repertorium Magnum'
was drawn up (1456), they would have been entered
under Loc. iv — the entry there only refers to the
barony.

** See Durh. Halmote Courts (Surtees Soc), Intro-
duction.

100 'Yhe few Elvet rolls which have survived will
be found in Durh. Treas. Loc. iv; with the excep-
tion of a roll (in a very bad condition) for 1360
(no. 116), the other rolls, nos. 99, loi, 102, 119, 124,
128, 129, 131 and 132, all relate to the period 1398-
1402. The general heading is ' Curia Baronie de
Elvett,' but from a reference in the roll for 1398
(no. 96) to fines for aDowing pigs to trespass in
Smythalgh, which is within the borough, it would
appear that the court had jurisdiction over the
borough as well as the barony. Further evidence
that the differentiation between the borough and the
barony ceased to exist in the 15th century is the use
of the term burgage in reference to a house in the
barony (Hostellar's Acct. 1446/7, Durh. Acct. R.
i, 145). In the 14th century the term burgage was
not used in reference to property in the barony.

CITY OF DURHAM

north-westward to Maiden Castle Wood, instead
of taking a turn to the north-east, as it now does,
it skirted the northern slope of Maiden Castle
and took a U-shaped curve back to its present
course. At the end of the curve lay Scaltok
Mill * belonging to the convent, to which the
inhabitants of the borough and barony of Elvet
owed suit.^ The alteration in the course of the
river possibly made this mill useless, as the leases
of it cease after about 1559.' The progress of
the river northward of the curve is barred by
the Gilesgate ridge ; it therefore flows westward
for half a mile and then, instead of following the
route of the preglacial river, through the sand-

the river here there is a modern iron bridge
erected in 1889, which replaced a wooden bridge
built in the middle of the 19th century.
Further southward was the old ford connecting
the borough with Elvet, which was replaced by
Elvet Bridge. The approach to the ford on its
borough side is by Paradise Lane, but on the
opposite side it has recently been blocked by the
sewerage works.

Elvet Bridge was built by Bishop Pudsey*
(1153-95), and with the exception of the two
centre arches, which have been rebuilt, the old
bridge is intact. It was guarded by a gate and
towers and had a chapel at each end ; that on

Elvet Bridge, Durham

filled hollow connecting the castle plateau with
Gilesgate, it cut its way southward through the
rocky ridge on which the higher part of Elvet
and Crossgate stand.* Just before the turn in

"■ For the identification of the site of this mill see
a 15th-century plan in Treasury at Durham (Misc.
Charters 7100).

* Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surt. Soc), 199.

3 Durh. Treas. Loc. xxix, nos. 13 and 48. The
heading of Scaltok Mill appears in the D. and C.
Receivers' Bks. down to 19th century, although all
trace of the site had been lost. References to the
weir for this mill occur on the Durham Account Rolls ;
its foundations may possibly account for the tradition
that a Roman road crossed the river near Old Durham.

* See ' On the Wear and Team Wash-out,' by
Nicholas Wood and E. F. Boyd, Trans. N. Eng.
Inst. Mining and Mechan. Engineers, vol. xiii, 1863-4.

the east side still remains.' At about 300 yards
south of Elvet Bridge stood Bow Bridge in the
15th century,' which has now completely dis-
appeared. The approach to it on the Bailey
side was by Bow Lane, and on the Elvet side by

6 Scriptores Tres (Surt. Soc), 12.

* It is now a blacksmith's forge. Surtees, Hist, of
Durham, iv, p. 56. For the repair of Framwellgate
and Elvet Bridges the rents of certain lands called
' Brigland ' were devoted. This trust was always
neglected, and in 1 371 Bishop Hatfield caused enquiry
to be made (Durh. Pal. Rec. (P.R.O.), div. 3, no. 31,
m. 3 d.). In 161 5 the matter was referred to Quarter
Sessions (Mickleton MS. viii, l), and in a return to a
Commission of Charitable Uses in 1684 the lands were
said to be worth ^^8 a year and to be situated in
Gilesgate (Surtees, Hist, of Durb. iv, pt. ii, p. 56).

"> Durh. Treas. Repert. Magn. f. 113.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

Water Lane. Below the site of Bow Bridge the
river, after a semicircular turn, takes a north-
ward direction, just past the turn here is the
Prebends' Bridge built in 1777 from designs by
Richard Nicholson. This bridge is a fine stone
structure of three semicircular arches with
voussoirs springing from piers with triangul-
ar starlings surmounted by semi-hexagonal
projections, upon which the recesses of the
footways are carried. The spandrels are filled
by plain recessed panels, and the whole is
crowned by a shallow cornice and plain parapet,
the latter having panels of balustrading over the
centres of the side arches. There was in early
times a ferry boat here maintained by the con-
vent, which gave access to their mill, fishponds
and orchards at Crossgate.* This ferry was
replaced by a footbridge in 1574, which was
swept away by the great flood of 1771, and a
temporary bridge was erected that remained
until the present bridge was built.

Passing the Prebends' Bridge, we reach the first
of the weirs, which seems to have been maintained
at the common charge of the bishop and convent.*
At the western end of the weir were the sites of
a corn mill and a fulling mill, both belonging to
the convent,^" and at the eastern end were two
corn miUs belonging to the bishop and Icnown as
the Jesus Mill and Lead Mill. These latter
mills provided for the castle area and were
bought by the prior from the bishop in the
15th century.^i In 1792 one of these mills on
the eastern side was leased for carding of wool
and cleaning of cloth. A further lease dated
1813 contains covenants to raise the water in
the river 12 in. by planks and not to grind corn
at the mill at the western end of the weir
between midnight and 6 a.m. from i May to
II November. These mills appear to have
fallen into disuse shortly after this date.

A quarter of a mile below the weir the river
is crossed by Framwellgate Bridge, or the Old
Bridge, as it was called in mediaeval times to
distinguish it from the later Elvet Bridge.
This bridge was originally built by Flambard in
1 120, but it was swept away by a flood in 1400.
For a time a crossing was maintained by a ferry
boat, but the present bridge was built in the
15th century by Bishop Langley (1406-37) and
was widened in the early part of the 19th century.
It consists of two arches, each of 90 ft. span,
and was formerly fortified by towers and gates
at each end. In 13 16 a fight took place between
Richard Fitz Marmaduke, the bishop's steward,
and Robert Neville, ' the peacock of the north,'

^ Scriptores Ires (Surt. Soc.) 114.

» Mins. Accts. 7 Edw. Ill, bdle. 1144, no. 18.

1" The site of the corn mill is not quite clear, but
it is said to be near the fulling mill (Durh. Acct. R.
620).

^1 Scriptores Ires (Sun. Soc.), p. 159.

' for dispute who might rule the most.' Fitz
Marmaduke was defeated and killed. '^ Below
this bridge is another weir, at the cast end of
which was the Bishop's Mill, where the inhabi-
tants of the borough owed suit. This mill is
mentioned in the .ffoWow 5ooi," and was usually
leased separately from the borough, but some-
times with it.'* In 1543 it had fallen out of
repair by the violence of the stream, when
Bishop Tunstall granted a lease of the River
Wear from the Milburn to Lowicke Haugh to
Robert Rawc, bailiff of Durham, and Ralph
Surtees, merchant, for 70 years in order to build
another mill. A mill was accordingly built, but
certain inhabitants withdrew their suit and
erected a horse mill on the site of a burgage
held from the dean and chapter. In an action
that followed the bishop's lessee obtained judg-
ment and damages. 1*

At the western end of the weir the Milburn,
which now runs in a culvert under the North
Road, flows into the Wear. Formerly its waters
were used to drive the Clock Mill at the foot of
Milburn Gate. At it the inhabitants of the old
borough of Crossgate had to grind their corn.
This mill was granted by Bishop Flambard to
Kepier Hospital," and afterwards passed to the
almoner of the convent," and only ceased to be
used as a mill within living memory. Three-
quarters of a mile below this second weir there
used to be another weir for supplying power to
the mill attached to Kepier Hospital.

The bishop appears to have had the fishery
of the river, and in 1 31 2 granted to the prior
and convent a free fishery between Elvet Bridge
and Framwellgate Bridge,** and from time to
time leased the waste ground between the castle
walls and the river.**

The castle of Durham stands
THE CASTLE on the neck of a peninsula
which was unapproachable by
the engines of siege of ancient times, and from
the very fact of its impregnable strength played
a comparatively small part in military history.
It was founded purely as a fortress, but before
long became the chief residence or palace of
that long Hne of Prince Bishops whose history
has been told elsewhere. Selected first as a
refuge for the venerated body of St. Cuthbert,
the peninsula must have received some artificial

^^ Geiia Carnarvon (RoUs Ser.), pt. ii, p. 33;
Surtees Soc. vol. xxi, p. 2.

13 F.C.H. Durh. i, 327.

1* Durh. Treas. Liber Recog. et Dimiss. Laur.
pp. Ill, 170, 171, 189, 291.

15 Durh. Rec. (P.R.O.), cl. 3, no. 78, m. 17 d. ; no.
92, m. II.

i« Mem. of St. Giles (Sun. Soc), 194.

1' Durh. Treas. Loc. 37, no. 47.

18 Kellaw'j Reg. (Rolls Ser.), iv, 1 1 88.

1* Durh. Rec. (P.R.O.), cl. 3, no. 68, m. 25.

Ill™ Century

Q 1153-1217

T Bishop BcrK 1284 -1311
3 Bishop Hatfieid 13+5-81
JBisiKM- Fox l49-*-l5()l
1 Bishop TUnstali. 13 JO -59

ra 17™ Century

iSUJ^CEKTjlRJJN^IomRN

Scale of ftrr

I'LAN OF DURHAM CASTLE

CITY OF DURHAM

addition to its natural defences at an early
date, and by the beginning of the nth century
was strong enough to stand a siege by Malcolm
of Scotland.* It is unlikely that the protective
walls of Durham at this time were more than
earthen banks crowned with palisades, nor is it
probable that any part of the keep mound had
been thrown up before the Conquest. The
castle is recorded to have been built by Earl
Waltheof about 1072, though some masonry in
the Norman chapel is possibly of an earlier
date. Waltheof's work was continued after
his death in 1075^ by Bishop Walcher, his suc-
cessor in the Earldom of Northumbria. The
keep mound, then covering a much smaller area
than at present, was probably raised at this
period, but would not for some years be
sufficiently stable to be crowned with a masonry
tower. Bishop William de St. Calais, who planned
the present church, probably strengthened the
castle, which, after a brief siege, he was com-
pelled to surrender to William Rufus in 1088.^
But his successor, Ranulph Flambard, was, there
can be little doubt, the designer of the Norman
fortifications, as they can be traced to-day and
as Laurence described them in the 12th century,
although they have been usually credited to his
successor Hugh Pudsey. Flambard cleared away
the houses from the ground, now the Palace or
' Place ' Green, between the castle and the
church,* and built a wall from the east end of
the church to the keep.* The whole of the
plateau of the peninsula was thus appropriated
by the castle, the church and monastery. What-
ever were the individual shares of the early
bishops in fortifying their stronghold, it is pretty
clear that by the middle of the 12th century the
fortifications had developed upon the lines then
laid down.

Laurence, the monk of Durham, who wrote
about 1 144-9, gives a vivid description of
the castle with its great natural strength,
fortified by a wall broad and high with lofty
battlements and threatening towers rising from
the rock.* He describes the gate at the south-
east, crovraed with a tower, commanding a
steep, narrow path down to the ford over the
river, and the similar gate at the south-west
with an easier ascent but protected by the river.
The third gate at the north-east, being the chief
entrance into the city, was more strongly built
and possessed outworks and a barbican. From
this gate the wall ran westwards up the mound
to the keep and thence westwards again to the

Simeon of Durham, Op. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), i, 215.
Ibid, ii, 199.

Anglo-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 358 ; ii, 193.
Simeon of Durham, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), i, 140.
Ibid, i, 140 ; ii, 260.

Laurence of Durham, Dialogi (Suit. Sec), p. 11,
U. 369-450.

edge of the cliff, the contours of which it followed
towards the south and then turned eastwards
to the keep again. Within this triangular area
were 'two great adjoining palaces with porticos,'
portions of which we may still see incorporated
in the existing ranges ; here also was the chapel,
' supported on six columns, not too spacious
but sufficiently handsome,' and in the central
court was a deep well, which was rediscovered
in 1904. On the south of the castle area was
the strong and lofty gate, from which a draw-
bridge led across the broad moat to a field, on
the east side of which a wall ran down from the
keep to the cathedral. Unfortunately it is very
difficult to make out much about the keep itself
from Laurence's description. He seems to
describe a circular shell of masonry, of which the
stonework was carried down the face of the
mound some 5 ft. or 6 ft., so that the surface
inside was ' three cubits ' higher than the base
of the wall outside.' Inside this was apparently
a tower probably of wood, possibly the original
keep, rising above the shell, with the battle-
mented parapet of which it was connected by
a bridge.

Bishop Pudsey (1153-95) completed Elvet
Bridge* and is stated to have rebuilt the wall
running southwards from the north gate.^ To
him are also ascribed the * Constable's Hall ' or
' Norman Gallery,' forming the northern range
of buildings, and what is now the kitchen on
the south-west of the castle. During the
vacancy of the see in John's reign, from 1209
to 1216, some repairs were undertaken which
probably included the building of the irregular
tower at the north-west angle of Pudsey's
gallery. During the remainder of the 13th
century little seems to have been done, until the
accession of Bishop Anthony Bek in 1284. Bek
built the Great Hall on the site which it now
occupies, though httle of his work remains visible
except the entrance doorway and three small
windows formerly lighting the undercroft. Two
years after Bek's death, in 1312, Brus raided
and burnt the suburbs of Durham,*" then un-
protected. In 1315, in consequence of this
raid, the inhabitants of Durham obtained, by
petition, the right to levy murage,** and the
walls round the present market place and the
Elvet Bridge gateway were built at this time,
and the gate on Framwellgate probably streng-

' Ibid. There appears to be nothing to support
Boyle's rendering of ' tribus cubitis ' as ' with three
terraces ' and a great deal to make it an improbable
reading. At first no doubt the wooden keep was
defended by a palisade which was replaced by the
stone wall here referred to.

8 Hilt. Dunelm. Script. Jres (Surt. Soc), 12.

» Ibid.

*" See above, p. 20.
** Reg. Palat. Duiulm. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 1071.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

thened. Complaints were made by the King
to Bishop Beaumont (1318-33) for neglecting
the defences, and thereupon the bishop repaired
the walls and rebuilt portions of the east wall
of the castle enclosure where Flambard's founda-
tions had failed. 1*

Great alterations were made by Bishop Hat-
field (1345-81), the chief of which was the
enlarging of the keep mound and the rebuilding
of the keep ^^ itself in the form which it approxi-
mately retained until its demolition in 1840.
The former plan, an irregular octagon, has been
followed in the present building. Hatfield
enlarged Bek's great hall," adding a carved
roof, minstrels' galleries and two ' thrones.' He
also added a new high-pitched open timber roof
to Pudsey's Constable's Hall, at the same time
inserting the west window which has lately
been renovated.^*

For a century after the death of the magnifi-
cent Hatfield, little work of importance was
carried out. Bishops Skirlaw and Langley re-
paired the gates, the latter bishop practically
rebuilding the north gate and gaol, and both
bishops strengthened the work of their pre-
decessors with buttresses, where necessary, but
it was not until the accession of Bishop Fox in
1494 that any notable alterations were made in
the buildings of the castle. Fox reversed Hat-
field's pohcy and reduced the hall to about the
size that it had been when built by Bek;** the
southern end which he cut off, he divided into
several rooms, and the Norman building at its
south-west angle he converted into the kitchen,
which is still one of the most striking features of
the castle. The great fireplaces in this kitchen
are of interest not only for their noble propor-
tions but also as being the only early brickwork
in the castle. The castle had by this time lost
much of its military importance and had become
a palace rather than a fortress, but Bishop
Tunstall (1530-59) seems to have refaced part
of the outer walls and the inner side of the
castle gate. His most important work, however,
was the building of the stair-turret, gallery and
chapel on the north side of the courtyard, against
Pudsey's gallery." These alterations must have
added not only to the effect but also to the
convenience of the castle as a residence.

During the second half of the i6th century

'2 Hutchinson, Hist, and Antiq. of Dur. i, 344.
Probably the wall running from the church to the
keep.

" Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Sec), 138.

" Ibid. 150. 15 Ibid.

18 Ibid. 150. His badge of the pelican may still
be seen near the inner jambs of the doors under the
hood mould, and a large carved example formerly
adorned the wall built by him between the hall and the
buttery.

1' Ibid. 155.

Durham Castle would seem to have been rather
neglected, but Bishop Neile (1617-27) made
many repairs, rendering it more habitable, at
the same time shortening the hall by cutting
off the north end.^* His improvements were
much praised by Charles I when he was enter-
tained at Durham by Bishop Morton (1632-59). i»
The occupation of the castle by the Scottish
forces during the Civil War naturally resulted
in great injury to the fabric, and when at the
Restoration the bishopric was revived and
bestowed upon Bishop Cosin (1660-72), he
found it in a bad condition. During the twelve
years of his episcopate he executed a series of
repairs in practically every part of the castle
and made a few alterations, of which the most
important were the destruction of the barbican
and partial filling of the moat ^ and two additions
to the hall. In front of the original door to the
hall he built the elaborate porch and four great
buttresses, which still form a prominent feature
of the courtyard and at the north end he con-
verted the portion of the hall which Bishop
Neile had cut off into a council chamber and
built the great stair. From a letter,'^ dated at
London in 1662, to his secretary ordering the
erection of this stair to be deferred until he
could come down and see to it himself, it is
clear that he gave not only his money but also
his personal attention to the work which was
then done. It is to him or probably to his
successor Bishop Crewe (1674-1721) that we
must attribute the extension eastward of Tun-
stall's chapel. Cosin was the last bishop to
make any extensive alterations, other than
destructive, but Bishop Crewe probably formed
the Senate Room over the old Norman chapel.
Bishops Butler (1750-2), Trevor (1752-71),
Egerton (1771-87), and Barrington (1791-1826)
all did repairs in the way of strengthening over-
hanging walls and refacing the masonry, and
Bishop Thurlow in 1789 pulled down the upper
stories of the keep for fear they would fall.
Otherwise the history of the fabric during the
i8th and early 19th centuries was uneventful.
Upon the establishment of the University
within its walls, the castle was overhauled and
to some extent modernized, the most drastic
change being the pulling down of the remainder
of the old keep, which had become very ruinous,
and the erection upon the same foundations of
the new keep.

The castle court is entered from the Green
by the main gateway, in front of which is the
site of the barbican and moat. Laurence, the
monk of Durham, writing between 1 144-9,

1* Wood, Athenae Oxon. i, 665.
1' Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 600, 605.
"" The contract for this work, dated 1665, still
exists. Bp. Cosin's Corres. (Surt. Soc), ii, 379.
" Ibid. 90.

fnjvn/iVQ 31/} oj fiav jpvg-

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

describes the gateway as strong, and mentions
the drawbridge and barbican.^^ From what
remains of the original work, which appears to
be of Bishop Flambard's time (1099-1128), and
from excavations made in 1898, it would seem
that the Norman gateway consisted of a square
tower with shallow projecting wings. All that
definitely survives, however, of the Norman
period are the circular turret stair up to the
first floor and a string-course of sunk star
ornament under the lean-to roof on the west
side of the gateway, which is in excellent pre-
servation. No doubt also a considerable amount

which apparently formed the springers to an
arch of the bridge approach.

Of the east barbican wall a short portion is
known to exist under the west wall of Bishop
Barrington's easterly projecting wing, but it
appears to have been destroyed south of the
termination of the wing ; the fact that he built
his west wall upon the old foundation, and his
south and east walls upon the made ground of
the moat, accounts for the unequal settlement of
the east wing and the distortion of the south
window.

Considerable repairs and additions were made

Durham Castle : The Courtyard looking South

of original masonry exists in the interior of the
walls. The barbican was about 90 ft. in length
and defended by an outer tower or turret and
a giXeP The excavations disclosed the foun-
dations of the west wall of the barbican, which
averages about 7 ft. 4 in. in thickness. A cross
wall 3 ft. 3 in. thick found at the same time, at
a distance of 12 ft. from the wing of the present
building, indicates the position of the draw-
bridge immediately in front of the gate. On the
south side of this wall three stones remain

*2 Laurence of Durham, op. cit. (Surt. Soc), lib. i,

U-433-40- , , . , ^

23 In a tracing of the castle m the possession of the
University, supposed to date about 1775, the newel
staircase is shown entered from the courtyard on
the west side ; the east side of the gateway is shown to
have a projection into the courtyard the full width of
the original work (p. 67).

to this gateway by Bishop Tunstall^ (iS30~S9)>
He seems to have widened the passage through
the gateway by recessing the jambs 3 in. on
each side beyond the line of the soffit of the inner
order to support which he provided small
moulded abaci as brackets. A close examination
further suggests that for the same purpose he
rebuilt the arch and endeavoured to spread it out.
It may be noticed with regard to this point that
the joints of the voussoirs of the innermost
order on each side of the keystone are open
respectively 2 in. and f in., the former being
filled in with small cobble stones ; and the bed
joints generally of this and the two middle
orders appear tight at the top and widen at the
soffit, while the outer order which was added

^* Hilt. Dunelm. Script. 7res (Surt. Soc), 155;
F. G [odwin]. Cat. of Bishops of Engl. (1601), 533.

Durham Casti.l: The Courtyard from the South-west

Durham Castle: The Courtyard from the South-eajt

CITY OF DURHAM

by Bishop Barrington is the only order with
parallel joints. Into this widened doorway
Tunstall apparently fixed the fine iron-bound
gates filled in with oak.^' These gates are
hung in two halves with a wicket in the left-
hand half ; their original massive bolts are
worthy of inspection.

In 1665 Bishop Cosin destroyed the barbican,
which is said to have been in a ruinous condition,
and partially filled in the moat. The requoining
at this time of the north-east corner of the
present library building, where the masonry was
disturbed by the removal of the tower at the
outer end of the barbican, can yet be seen.-*
Much of the stone work of the barbican was
reused in the walls he erected. A curious
picture in the castle attributed to the time of
Bishop Crewe (1674-1721) shows a clock in the
south face of the gateway 2' and the tower sur-
mounted by a campanile.

The restoration by Wyatt undertaken during
Bishop Barrington's episcopate (1791-1826)
reduced the gateway to its present unsatis-
factory appearance. He built the two projecting
wings and refaced the whole of the exterior.^*
As it now stands the gateway consists of a nearly
square tower with clasping angle buttresses
capped by turrets rising above the embattled
parapets of the main tower at each corner.
The buttresses are ornamented with shallow
sunk imitation loops and quatrefoils, plain
rounded necking and string-courses upon which
are formed the turrets slightly overhanging the
lower walls. The ground and the first floors of
the gate house are lighted with sharp-pointed
arched windows deeply recessed by a hollow
chamfer mould with roll at the outer edge, and
hood moulds. The upper story has a circular
window in which was formerly the clock face
already referred to, and above is a square hood
mould. The entrance arch is semicircular and
of four orders ornamented with shallow sunk
cheverons, the innermost being varied with a
star mould. The three inner orders are the
only remains of original Norman work to be
seen. The outermost order springing from a
shallow hollow chamfered jamb, and the two
middle orders, carried on shafts with imitation

" Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 155 ;
F. G[od\vin], Cat. of Bishops of Engl. (1601), 533.

28 See contract dated 6 May 1665, printed in
Bp. Cosines Corresp. (Surt. Soc), ii, 379.

*' This may be the clock in the possession of
Mr. C. W. Dixon Johnson of Aykley Heads.

2* A plan of the castle dating about 1775 shows the
gate before Bishop Barrington made his alterations ;
on the west side there is a projection at the back into
the courtyard, indicating possibly that the gateway
was originally double and that the circular staircase,
at the time of the plan, was entered from the court-
yard (p. 67).

Norman capitals, are by Wyatt. The innermost
order springs from square jambs with small
chamfered edges, and possesses curious small
moulded abaci and bases returned on themselves
within the face of the stone. On the south
front, above and on either side of the gateway,
are two shields, the dexter bearing the arms of
the see, the sinister the arms of Bishop Barrington
(three cheverons with a label for difference).

The ribs of vaulting have a broad flat soffit,
shallow moulded with roll on angle, meeting in
a central boss. The boss is ornamented with a
wreath of foliage, in the centre of which is the
badge of a lion or clawed beast. It is deeply
undercut and is effective in appearance. The
four ribs spring from corbels, much defaced,
which in turn have had plain corbels inserted
under them for support.^'

The foundations of earlier buildings have
from time to time come to light in the courtyard,
but until some systematic attempt is made to
trace them it would be misleading to attempt
any description of the fragments of walls found.
One piece of wall, however, exposed in the north-
east corner of the yard revealed a small window-
opening very similar to those in the undercroft
of Bishop Bek's hall, but without the wide
splay in the jambs. An undercroft or basement
was also discovered under the north-east corner
of the courtyard, immediately adjoining the
chapel. It is now entered by a manhole in the
courtyard. Its length is 20 ft. and its width
8 ft., the length being divided into four bays
by semicircular arches of one square order,
springing from the side wall on the west, and
from massive square pilasters on the east side.
It has a depth from crown of arch to the paved
floor of 18 ft. 5 in. The piers have a set-off
at about half their height covered with a stone
slope, and the north pier has a rectangular open-
ing in the face, which runs a considerable dis-
tance under the courtyard, and apparently dips
slightly to the east. The sides of this opening,
top and bottom, are rendered in mortar, and the
top angles are rounded off. Whether it has
been an overflow drain, or whether a timber
has been built into it and decayed, is impossible
to say, but no sign of timber graining was
noticed on the mortar lining. The walls generally
are built of roughly coursed rubble, the arches
and quoins are of ashlar dressed with the axe ; the
jointing is large, especially the upright joints.
The wall on the south side of the courtyard,
stretching from the gateway to the garden
stairs, is in its lower part of early origin and is
a continuation of the old moat wall under the

*' The vaulting and the arch have probably been

removed and refiied at a higher level, possibly by
Bishop Tunstall, who did much work at the gateway.
The original level of the approach from the Green is
some 3 ft. below the present roadway at this point.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

garden stair building. The upper part is later,
probably of the time of Bishop Cosin.^ The
position of two windows can be seen in the wall,
and also the jamb of a third, but the rest of
the windows are cut off by Bishop Barrington's
extension of the gateway. These windows
probably gave light to the rooms that existed
on the courtyard side of this wall, and traces of
the foundation of the north wall of a building
are still in existence underground. Whether
Bishop Barrington pulled down this building
cannot be said, but he appears to have destroyed
and blocked up the three windows in order to
run a flue in the thickness of the wall from the
gatehouse cellar kitchen to the garden staircase.

The well, the position of which had long been
forgotten, was found considerably to the north-
west of the present centre of the court, at a
depth of 6 ft. It was surrounded by the square
stone pavement of the wellhouse sloping gradually
from the well in the centre. The well averages
4 ft. in diameter, and was excavated to a depth
of 106 ft. ; the ashlar steaning is in fairly good
condition and goes down to a depth of 62 ft. It
is seated on the rock, which has fallen in
places. At a depth of 90 ft. the well was found
to be puddled with two layers of clay finished
on top with rough flags. The main supply of
water appears to enter from the rock at a depth
of 70 ft. The supply is stiU fair, but the well
will not hold the water, hence the partial filling
in and puddling, which appears to have been
unsuccessful. Bishop Tunstall provided the
castle with an independent water supply, which
he brought by a lead pipe from the ' pant '
in the college. This in turn drew its supply
from the spring on the south road in the field
adjoining Little Wood, which to-day gives an
abundant supply of perfectly clear water.
Portions of the lead pipe have been recovered.^^
When excavating on the Palace Green an old
wood pipe with spigot end formed out of a
tree trunk was found pointing directly to the
castle entrance. It was unfortunately too
decayed to be lifted from its position, and fell
to pieces on being touched.

Portions of several cobble and flag paved
paths have been uncovered ; one leads directly
to the Norman entrance door of Bishop Pudsey's
Gallery. It is interesting to note from the
section of the accumulated top soil that the
courtyard has at one time been paved, at another
used as a vegetable garden, and at another
time covered with ashes.

^^ In the picture hanging in Senate Room Lobby,
considered to be of Bishop Crewe's date, these square-
headed mullion windows are shown greatly resembling
the windows in the adjoining building.

'1 It was ij in. inside diameter, J in. thick and cast
in short lengths of about 3 ft., joined together with
a spigot and socket joint, and burnt.

At the south-west corner of the courtyard
is the Garden Stair, a small block of buildings
which adjoins the moat and is used for students'
rooms. It has a gable to the courtyard which
is recessed behind an embattled parapet forming
a pleasing feature. It was originally built
apparently in the Norman period, but altered
by Bishop Bek in the latter part of the 13th
century. The door entering this building from
the kitchen passage and a considerable part of
the building above the courtyard level appear
to be the work of Bishop Fox (1494-1501), while
the facing of the lower portion of the north-east
angle is of the time of Bishop Tunstall (1530-59).
Bishop Cosin (1660-72) also made various
alterations, and it was he probably who erected
the high-pitched roof, with its gable, already
referred to, in the place of a flat roof, and in-
serted the upper window. The upper part of
the east wall bears his arms and was possibly
rebuilt or refaced by him.

The interior has been much altered and origi-
nally must have possessed a basement, now
filled in. The only item of interest remaining
from a fire which occurred in the 19th century
is the oak staircase of late i8th century
date. It has plain square newels finished
at the top with flat capitals surmounted by
a ball, and at the bottom with similar capitals
and pear-shaped pendants. The hand-rail is
shaped and the balusters flat and cut. A curious
feature is the rectangular slit or small squint
on the south of the entrance doorway into the
courtyard. The lower portion of the south
wall forms the old moat wall, which is of Norman
date, and is characterised by a boldly projecting
plinth course, now much decayed. The lower
part on the west side to the south of the kitchen
is probably the remains of the south-west turret
tower of the early Norman fortification^ where
they adjoined the west wall crossing the moat,
and has at some time been used as a latrine pit.
The south windows look out upon the inner
moat, now transformed into a garden, formerly
called the Bishop's Garden, but now named the
Don's Garden. The wall on the west side of
the garden is built upon the foundations of the
Norman outer defensive wall. The small wing
over the kitchen entrance is of Bishop Tunstall's
date, the windows and other detail corresponding
with those of his gallery.

On the west and adjoining the garden stairs
is the kitchen, which is entered through the door
of the buttery hatch. It was originally built
by Bishop Pudsey (1153-95), possibly to house
the guard or garrison. There are indicationi
that it formerly contained several floors. The
extra thickness of the south wall, now covered
by Bishop Fox's fireplaces, suggests that this
wall may have possessed defensive features,
and its position at the junction of the castle

CITY OF DURHAM

and the defensive wall crossing the moat renders
it extremely likely that such was the case. When
the plaster was disturbed on the west wall, the
jamb and arch of a Norman window were dis-
closed. On the outside also of the same wall
on a level with this window, but further to the
south, the jamb of a second window with a
column is visible, though the rest of it is
obscured by a later buttress. The outside
features of the building were a boldly projecting
base from which sprang broad, flat pilaster
buttresses at each angle, and probably a corbelled
parapet, the present parapet wall, with over-
sailing string and drip stones, being of late date.
This building was converted by Bishop Fox'^

upper part of a right-angled triangle. Both
rise nearly to the base of the parapet, with
wedge-shaped apex stones. The flues possessed
the usual arrangement of smoke jacks, some of
the spits and pulleys in connection with which
are now hanging on the wall. Above the central
stone pier is an angular brick shaft supported on
a stone corbel carved with the grotesque figure
of an imp, and capped at the level of the roof
strut with a stone moulded capital ; from this
springs a transverse roof strut.

The roof is open, of low pitch, with large
main beams and wall plates, both chamfered, and
a lower chamfered waU plate, chamfered upright
wall plates with swelled and splayed feet, resting

Durham Castle : The Buttery

(1494-1501) into a kitchen. He inserted the
large arch in the north wall and filled it with
the buttery hatch. He also constructed the
magnificent fireplaces and chimney breast
adjoining, completely hiding the south wall.
These fireplaces consist of two three-centred
hollow chamfered ashlar arches of 16 ft. and
12 ft. span, springing from a central and two side
stone piers, supporting a brick frontal wall,''
with embattled parapet of moulded brick. From
the back of this wall springs the battering
wall of the large flues. Over each stone arch is
a brick relieving arch, one and a half bricks in
depth. The eastern arch is sharply pointed with
small curvature, but the western has no curva-
ture, the rims being perfectly straight, like the

'- Hist. Dtinelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 150.

*' This wall was stripped of plaster about 1907,
previous to vvliich it was thought the frontal wall and
parapet were of stone. This brickwork is practically
the only early brickwork in the castle.

on stone octagonal splayed corbels, with cham-
fered and cut struts and under bearers to each
main timber. The roof is of chestnut and is
probably of Bishop Fox's construction.

In the east wall is a third hollow chamfered
arch, with rounded stop on jambs. In this it
differs from the other fireplaces ; it is also
higher and of considerably greater curvature,
with a double stone rim (at present filled with a
range and large oven). The recess to which this
arch admitted is of some depth, as its outside
wall projects beyond the old Norman wall
2 ft. 6 in. or 3 ft., the projecting portion being
roofed by a series of stone slopes. In this wall
are the remains of a hood mould and a square-
headed window; these and a considerable amount
of the stonework of the outside wall resemble
that of Bishop Tunstall's time. Its original pur-
pose is unknown, but it may have been occupied
by sinks.

The west window inserted by Bishop Fox
(1494-1501) is of three cinquefoil lights in a

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

square head. The east window is also of three
lights, with inner arch similar to the west, and
possibly of Bishop Fox's time, but the lights are
sharply pointed without cusping and appear to be
later insertions.

Adjoining the kitchen on the north is the
buttery, one of the most picturesque parts of
the castle. Some remains of a previous building
on this site exist in the hall staircase, where a
portion of a I3thcentury corbelled parapet may
be seen incorporated in Bishop Hatfield's exten-
sion of the great hall. The present buttery, with
the scullery, and the brew house below, was built
by Bishop Fox about 1499.*^ It is entered by
the west door of the great hall under the gallery
and was formerly divided by a wall pierced by a
small door, now removed.^ The square-headed
mullioned window on the north side, with three
centred cusped heads, is apparently an enlarge-
ment of a window existing in 1775, and a similar
window on the west side of the annexe is not
earlier than the time of Bishop Cosin. The glass
of both windows was inserted in 1905. High up
in the north wall of the annexe is another square-
headed mullioned window with four lights dating
from the 15th century, now blocked. The
interior partition walls of the main building are
of half-timber construction with plain per-
pendicular oak timbers, darkened by age and
filled in with brickwork plastered over. The
south side is occupied by the ' Buttery Hatch,'
which opens into the kitchen, and is formed of
three compartments, the western of which is
the doorway. It is massively constructed of
oak, and each opening possesses shallow pointed
heads rounded at the springing ; the spandrils
are richly carved, those in the extreme east and
west having the crest of Bishop Fox together
with the date 1499 and the inscription ' Est Deo
gracia.'

The butler's and other stores, lighted with
lead glazing, open out of the buttery to the east
and west. The plan of about 1775 already men-
tioned shows that the buildings on the west
side of the buttery have been considerably
altered ; the present store room and scullery
evidently then formed a bakehouse, as is apparent
by the two small ovens in the west wall, over
the large ovens in the basement. These small
ovens have entirely disappeared and commu-
nication has been formed from the kitchen to the
west chamber or scullery, which was then, it
would seem, divided into two compartments.
At the north end of the west side of the buttery

^ See date on buttery hatch.

^^ The floor, the beams of which were greatly
decayed, was renewed in 1900, with oak beams and
maple flooring, the best of the old oak being used in
the repair of the decayed or missing half-timber work
of the walls, and the renewal of the shelving, which at
that time was of deal.

is a narrow passage which leads by a circular
newel stair of Bishop Fox's time to the base-
ment.^* On the west side of the basement is
a range of two ovens, one 12 ft. in diameter,
the other 8 ft., formed with stone sides (12 in.
high), the floor and shallow arched roofs being
of tiles with stone keystones. In the south-
west corner of this apartment are the remains
of a furnace for heating water, the recess being
lighted by a small square-headed window in the
south wall. From the remains it is evident
that the front consisted of a range of three cen-
tred, chamfered arches of stone, with a boldly
splayed sill course under each at the level of the
oven floors, the oven doors being recessed and
the flues opening out at the back of the front
arch. Above the ovens, but contained in the
height of the apartment, is a brick arched space
evidently intended as a cooling chamber, below
the apartment now used as a scullery.

The west wall of this building has been sup-
ported on the outside by stone buttresses of
striking massiveness, of undetermined date. The
turret stair here, before mentioned, also forms
a picturesque feature. It is of live stages sepa-
rated by moulded string-courses, and is sur-
mounted by an embattled parapet. The turret
rises considerably above the rest of Bishop
Fox's work, providing access from the basement
to roof.

The old chest of unknown date standing
in the buttery is worthy of attention. Legend
says that during the troublous times of the
Reformation the body of St. Cuthbert was
hidden in it. It has also been suggested that
it was from this chest that a robbery of treasure
in the year 1369 took place, and it is evident
that it has been forcibly opened at some time.

The rooms to the north, now occupied by the
housekeeper and silver pantry, appear to be
comparatively modern, and the plan of about
1775 shows here only a small apartment about
13 ft. square. This has disappeared and a large
building of two stories has been erected, the
upper now occupied by the housekeeper's room
and the butler's pantry, and the basement used
as a heating chamber and bedrooms. The roof
of the southern part of this building has un-
doubtedly been raised and covers up the 17th-
century mullioned window, before mentioned,
in the north wall of the buttery. It has been
generally supposed that this was the building
erected by Bishop Fox, for the steward's apart-
ments, but it bears no resemblance whatever
to his work." If his building stood in this
position it has disappeared, and possibly the

^ This chamber was in later years used as a brewery ;
on the removal of the old boiler about 1897 the range
of ovens and furnace was discovered.

8' Hutchinson, op. cit. ii, 368.

CITY OF DURHAM

small chamber shown on the plan of about 1775
may have been his work. It appears more
likely that he formed his steward's chambers in
the apartments cut off from the Great Hall, and
the 1775 plan shows two large chambers in this
position divided by a smaller compartment
which may well have been devoted to stores.
The windows of this building are all of two
lights and square-headed with a splay running
round the head, jambs, and mullions, but a mid-
i8th century picture^* shows four centred,
arched and hooded heads to the upper windows.

The Great Hall, known also as Bek's Hall,
Hatfield's Hall, and the White Hall, occupies the
greater part of the west side of the courtyard
and is one of the finest examples of a castle hall
both for size and simple grandeur now existing
in this country. There was a previous building
on the site, but of what nature is unknown.
Early Norman work exists at the north end of
the undercroft, and the lower portion of the
north-west angle and part of the north wall also
date from this period. Although now covered
by the buttresses and other work attributed to
Bishop Tunstall, the platform upon which the
north-west corner of the hall and the north wall
are built is undoubtedly of early date and
probably formed the base of a tower flanking
the original north and west curtain walls. The
hall was originally built by Bishop Anthony
Bek (1284-13 1 2) and was approximately the
same size as the existing hall, being loi ft. in
length by 35 ft. in width. ^^ Alterations and
repairs have left little of Bek's work visible. On
the east side of the hall the lower part of the
wall up to the offset below the window sills and
a small portion of the stone work above are
original. Of the same time also are the three
little windows which formerly lighted the
undercroft, with semicircular heads worked out
of one stone and widely splayed inner jambs.
The entrance doorway now much decayed and
partly coated with plaster is also of Bek's time.
It has a pointed arch of two richly moulded
orders and moulded jambs with detached shafts
and boldly moulded capitals. Bishop Cosin's
octagonal buttresses may possibly incase the
original square buttresses of Bishop Bek,
though they are not in alignment with the but-
tresses of this date on the west side.

Little of Bek's work can be identified on the
west side of the hall beyond the range of square
buttresses and the southernmost window with
a pointed head, the tracery of which has been
renewed and does not fit on to his work. Recent

** By W. Coster Brown and dating to about 1760
to 1770, in the possession of Miss Charlton, South
Street.

'^ There appears to be no documentary evidence of
Bek's work on the castle ; cf. Boyle, Guide to the
County of Durham, 152.

repairs to the interior of this wall have disclosed
the original jambs of a window at the north
end, of Bishop Hatfield's time, which was
destroyed doubtless by Bishop Neile when he
constructed the Black Chamber. A picture
hanging on the Great Staircase indicates four
square-headed muUioned windows in the west
wall of the hall, two at the top and two at the
bottom, suggesting that at one time there
existed an upper chamber. On the outside, at
the north end, there are three small pointed
windows such as would be used for latrines, at
such a height as would suggest the division of
the north end of the hall into several floors,
long before the lime of Bishop Neile.

About 1350 Bishop Hatfield lengthened the
hall*" southward 30 ft. 6 in. and in doing so cut
away half the western staircase. This extension
may be identified from the courtyard by the
string-course under the parapet, which is not
quite at the same level as the older string. Hat-
field's wall also is sHghtly out of alignment with
the earlier wall to the north, but this is hardly
distinguishable. In the south wall he inserted
a double window, divided by a large square
muUion carrying two pointed arches, each filled
in with two lights, the tracery of which can still
be seen, though the window is partly built
up. Each window contains a central mullion
with filleted roll nosing and deep hollow splay
on either side, and has been finished at the top
with some kind of splayed abacus to receive
tracery. The head of each light is finished with
an ogee arch cusped, and a large central quatre-
foil with ogee cusping. Seen from the interior,
the first window from the south in the west wall
has the original jambs, head and inner arch, also
the inner sill of Bishop Bek's work. The second
window is of Bishop Hatfield's work, except the
tracery, which has been inserted and is of the
same date as that in Bek's window. The
jambs have detached and banded shafts finished
with moulded capitals ; the window, however,
has been cut short for the insertion of a pointed
doorway into the pantry, and has been further so
iU-treated that it is impossible to say of what
mouldings the outer arch originally consisted.
Late repairs have disclosed the original lower
transom of this window still in position. The
two other west windows are modern, but are
supposed to be copies of Hatfield's work; cer-
tainly the square abacus on the outer jambs and
the banded columns on the inner jambs have
been repeated, but every other feature is new.
The two larger pointed windows on the east
side are also stated to be restorations of Hat-
field's work; they are of three lights with a
transom, the tracery being composed of two
trefoils and a quatrefoil. Each window has two

*» Hut. Dunelm. Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), 138.

73 10

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

splayed stone seats, one on either side, formed
by running down the inner jambs some 2 ft.
6 in. below the outer sill ; this also occurs in
the north-west windows. Since the removal of
Cosin's panelling these windows have been
altered and the sills lowered.

The north window was inserted in 1847. It
is said to occupy the position of a large window
by Bishop Hatfield which was possibly unused
from the time of Bishop Cosin or Bishop Neile,
when rooms were inserted at the north end of
the hall. The window is pointed and has four
lights with geometrical tracery. The appear-
ance is heavy, but the glass inserted in 1882
is by Kempe and is good. It displays, on a
groundwork of foliage, the arms of many
associated with the castle and the foundation of
the University.*^

Hatfield is said to have renewed the roof
with richly ornamented roof timbers, no trace
of which remains.*^ There exists a contract
by which the carpenter undertook to save the
old timber for re-use, indicating perhaps that
a very considerable portion of Bishop Bek's hall
was rebuilt.'" He also erected a ' throne ' or
* princely seat ' at each end of the hall.

Bishop Fox constructed the present south cross
wall** and inserted two doorways at either end of
the wall, which from a plan of about 1775
apparently entered two separate apartments.
These doorways have square splayed inner
orders with four centred segmental arches in
square heads and sunk eyelets in the spandrels ;
the jambs are stopped at the bottom. The two
doorways are now connected with a cavetto hood
mould running along the wall above the heads
and returned down the outer end of each door
head. Two carvings of a ' Pelican in piety,' the
bishop's badge, are inserted near the inner

** At the bottom of the window are four figures
holding banners bearing arms representing (from east
to west) Bishop Hatfield, St. George, St. Cuthbert,
Bishop Fox. Immediately above, the shields of
Tunstall, Cosin, Crewe, and Butler. Above these
in the two centre lights are the arms of six visitors,
viz : — Bishops Van Mildert, Maltby, Langley, Villiers,
Baring and Lightfoot. In the upper portion of the
east light are shields referring to three Masters,
namely, the arms of Plummer and Booth and the
initials of Waite, and in the west light the arms of
the three Wardens Thorpe, Waddington and Lake.
The east and west tracery hghts display the arms of the
Bishoprics of York and Durham respectively, and,
surmounting all, the arms of the University.

*2 A picture by Hastings hanging in the hall shows
the principals ornamented with bold cusping, and the
spandrils filled with similar decoration ; this was
probably destroyed by Barrington, who replaced the
old struts with larger ones and inserted the corbels
under wall pieces

*3 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, R. 30, m. 5 d.

** Hijt. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 150.

jambs of the doors under the hood mould. The
two semicircular corbelled musicians' or trum-
peters' galleries on the east and west walls at
the south end were originally approached from
adjacent newel staircases, portions of which still
remain. These galleries are usually ascribed to
Bishop Fox,*° but whether they are his work is
doubtful ; they seem to be more in keeping
with Bishop Hatfield's time and arc probably
a part of his greater scheme. The portion
of the hall cut off at the south end he
divided into various apartments, constructing
a timber-framed house within the existing walls.
These apartments on the ground floor are now
used as the servants' hall and a bed and sitting-
room. Fox's alterations caused the removal of
the ' throne ' *' from the lower end of the hall
and the building up of the south window. The
large open arched recessed fireplace in the west
wall, between two of Bek's exterior buttresses,
was probably inserted at this time.

Bishop Neile (1617-28) is stated to have
further reduced the length of the hall" by the
construction of a set of rooms at the north end
of the hall which are supposed to have been
entered from a turret stair erected by Tunstall
at the west end of his gallery.**

Bishop Cosin (1660-72) did a considerable
amount of work on the hall. He is said to have
formed an audience chamber at the north end,
possibly inside Neile's partition wall.*" He also
cut away a portion of the east wall of the hall
when erecting his great staircase, and built a
timber partition to avoid too great a projection
into the courtyard. Cosin also erected a ' screen
of wainscot ' at the south end of the hall and
panelled the walls. Nothing of this work is left
except possibly the double doors under the
present gallery.^" Bishop Cosin also built the
porch covering Bishop Bek's doorway, and the

*5 Chambre, Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt.
Soc), p. 150. The position of the galleries, however,
points to their being part of Bishop Hatfield's scheme
for the larger hall, and the wall openings may quite well
be of his time.

*' Ibid. The timber-framed house probably means
the buttery.

*' Wood, Athenae O.xon. i, 665.

** Doubts have been cast on the existence of this
staircase.

*" Hutchinson, op. cit. ii, 369 note. A picture in
the castle shows a chimney on the roof of the hall near
the north end, indicating that the division wall was
not merely a timber partition. These rooms were
removed, and the wall thus extended to its original
length, shortly after the castle passed into the hands
of the University in 1847.

^o Cosin's panelling and screen are shown in a
picture by Hastings hanging in the Great Hall. It is
not known when the panelling and screen were
removed. During the early part of the University's
occupation the walls appear to have been bare.

CITY OF DURHAM

flanking buttresses on either side,*' and later, in
1664, he built the northernmost buttress, and the
angle buttress at the south-east angle. These
buttresses add immensely to the impressiveness
of the exterior. They form a three-quarter
octagon on plan, of bold projection, with two
splayed diminishing courses in their height,
finished at the top above the parapet of the hall
by cornices and octagonal ogee cupolas with
poppy heads and balls.

The porch at the main entrance to the hall is
of an impressive and bold design, but, being built
of very soft stone from the Broken Walls Quarry,
has become much decayed. It is raised some
3 ft. above the courtyard on the top of an
octagonal flight of steps. The doorway has a
semicircular arch with richly moulded keystone,
foliated spandrels and square jambs having
moulded capitals, and is flanked by pairs of
detached Ionic columns standing on pedestals.
The columns, which are much decayed, support a
moulded architrave, plain frieze and bold cornice,
wdth segmental pediment. On this stands, on a
small pedestal with moulded surbase, a winged
figure in bishop's robes wearing a coronet and
supporting in front a shield bearing the arms of
the Bishopric impaled with those of Bishop
Cosin. On either side of the pediment are two
other pedestals, the southernmost bearing a
bishop's mitre, and the northern one an earl's
helmet, surmounted by the crest of a bird stand-
ing on a wreath.

Inside the porch, on the south side, is a door-
way giving access to the lobby of the ' Hall
Stairs.' It is a comparatively modern insertion
and is not shown on a plan of the castle dating
about 1775 (p. 67).

Above the porch on the main wall is a group of
four coats of arms, arranged in a square of four
separate panels, each surrounded by a simple
mould. They bear the arms of Bishops Cosin,
Hatfield, Archdeacon Westle and Dr. Robert
Grey. The buttresses immediately adjoining
the porch are of stone from the Broken Walls
Quarr)', and the extreme north and south
buttresses are apparently the same, but a change
was made after starting the Great Stair.

Between the porch and the south buttress,
a two-storied projecting window has been in-
serted to the rooms formed by Bishop Fox at
the south end of the hall. It is corbelled out
from the first floor and bears the arms of Bishops
Van Mildert and V'iUiers in sunk and grouped
panels.

The flagstone paving of the hall is also Cosin's
work and has been little affected by passing feet
and time. It was laid down in 1663 and was to
consist of ' faire courses of diamond flags con-

*i The contract for this is dated I April 1663.
Bishop Cosin's Corresp. (Surt. Soc), ii, 360.

raining full three yeards in the whole breadth.'
In the centre between the courses mentioned is a
square panel with a ' fret ' borne by Cosin on his
coat of arms, worked out in flagstones.*^ The
' halfe pace ' mentioned in the contract for the
work *^ is not the present step in the hall floor —
most of the present wood flooring would be
contained in the audience chamber — but a space
of II ft. or 12 ft. in width between the termina-
tion of Cosin's flag flooring and the line of the
audience chamber cross wall. This space appears
to have been occupied by a wooden dais. The
present panelling, designed by the late Mr. C.
Hodgson Fowler, was inserted by the University
about 1887, when the gallery was erected on the
site of the passage formed by the old wainscot
screen. Recent repairs brought to light a series
of holes in the east wall towards the south end;
they are regular in position and appear to have
been occupied by the ends of wooden beams.
Their position suggests that at some time this
end of the hall was occupied by a structure four
stories in height.

In the basement at the south-west angle
there remains a portion of a stair hand rail,
sunk and worked out of the face of the wall,
probably of the 15th century date.

Pudsey' s manner of facing his walls with square-
shaped stones appears to have been followed by
Bek, who intermingled them with larger stones,
and Cosin's facing gives a not dissimilar impres-
sion; he made frequent use of a square stone but
of larger size and in patches amid courses of
larger stones ; his jointing was regular in size.
Hatfield consistently made use of a larger stone
in courses of irregular depth; his jointing is
also irregular in size. Bek's jointing is also
uneven, and the perpendicular joints are fre-
quently wide. Fox's inside ashlar work, how-
ever, is very finely dressed, and his jointing close.
Compared with his additions to the exterior of
the Great HaU, Bishop Cosin's design for the
outside of the Great Staircase is flat and unin-
teresting. The building presents a square, with
the salient angle splayed off, fitted into the angle
between Bishop Pudsey's and Bishop Hatfield's
halls. On the wall of the splayed angle are
two coats of the arms of Bishop Cosin, in
plain panels with simple moulded frames. The
lower shield impales the see, supported by two
cherubs' heads with wings crossed and drooping,
supporting two swags attached to the shield,
surmounted by a lion's head and scroll, above
which rests a coronet and mitre. The upper
shield is simple, the see without lions, impaled
by Cosin and surmounted by a coronet and
mitre.

" The contract for this is dated i April 1663.
Bishop Cosin's Corresp. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 364.

" Ibid.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

There are three windows to each flight of
stairs, with checked and splayed jambs, and
square splayed heads, mullions and transoms ;
each is of two lights, the upper having three
centred arched heads with small eyelets in the
spandrels, and the whole surmounted by a hood
mould.

A string-course divides the building at the
level of the parapet of the Tunstall gallery, and
there is a second string immediately under the
embattled parapet, which has been renewed.
The whole was originally crowned by a wooden
turret or lantern light, with columns at the sides,
and finished with a lead cupola, but this was re-
moved apparently in the i8th century.

Bishop Cosin started this building with stone
from the Broken Walls Quarry, but above the
lower windows a great deal of the Browney
stone seems to have been used. The walling
here is somewhat different from the rest of his
work, there being a more general use of longer
stones, more varied depth of courses and finer
jointing.

On the south wall is a lead downspout head,
bearing the date mdclxii, with two pendants
on the underside ornamented with a Tudor rose;
a third centre pendant, forming a sink and con-
tracting to form the connection with the down-
spout, bears a casting of a lion's head winged.
On the east wall is another almost similar lead
head, bearing a shield with the arms of the see
and dated 1661.

Although the outside elevation of the Great
Staircase, which Cosin built in i66z,^ may not
be pleasing, it must be admitted that the
interior is very imposing. He exercised great
care, thought and supervision on the work, and
though he spent ' largely ' he spent ' wisely,'
and as a result he added to the castle an object
of enduring admiration.

The staircase tower is 57 ft. in height from
floor to ceiling. Five separate landings or floors,
which extend the entire width of the north side
of the building, are each connected by three
flights of stairs. On plan, the average measure-
ments of the staircase are 28 ft. 9 in. from north
to south, and 22 ft. 8 in. from east to west.
The flights have a width of about 6 ft. between
balustrade and walls and the well is 9 ft. square.

The balustrade surrounding the well is formed
with a shaped and moulded handrail, surmount-
ing a heavy moulded top rail with frieze of
carved acanthus leaf, studded and banded on
the well side, but on the stair side the boxing
has three facias divided by carved fillets ; the
lower rail or string has a deeply moulded plain
panel boxing. Between these two strings richly
pierced and carved panels are inserted, sur-

*■• The contract for this is dated l April 1663.
Bishop Cosin's Corresp. (Surt. Soc), ii, 90, 358.

rounded and held in position by moulded and
carved fillets. The panels of the lower flight are
finer and more elaborately carved than the rest,
the one on^the gallery *landing''consisting"of an
acanthus scroU with bordered shield in the centre,
with a flower on either side from the centre of
which hang swags of fruit. The other panels are
less elaborate and of shallower carving, but
thoroughly effective in purpose from the distant
view usually obtained of them. Each panel
occupies a length of one side of the well.

At each angle is a square newel post with sunk
panel on two sides, the panels being decorated
with studded leaves in low relief. Each newel
was originally finished on the top with flat caps
having a moulded edge surmounted by a boldly
shaped vase ornament richly carved and termin-
ating with a ball. At the foot, each newel
was finished by a deeply undercut and fret
pendant. Few of either upper or lower ter-
minals now remain. When the roof was exposed
some time ago^^ the main beams were found to
be broken and much decayed, the fractures being
occasioned by the great weight of the lantern
light which was removed subsequent to the time
of Bishop Crewe.'* The top landing was at an
unknown date formed into a room now called the
' Crows' Nest,' by the erection of a partition upon
the main trimmer immediately at the back of the
panelled balustrade. On the failure of the roof,
however, the partition transferred the pressure
from the roof timbers to the trimmer, causing
it to become distorted. To counteract this, the
carved capitals and pendants of the newels were
removed, and turned diminishing oak columns
were wedged in between the top of one newel and
the bottom of the one immediately above, in
order to transfer the weight to the ground. The
effect, however, was to force the newels
out of the perpendicular, and to destroy and in
some cases entirely draw out the oak-pinned
tenons, especially in the upper flights. The roof
has now been renewed, the staircase carefully
strengthened and the broken trimmer of the top
landing slung to the roof joists. Relieved of the

'5 In a report upon the castle roofs, dated 15 Sept.
1794, it is stated that the ' Roof over the grand
staircase, the timbers in General is in a very decayed
state and much sunk, hkewise the lead upon the Roof
and Gutters much wore and thin in many parts, a
new roof appears to be necessary at some future time,
as no danger at present appears from its present
state.'

*' Shown on several of the old views on the staircase,
on one of which the turret appears to be square
composed of several columns supporting an ogee-
shaped cupola terminating with some form of orna-
ment. In a view from the south, hanging in the
Senate Room lobby, this is confirmed, but the cupola
takes the form of a single curve terminating with ball
finial.

Durham Castle : The Black Staircase

CITY OF DURHAM

superincumbent weight, some of the main trim-
mers show a tendency to resume a level bearing.

The newels, handrails, capitals, pendants and
the recently renewed stair treads are of oak, but
the carved panels and boxings of the strings, etc.,
are of a soft wood, believed to be willow.

The north-west tower is supposed to date from
the reign of King John and was probably built
between 1208 and 1217 when the castle was in
the king's hands." AH that survives of the
former building on the same site are a door rebate
and some small portions of ashlar walling of
Pudsey's date on either side of the lower chamber.
The bed joints of this walling fall towards the
north at approximately the same angle as the
jointing at the west front of Pudsey's existing
building. The massive construction of the
lower part of the tower points to the conclusion
that it was built primarily as a buttress and
prop to the west end of Pudsey's building, which
it is evident was in a state of collapse in the early
part of the 13th century. It may have been
intended for a latrine tower, but probably the
lower chamber was a cell or prison. It contained
two chambers, the lower 16 ft. by 5 ft. 9 in.
with a height of 15 ft. 2 in. to the springing of the
arches. Both chambers are vaulted, the lower
with three segmental ribs and probably a fourth,
averaging i ft. 4J in. wide and about 2 ft. i in.
apart, the spaces between them being covered by
flagstones. One rib is splayed on both sides,
and another on one side only. On the east they
spring simply from the walls ; and on the west
side the wall below has been robbed for a width
of 18 in. from the springing of the arches down-
wards except for the portion where the remains
of Pudsey's ashlar may be seen. In the west
wall is a recess and below a shaft about 2 ft. 6 in.
square at top, and 3 ft. 4! in. by 2 ft. 6 in. at the
bottom, descending to a depth of 19 ft. 6 in.
from the stone siU or step at the top. This
step covers almost half the opening of the shaft
and appears to be the head of an old loop
turned upside down. The opening at the bottom
of the shaft leading through the wall towards
the west is 3 ft. high and covered with large
headstones about lyi in. deep, the inner one of
which is badly split at the bearing, and is now
built up. Only a 12 in. width of this opening
shows in the shaft, the north wall of which hides
the remainder. It is probable that this shaft
was at one time the private latrine used by the
bishops, as above the present entrance there is
still a door opening into the bishop's room at
the back of the tapestry, and communication

*' This turret is assumed to have been built during
the interregnum of 9 years in the reign of King John.
The Pipe Rolls record payment for the repair of the
castle and houses at Durham during the 13th, 14th
and 15th years of liis reign.

must have been formed between the two
apartments by a flight of steps. Half-way
between the latrine shaft and the entrance door
is a narrow round-headed window with wide
internal splays. In the north wall is a muUioned
window of late date with wide internal embrasures
which has apparently been hacked through the
solid wall and is fitted with a modern sash frame.

To the greater part of the chamber there is
no formed floor except some large stones filled
in with rubbish, suggesting that it is of greater
depth. The lower portion of the east wall
almost suggests that an arch has crossed about
this level. On the line of the latrine recess a
wall robbed on its face crosses the building with
a height of about 2 ft. 6 in., and on the north side
of the same recess a second wall rises about
2 ft. 8 in. above the last one, and crosses at a
slightly different angle. On the outer face of the
east wall adjoining the wall of the main building
there is a rough semicircular arch almost covered
by the ground, which possibly spanned an
entrance to a lower chamber or possibly a
latrine pit, and formed a portion of Pudsey's
original building.

The upper chamber is 16 ft. by 10 ft. with a
height of 16 ft. 4 in. and is larger than the lower,
owing to the diminished thickness of the walls.
The south end projects considerably into the
thickness of Pudsey's north and west walls.
It forms a rectangular room, and is entered from
the upper hall or Norman Gallery. It is lighted
by a single lancet with modern external jambs
in the west wall and a double lancet which
appears to be entirely modern in the east wall.
The vaulting has double splayed pointed ribs.

Above this vaulted chamber the roof is formed
with stone sets falling to a channel in the centre,
which in turn falls towards the north wall. For
the full length on the east side and parallel to
the east wall there are the remains of what
appears to have been a dwarf wall, with a space
behind filled with rubbish, giving the appearance
of having been a latrine for the use of the men
guarding the walls; the garderobe seat being
possibly covered by a lean-to roof. Apparently
a wall existed on the south side, as the jambs of a
doorway remain at the south-west corner. The
floor is some 2 ft. below the level of the present
parapet walk of Pudsey's building, but this
latter and the parapets all round the building are
known to have been considerably raised.

The present roof of the tower is flat and
covered with concrete supported by steel joists
so that the original roof now forms the floor of a
chamber. The west side has been refaced, but
on the north and the east sides the stonework is
in good condition and remains practically un-
touched. The parapets all round are modern.
The wall facing is of ashlar, and it is evident that
a great many of the facing stones of Pudsey's

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

destroyed building have been re-used. The bed
joints are fairly even and close, but many of the
upright joints are wide. On the east wall is a
15th-century shield much decayed, but ap-
parently bearing a lion rampant, impaling the
see, supporting a helmet and mitre.

The north-east angle of Bishop Pudsey's
building possesses an irregular-shaped turret of
13th-century work, probably masking in the
lower part a portion of Bishop Walcher's
(1071-80) earlier building. It contains an
irregular-shaped chamber in the upper portion,
with two narrow windows facing east and west.
The base of this tower is built upon the remains
of a massive vault of early date, a portion of which
is exposed.

The greater part of the north front of the

connected by a large circular internal staircase,
still in existence. Bishop Pudsey also incor-
porated, at its south-east angle, the lower por-
tion of the newel stair of Waltheof's earlier
buildings; there were also newel stairs at the
south-west and north-west angles of the build-
ing. The north-west staircase has entirely
disappeared, and only the lower portion of the
south-west remains. A close inspection indi-
cates that Pudsey's range of buildings began
to show signs of failure at an early date, and only
constant attention, aided by the thickness of the
walls, has enabled it to continue its chequered
existence up to the present time.

The south wall of the lower hall is built
partially upon another wall, but not in alignment
with it. The outer base of Bishop Pudsey's

Durham Castle : The Norman Gallery

castle between the two turrets just described
was occupied by the block containing the
Constable's Hall or armoury now known as the
Norman Gallery. This building was originally
erected by Bishop Pudsey (1153-95) ^' ^^d when
completed must have presented an imposing
appearance with its double range of circular-
headed windows and magnificent doorway. It
stands largely upon the site of previous build-
ings which were probably destroyed about 1155
or 1 166 by the fire referred to by Reginald.
The building forms a prolonged rectangle on
plan and would appear to have been a large
example of the ' hall house,' but with two halls,
the upper one known as the Constable's Hall,
now the Norman Gallery. The two halls were

** Hist. Dunelm. Scrip. Tres (Surt. Soc), 12.
Although not specially mentioned among his works,
the Constable's Hall must be attributed to Pudsey.

wall is carried on a series of pointed arches,
which are interesting as proving the use of the
pointed arch at this date. The small piers
between the arches were built without any
spread of foundation and only 18 in. below the
level of the Norman courtyard. On account of
threatened failure, these arches were built up,
and the wall was later strengthened by small
buttresses ; the erection of Tunstall's turret and
flying buttresses, and also Cosin's staircase
doubtless arrested the movement. The central
portion of this range, however, still crept out-
wards, causing the replacement of the Tunstall
Gallery roof on several occasions on account of
the pressure on its outer walls. By the time of
Bishop Trevor, about 1754, the overhang
amounted to about 18 in. towards the south, and
an endeavour was then made to straighten the
outer face of the wall. The upper part of the
shallow Norman buttresses, together with the

CITY OF DURHAM

machicolation and parapet, were removed and
stout beams were thrown under the shelter of
the roof of Tunstall's Gallery from buttress to
buttress. With the extra 7 in. thus gained a
commencement was made to build the outer
face perpendicular by robbing the old wall
deeper and deeper the higher the work pro-
ceeded. Immediately above the windows was
placed a plain string-course, and a second
moulded string at the base of the parapet wall.
The parapet is crenellated and finished with
moulded and weathered coping. The date of
the work was commemorated by the insertion
of the arms of Bishop Trevor impaled with the
arms of the see and surmounted by a mitre
arising out of a coronet. The refacing was carried
out in Kepier stone in courses of irregular depth,
finely dressed with close joints.

A further movement of about 13 in. after-
wards took place, and in 1902 the building was
tied across with three rows of steel ties having
outer steel bands. What permanent effect this
may have remains to be seen. The wall, when
opened, was found to consist of an outer skin
of masonry, filled in with loose rubble and ' soil
mortar.'

The west wall, with its boldly projecting base,
has fared little better than the south ; indeed,
at one lime it must have threatened complete
coUapse. The north-west angle appears to have
given way, and a great rent ran from top to
bottom of the building; the effect of this can
be seen in the great difference in width and
distortion of the arches of the west windows.
Under the floor of the ' still ' room recent
excavation has revealed a portion of the founda-
tion of the west wall, of which there remains a
short length of about 5 ft. with a square off-set
prepared for a wallplate. The depth of the wall
visible is about 4 ft. 8 in. where it appears to
end, but as the base of the wall on the outside is
at least 6 ft. below this level, the foundations
of the wall must be stepped back and down from
the inner face. It is a rough rubble wall with
clay joints; the single existing course of faced
walling forms the side of the set-off ; this latter
is set in lime and denotes the original inside line
of Pudsey's west wall. Fissures exist at the
joint of the west and south walls and a smaller
one about midway. Here also may be seen the
' great gash ' which extended, ever increasing, to
the very top of the building, causing the distor-
tion and widening of the south window in the
west wall of the Norman Gallery.

North of the ' gash ' the character of the
foundations changes; on plan the top appears
to be almost semicircular, and at the first glance
the general section gives the impression that it
is a gathering over of an angle formed by two
walls at right angles. An inspection, however,
shows that this is not so, for when the adhering

soil was removed it was found to have no
particular face, no courses, and no regular
overhang of the stones, and the impression given
is that it is the rough rubble backing of a wall
built upon a sloping sandy surface. At a depth
of 3 ft. 6 in. it apparently stops and a step back
of large size is probably formed. Whether this
sandy bank is a portion of the outer defences
before Pudsey's time, and upon which Pudsey
built, must be left to conjecture. It is to be
noted that this building never possessed an
undercroft and that it is filled solid with a sandy
soil from the level of the courtyard up to the
underside of the joists of the Common Room
a depth of some 10 ft. ; also that in the Common
Room an excavation at the back of the north
wall revealed the fact that the foundations are
stepped, rising from the outside towards the
inside in a somewhat similar manner. All these
facts point to the conclusion that Pudsey built
upon the sides of a sloping bank, and to the
probability that this bank formed a portion of
the original earthwork defending the north face.
Unfortunately the north wall had to be largely
rebuilt by Bishops Butler and Trevor about 1751
to 1756. This was the occasion of a bitter
controversy between Mr. Course of London
and Mr. Shirley of Durham, two surveyors
employed to settle the dilapidations on the
succession of Bishop Butler.^' It would appear
that about 41 ft. of the north wall, presumably at
the west end, overhung some 3 ft. in the worst
part, the whole being in a dilapidated condition.
About 1 741, in the time of Bishop Chandler, a
London surveyor had caused ' chain bars ' to be
inserted from the north to the south wall, and
timbers were added to prevent the roof from
thrusting out the walls. The whole building,
however, had evidently been a cause of anxiety
for many years.*" Mr. Course condemned the
north wall, and recommended that it be rebuilt,
which Mr. Shirley considered unnecessary, as
it had not moved for 80 years. The repairs were
apparently made by Mr. Sanderson Miller. At
any rate he was employed in the decoration of
the present Common Room, then the Bishop's
dining room,** and is responsible for the lowering
of the floor, the insertion of the large stone
chimney piece, a window in ' Gothic taste' and
the plaster decoration including the extra-
ordinary gilt ' buttercups ' on the otherwise fine
oak ceiling. The work then executed included
the insertion of the two windows of the Common

*' Correspondence and reports of Mr. Shirley, a
local surveyor, and Mr. Kenton Course, a London
surveyor, as to dilapidations between the late Bishop
Chandler and Bishop Butler.

«<> Ibid.

" Correspondence between Bishop Butler and
Mr. Sanderson Miller, and Mr. Talbot, dated 1751.
(Found and copied by the Very Rev. Henry Gee, D.D.)

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

Room with four-centred heads and shallow
cavetto moulded and chamfered jambs.

Bishop Butler died in 1752 and Bishop Trevor,
it would appear, carried on the work with some
slight alteration, judging from the stonework,
which is somewhat diilerent from the general
refacing, the bed joints not coinciding. Bishop
Trevor appears to have built the chimney
breast, upon which he inserted a large shield of
the arms of Bishop Butler. He also built the
projecting portion towards the west end, a
feature of which is the door with the window
over, between which he placed his coat of arms,
the whole being contained in a shallow recess

upper floor with a flag-stone much worn ; this
shaft is cut away by the insertion of one of the
later windows below, and all further trace is
lost, but it has apparently been a well shaft
used later for other purposes. At the back of
the chimney breast of Room No. 18 there
exists a doorway, opening out into a garderobe
partially formed in the thickness of the wall
and the shallow buttress at the back; the jambs
are corbelled with an almost semicircular curve
at the top, and the head has a shallow arch in
one stone, a splay running uninterruptedly
round all. The window recess of the bedroom
adjoining originally had another similar doorway;

Durham Castle : The Courtyard looking North

with ogee cusped head, having a hood mould
surmounted by a rude fleur-de-lis. He also
stuccoed the Bishop's or Senior Judge's Room
and inserted the carved mantelpiece upon which
his arms again appear. Two copies of Norman
windows on the upper floor are insertions,
probably the work of Mr. Salvin, the architect,
who did considerable work at the castle in the
early days of the University.

The two flat arched stone heads with key-
stones to windows of the Octagonal Room and
the Senate Room Lobby probably date from
the time of Bishop Neile (1617-28), but the
formation of the Octagonal Room and the
decoration do not appear to have been executed
until the time of Bishop Egerton (1771-87).

In the thickness of the wall of Room No. 17
are the remains of a circular ashlar shaft about
2 ft. in diameter, half covered at the level of the

a portion of the jambs, now cut away, remains
below the floor level.

What little is left of Pudsey's exterior walling
has a character of its own, the best part being
on the west face, where many of the stones are
as sound as the day they were worked. The
courses vary slightly in depth, and are formed
with square stones finely dressed with wide
joints, the effect of which is good. His stone
was obtained from the river bank.

On the south wall are two lead rain-water
heads worthy of notice. The one in the west
angle near the Great Stairs is rectangular, with
an oval-shaped outlet under ; the top is decorated
with an embattled and cusped cornice, the
angles have round looped columns, with ball
pendants; in the centre is the shield bearing a
lion rampant and on either side the initials
N.D. (Bishop Nathaniel Crewe). Under are

Durham Castle : Norman Doorway to Low ir Hall

CITY OF DURHAM

two pendants with ball termination decorated
with the Tudor rose. Further to the west
is a second head very similar in design, but with
the initials R.D. (Bishop Richard Trevor) ;
the outlet also has a shield bearing a lion
rampant impaling the see ; under it is the
date 1754. On the north wall are two others
somewhat similar in design, both bearing the
initials I.D. (Bishop Joseph Butler) with the
date 1752, and a shield displaying two bends
fimbriated, impaling the see.

The lower floor of this block was built by
Bishop Pudsey and probably consisted of a large
central hall with a ' solar ' (the Senate Room
Lobby) at the east end, and one or more com-
partments at the west end. This arrangement
would appear to have been altered not later
than 1500 (Bishop Fox) and a range of two
stories formed ; the lower floor level corre-
sponding with that of the present north lobby
floor level on the west, and the pantry on the
east ; the upper floor level corresponding with
that of the Bishop's Rooms on the west and
Octagonal Room on the east. The existence
of a floor at this level appears to be confirmed
by the level of the lower steps of a range of four
15th-century windows stiU existing behind the
stucco of the south wall of the Common Room,
but whether there ever was a lower story on
the actual site of this room is doubtful. When
Bishop Tunstall erected his Gallery, it is clear
that his roof interfered with the lower portion
of these four windows and there is evidence that
the sills have been raised, and Bishops Butler
and Trevor would entirely obliterate them with
their subsequent work.

The fine oak ceiling probably belongs to the
15th century, and the continuation of this
ceiling over the Bishop's lavatory suggests that
the whole space between the Octagonal Room
and the Bishop's Room on the east and west,
respectively, was one large compartment. This
latter arrangement probably existed until Bishop
Butler formed the Common Room ; he lowered
the floor and inserted the north windows, and
covered up the windows in the south wall by
his stoothings. These four windows are deeply
recessed with chamfered segmental rear-arches,
and slightly splayed jambs with openings
formed with single segmental cinquefoil cusped
heads; one of these heads may still be seen in
the Bishop's lavatory, masked on the outside
with mulhoned 18th-century windows. It may
be presumed that before the insertion of Bishop
Butler's windows in the north wall these lower
compartments depended for light upon the
south \vaU.

The lower hall possesses a magnificent
Norman doorway, in wonderful preservation,
owing to the fact that it was built up for a
long period, and was only opened out by Bishop

Barrington (1791-1826). It originally formed the
state entrance to the Norman Castle, and was
probably one of the late works of Bishop Pudsey
after the rough work upon the rest of the
building was executed. The freshness of the
stonework of the arch and the partially decayed
condition of the lower part of the jambs, now
restored in plaster, indicate that it was ap-
proached by a flight of steps open at the sides,
but with a roof carried on columns, probably
somewhat similar to the stairway at Canterbury.
The arch is semicircular and consists of three
large and two small orders, with a small modern
hood mould executed in plaster. The larger
orders rest on enriched cushion capitals with
moulded abaci ; the middle and outer orders
are carried by circular nook shafts, the smaller
running round the arch and jambs interrupted
only by the abaci. The orders are finished
at the bottom on a chamfered plinth resting
on a deeply splayed base. The inner order is
square, resting upon a triplet of engaged shafts
and capitals as before, and is decorated with
a series of square and rectangular moulded and
sunk panels, each panel ornamented with
beaded strings ; the inner smaller order is
rounded and decorated with a flower or rose,
with a ball beading on either side. The middle
order is ornamented with richly moulded double
billets, with strings of small balls. Of the two
outer orders, the smaller is square in form, and
has the lozenge with ball string on the angle,
and the larger consists of a series of hexagonal
sunk moulded panels, the angles being fiUed up
with small square sunk and moulded panels
ornamented with a ball.

The upper or ' Constable's Hall,' now known
as the Norman Gallery, from the manner of
its decoration must have formed the most im-
portant compartment of this building. Possibly
the plan of the lower floor was repeated here,
but no sign remains of any divisions. Bishop
Hatfield is credited with having removed the
Norman roof and of having erected an open
timber roof ; he also inserted the large window
high up on the west gable. This arrangement
is suggestive of one large compartment, at any
rate at that period. The present apartments
upon the north side were formed by Bishop
Crewe, 1674-1722. The Norman Gallery was
originally lighted by a range of windows on both
sides, each window occupying the centre and
largest arch of a series of three arches spanning
deep recesses. The centre arch springs from stone
lintels with scallop moulding which connects
the detached shafts with the wall. The smaller
arches on each side are treated in the same
manner, but on the wall side spring from
engaged shafts worked on to the solid jambs ;
all the arches are decorated with the cheveron
mould and surmounted by hood moulds. The

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

method adopted of cutting back the walls on
the outside in order to straighten them entailed
the destruction of the exteriors of the 12th-
century windows. These were replaced by
the present deeply recessed windows with
four-centred low arched heads and with ogee
hood moulds finished with coarsely designed
fleurs-de-lis. The original exterior of the
windows, however, may be seen from the two
windows inclosed by Bishop Cosin's staircase,
and are by this means luckily preserved. Each
consists of two lights divided by a semi-cylindri-
cal mullion or shaft, with cushioned capital,
surmounted by semicircular heads worked from
a single stone. The arrangement described is
fairly perfect on the south wall, and especially
so on the west wall, where there are two dis-
engaged shafts to each supporting lintel, but
there remain only fragmentary portions on
the north wall. The eastern window in the
south wall has had the large centre arch re-
moved and a four-centred arched head inserted.
The roof was originally of low pitch, as is
proved by the existence of shallow gutter
stones on the west wall. This roof was sub-
sequently removed and a high pitch open timber
roof substituted, probably by Bishop Hatfield,
some small portions of the rilss of which remain
on the corbels originally carrying the principals.
To Bishop Hatfield may also be attributed the
west window of three lights with almost flam-
boyant tracery (recently renewed) which can
be seen in the present roof. The east window
now forming an entrance to the roof is of
16th-century date. The mullions have been
removed from this window, and it has now
been formed into a door%vay. Hatfield's roof
was removed, doubtless, partially on account
of the pressure upon the outer walls. According
to the proceedings in the dispute between
Mr. Shirley and Mr. Course, it was stated
' that a new roof was put on 80 years ago,' viz.,
in 1670, and it is fair to presume that it was
Hatfield's roof which was destroyed at this
time. A further report, unsigned, but dated
15 April, '94 (1794 ?) mentions the roof to
be in a very bad state,** so that it is probable

'2 The date 1770 is painted on one of the main
timbers. A Report dated April 1794 — By his Lord-
ship's desire — ' Roof over the Armoury, is in a very
indifferent state ; the principal timbers is much sunk
and given away from thare oridgonnal borings, likwis
decayed at the ends, the main support depends on the
upright timbers which stands upon corbels below the
floor as shewn on the plan, the lead upon the roof and
gutters, is in a very bad state being soldered in a
number of part, renders it almost in one piece ;
consequently will require great repairs from time to
time. The floor is much sunk particuler that part
over the Judge's Rooms the principal beams have but
Uttle baring on the walls the other parts is in a more

the present roof dates back to the time of Bishop

Barrington.

The lower hall of Pudsey's building having
been subdivided, the necessity arose for a corridor
to connect the various apartments, and no
doubt it was felt that a chapel easier of access,
and more in keeping with the modern ideas of
comfort, was desirable. To supply this want.
Bishop Tunstall (1530-59) erected the present
gallery, stair turret and chapel,*' a group which
adds largely to the appearance of the courtyard.
The corridor, which is of two stories, stands
on the south of Pudsey's hall, and occupies a
portion of the Norman courtyard. It may
originally have been extended to the Great
Hall. At the west end there is said to have
been a staircase, and the flight of stairs in the
south wall of Bishop Pudsey's building seems
to form a connecting link between the newel
stair in the south-west turret and a staircase
now destroyed on the site of the great staircase.
The staircase with the adjoining portion of the
gallery was probably destroyed when Cosin
erected the Great Stair.

The exterior of Tunstall's Gallery consists
of five and a half bays divided by buttresses
of three stages. Immediately above the but-
tresses runs a moulded string and a modern
embattled parapet. The upper corridor is
lighted with five square-headed windows of
three lights with hood moulds, each vnndow
subdivided by a transom and finished at the
top with three-centred arched heads. The
buttresses on each side of the fourth bay are
carried up considerably above the others and
finished with a parapet as before ; the window
here is of five lights and of double the height
of the others, indicating perhaps that the
Norman doorway of Pudsey's building was
exposed and in use when this window was
constructed. The lower part of this bay is
occupied by a modern doorway made probably
when the tunnel entrance to the old chapel
was formed about 1840. Each of the other
bays of the lower story is occupied by a two-
light mullioned window beside which is a small
doorway with four-centred arch and hood
mould, the doors of which are apparently of
Bishop Crewe's date. These doorways were
probably formed for the convenience of ingress
and egress of the numerous guests on great
occasions. Over the lower window of the third
bay is inserted a shield bearing Bishop Tunstall's
arms (three combs) impaling the see with two
diminutive cocks as supporters, surmounted
by a mitre arising out of a coronet. The

favourable state Except the small joists which have
but Uttle baring on the walls — owing to the great
settlement of the floor.'
«' Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 155.

CITY OF DURHAM

shield is surrounded on the top and sides by
a deep hood mould.

The stone used by Bishop Tunstall is from
the Browney Quarry and his ashlar is worked
in unusually large rectangular stones in courses
of varying depths ; the jointing is small. It
is to be noted that the bed joints of his buttresses
do not coincide with the joints of his walling.
His ashlar work appears to have been always
finished with a ' stippled ' dressing. Two semi-
circular rain-water heads, which may be seen
here, are of the i8th century.

Inside the modern lean-to roof are indications
of two earlier roofs which have probably been
altered from time to time to ease the pressure
of Bishop Pudsey's south wall upon the gallery
wall.

The interior of the lower gallery has been
divided into three apartments by panelled and
carved doorvvays and screens removed from
the cathedral. The walls of the centre apart-
ment are covered with odd pieces of Bishop
Cosin's and Bishop Crewe's panelling, swags
and other carvings from the same source ;
they vary in effectiveness, some being boldly
and spiritedly done, while others are shallow
and poor. Some pieces of them are believed
to have belonged to the old organ screen removed
from the cathedral about 1873. In the western
apartment, and at the bottom of the Great
Stair, portions of the constructural pointed
arches of Bishop Pudsey's south wall may be
seen.

The ceiling of the upper corridor is modern
and calls for no remark. The gaUery is closed at
each end with screens, the west one undoubtedly
of Bishop Cosin's time, bearing his arms in the
centre of a typical frieze, and a large coronet
and mitre in the bold pediment. The details
of the doors are similar to those of the staircase.
The screen at the east end may be of the same
date, but is much less elaborate, and of poorer
workmanship, but the gilded eagle referred to
in 1664 is in position above the door.** The
balusters in each look like insertions of a later
date, probably by Bishop Crewe, whose screen
in the chapel has similar half balusters, but
worked upon the solid frame. In the raised
portion of the ceiling, in front of the doorway
just mentioned, hang two plaster figure panels,
with central shields bearing St. Cuthbert's
Cross. Hanging in the large window is a fine
piece of coloured glass of the 15th century.
It is of Flemish origin, depicting the judg-
ment of Solomon in the centre, surrounded by

" Contract dated 4 Jan. 1664. ' John Baltist Van
Ersell, limner, undertakes to paint the skreines and
all the wainscot worke in the Gallerie of Durham
Castle — and also gild a miter & one eagle in the sayd
Gallerie.' {Bp. Cosin's Corresp. [Surt. Soc], ii,
App. 378-9.)

emblematical figures. The walls of the gallery
are hung with French tapestry, probably of
late 16th-century date.

The chapel stair turret or clock tower, which
was built by Bishop Tunstall,** gives access to
his gallery and chapel. It projects boldly into the
courtyard, the south end being semi-octagonal
on plan. The turret has a window lighting the
stairs and two windows in a chamber over the
stairs, all of similar detail to those in the gallerj'.
On the inner jambs of the chamber window occur
two stone shields, wreathed on top, the eastern-
most bearing Tunstall's three combs; the other,
now defaced, apparently bore his crest. His coat
of arms is also displayed upon the outer face of
the south wall. A little above the entrance floor
level, and hidden on the outside by ivy, is a
squint with circular splayed opening about 12 in.
in diameter, with widely splayed internal jambs ;
below the squint is a projecting splayed stone
seat the entire width of the turret. The entrance
doorway on the west is considerably recessed
and has a flat pointed head surmounted by a
deep mould. The outer jambs were moulded,
but the moulding has been cut away for the
insertion of an outer door frame. The doors
are modern. The stairs are of stone with winders
at the bottom of the flight. The doorway at
the top has a flat pointed head, the jambs of the
outer side are stop-chamfered, and the inner
jambs splayed, moulded and stopchamfered.
The walls of the upper chamber are carried over
the gallery by chamfered stone arches. In the
south-west angle of the chamber are the remains
of stone angle corbels connected with the con-
struction of the original roof. The ancient
staircase has square panelled oak newels, the
panels filled with a leaf ornament, and finished
at the top with square capital and ballfinial; the
handrail is shaped and moulded, and the baluster
is also shaped.

There is clear evidence that as originally
constructed the turret was only two stories in
height, terminating with a string-course and
parapet similar to and at the same height as
that of the chapel. The stonework of the addition
is noticeably different from the rest, and the
back of the east wall is actually built upon a
portion of the return parapet of the chapel.
The addition was probably made in the
17th century and was in existence in Bishop
Crewe's time, as is shown by a picture preserved
in the castle.** It was then crowned by a
wooden bell turret which has now also disap-
peared, although the main cross timbers framed
to support the turret still exist. Doubtless this
chamber was built by Crewe and intended to

«5 Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 155.
** See picture hanging in Senate Room Lobby, and
other prints.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

house the machinery of a clock.*^ As, however,
there are only two small square openings in
the waUs it was clearly not intended to hold a
bell, and the small campanile was evidently
built for this purpose. The clock has also dis-
appeared, but a bell given by Bishop Crewe
hangs on the west side of the chamber, probably
placed there when the campanile became
ruinous ; it is rigidly fixed and the outer rim
bears evident marks of being struck continuously
in one spot by the clock hammer. It is of fine
tone, 2 ft. in diameter at the rim, and of similar
height surmounted by a crown. Near the
shoulder it is encircled by two double narrow
bands between which is the following inscrip-
tion, the date being below the bands :

n: dnvs: crewe epus: dun elm : posvit anno
cons: 34 et trans: ab. oxon: 3 r: p : fe: 1705.

This clock, purchased many years ago by a
general dealer, has been traced and returned to
the Castle by the generosity of Mr. J. F. Hodson.

Bishop Tunstall's Chapel'* is entered from the
top of the stair at the east end of Tunstall's
Gallery through a doorway of a similar character
to those already described. It gives admittance
to the chapel by a lobby under the organ loft at
the west end. The walls have been built upon
the foundations of a Norman building. A portion
of the west wall is formed by the wall of the
early newel staircase, which originally led to the
chapel. In the wall a doorway existed giving
access from this staircase, and beside it is a second
doorway connecting Bishop Pudsey's building
with whatever apartment existed here before the
chapel. Both are now visible, but blocked. The
roof is divided into seven bays; the part of the
building covered by the five western bays
with the chamber beneath was constructed by
Bishop Tunstall. The extension of two bays at
the east end has been generally ascribed to Bishop
Cosin, but owing to the absence of records and
the indefinite character of the work it is impos-
sible to say definitely whether he or Bishop Crewe
executed the work.** Whoever it was, it is certain

*' Billings, in County Antiquities, illustrates a
circular clockface upon the south front of the turret,

•* Hist. Dunelm. Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), 155.

** The \'ery Rev. Henry Gee, Dean of Gloucester,
fornierly master of University College, Durham, is
strongly of opinion that Crewe built the extension.
There are many records of Cosin's work at the castle
in existence, and his donations to the chapel are
enumerated, but no mention of the extension. Bishop
Cosin, in a document dated 1667, mentions the chapel
which ' we have recently restored in our Castle in
Durham.' This document also mentions the orna-
ments provided for ' the minor Chapel in the Castle
of Durham.' A possible guide may be found on the
ceiling , on this at the termination of the wall pieces
and spandrels are a series of shields bearing arms as

that Bishop Tunstall's east window was re-erected
in the new east gable, as his arms and badge,
three combs and a cock, are worked on shields
on the north and south jambs, and in addition
the dressing of his stonework is easily recognised
by the ' stipphng.' The interior of the walls of
the extension are built with roughly squared
stones in irregular courses, evidently intended to
be plastered or panelled, in great contrast to the
carefully dressed work of Tunstall.

The chapel is lighted on the south by five
windows of three lights in two tiers having four-
centred heads, with jambs slightly splayed on the
inside and moulded outside. The lights below
the transoms have four-centred heads, the points
of which are hardly determinable, and the lights
above are similar but are distinctly pointed. In
the two easternmost windows the centre upper
light is semicircular. The tracery of all these
windows has been renewed.™ At the west end
are two square-headed windows, the upper
doubtless intended to light the old gallery and
the lower the Ante Chapel or space below the
gallery ; they are of Tunstall's date and closely
correspond in detail to the windows of the
Tapestry Gallery. The east window is of similar
character to those first described, but fiUed by
five lights divided by a transom, the heads of all
the lights being semicircular. The glass is by
Kempe and was given in 1909 in memory of the
Rev. H. A. White, once tutor of the University.

The two windows on the north side are modern
and were inserted to light the staircase to the
keep. The doorway, apparently of Tunstall's
date, on the north side, possibly led to a sacristy
which was destroyed when the new approach to
the keep was made. About the centre of the south

follows : from west to east the shields for the Tun-
stall bays show the see and Cosin's alternately, while
in the two bays of the extension they are Crewe,
Crewe impahng see, and Crewe. The arrangement
indicates that both Bishop Crewe and Cosin did some-
thing worthy of commemoration to the chapel, and
the dominance of Bishop Crewe's arms at the east
end may be intended to testify to that prelate as the
builder of the two eastern bays. On the other hand,
Cosin depended greatly upon woodwork for his interior
decoration, and the rough interior face of the walls
of the extension indicates there was an intention
to panel, and this fact possibly points in favour of
Cosin as the builder. Against this may be put the
fact that Crewe made the castle his principal place
of residence and entertained very largely, and probably
required more accommodation in the chapel.

'" These windows differ from all other of Bishop
Tunstall's windows, the heads being four-centred and
the hood mould and arch worked in difiFerent stones,
whereas all his other windows are square-headed with
hood and heads worked on the same stone. The inner
arch, however, is four-centred and has every appear-
ance of Bishop Tunstall's workmanship, though may,
of course, have been carefully copied.

CITY OF DURHAM

wall is a piscina, seen by opening a door in the
wall panelling.

The oak stalls are of the time of Bishop
Ruthall (1509-23) and were brought here to-
gether with the bench-ends from the dismantled
upper chapel at Bishop Auckland by Bishop
Tunstall in 1547.'' Some of the miserere seats
are curiously carved; the eastern one on the

Durham Castle : The Chapel
Bench-ends

north side was found in the old moat, under
Mr. Rushworth's premises in Saddler Street,
about 1908 and was presented by him to the
chapel. The four bench-ends are very fine and
are also of the time of Bishop Ruthall; one at the
south-east end of the chapel bears his arms (a
cross between four martlets, on a chief two roses,
slipped) impaled with the see and surmounted
with a coronet and mitre. The shield is curious
because the bishop's arms are placed on the
dexter side and the arms of the see on the sinis-
ter, a mistake caused perhaps by the carver
having the matrix of a seal for his model. The

'1 Raine, Auckland Chapel, p. 67, citing Chancellor's
Rolls for 1547-8.

bench-end to the north, immediately opposite, is
ornamented to represent a mullioned window
and divided longitudinally into three parts with
embattled transoms, each subdivision having
delicately worked tracery. Of the two bench-ends
at the west end, that on the north side bears
the arms of the see with a mitre rising from a
coronet in a panel having an arched and crocketed
ogee head ; the upper portion is finished with a
second panel filled with delicate tracery. That
on the south is very similar in design. All the
bench-ends have richly ornamented detached
shafts in front, each of different design, support-
ing the figures of grotesque animals, and all are
surmounted by poppy heads carved out of the
solid, except the poppy head, probably of
Bishop Cosin's time, on the north of the entrance.

The wall panelling, altar and triptych are of
oak. They were designed by the late Mr. C.
Hodgson Fowler and were inserted in 1887.
The panelling is constructed in long rectangular
compartments surmounted by a shallow cornice,
with carved bosses at intervals. Round the east
end it is slightly higher, and is ornamented at the
top with inserted tracery. The carving of the
triptych is bolder, the Crucifixion occupying the
centre panel with other figures in either wing.
The two large gilt candlesticks were presented by
the first warden in 1836.

The trusses of the seven bays into which the
roof is divided have moulded tie beams with
solid spandrel brackets framed to the wall
posts, which terminate in shields bearing coats
of arms. Each bay has moulded wall plates
with the moulding returned across the tie
beams, and is itself divided into two com-
partments by a heavy central rib ; each com-
partment is again subdivided into four squares
by light moulded ribs having carved bosses and
shields at their intersections. There is little in
appearance to indicate that the roof is not all of
one date, but a close examination shows that the
wall pieces between the second and third bays
from the east are divided down the centre,
suggesting that a piece has been added on the
sides to make it of the same width as the others
to the west. The ceiling boards also appear to
be narrower in the two eastern bays. The two
western bays have been altered of late years
and raised slightly, showing the purlins and
rafters of the roof, presumably for the sake of
the organ. The'second tie beam from the west
has been decorated with carved cusping and
pendants in order to screen somewhat the break
in the ceiling.

The chapel originally contained a large gallery,
now removed, projecting some 14 ft. to 16 ft.
from the west wall. It was entered from the
circular stairs before mentioned, through a
four-centred arched doorway now forming the
approach to the organ loft.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

Beneath the organ loft facing east is a fine
oak screen of Bishop Cosin's time. It has two
half doors in the centre; the lower parts of both
doors and of the screen are filled in with solid
panelling, while the upper part has octagonal
balusters with moulded capitals, bands and
bases, square stopped at the bottom. The space
at the top between the balusters is filled with
flowing cusped tracery. On each side of the
doorway are two square projections forming
canopies to two stalls. The cornice, which
returns round the canopies, is of deal dentilled.
The canopies are surmounted with pediments
with shields bearing the arms of the see. Over
the doorway are three moulded panels with the
inscription : nath dnvs crewe | episc : dvnelm :
posvit|a° transl 25° 1698, surmounted by a
scroll pediment bearing Cosin's arms. The panel-
ling of the upper part of the screen forming the
front of the organ gallery was brought from the
cathedral about 1840.

The organ is the old quire organ from
the cathedral, and some of the pipes are the
original pipes of ' Father ' Smith, the celebrated
builder who erected the cathedral organ. It was
repaired and erected in the chapel in 1873. The
panelling on the west wall under the gallery is of
similar date, but the pediments are of the time of
Bishop Barrington (1791-1826), the centre one
bearing his arms.

On the south wall of the chapel are two very
fine lead rain-water heads; the one in the west
angle is rectangular in form with large diminish-
ing outlet under. It possesses an embattled and
cusped cornice, and the face is divided into three
parts by rounded, looped columns finished at the
top with a form of vase ornament, and at the
bottom with a ball pendant. Centrally placed is
a shield bearing the arms of the see. One-third
of the head has been cut away to fit into the angle
of the building. The ears attached to the head
bear the Tudor rose surmounted by a mitre.
The second head has a body of similar form, with
a large almost circular outlet decorated with a
circular shield bearing a lion rampant, impaling the
arms of the see. The members of the projecting
moulded cornice are enriched with beading and
leaf ornament, and the angles have looped
columns with ball pendants. Two pear-shaped
pendants with ball termination, one on either
side of the outlet, carry the date 1699, the time
of Bishop Crewe. The main face is decorated
with an earl's coronet and a mitre.

On the lower floor to the north of Tunstall's
chapel is the original Norman Chapel of the
castle. This forms a part of the work generally
supposed to have been commenced in 1072 '^ by
Wahheof, Earl of Northumbria, and continued
by Walcher, Bishop of Durham, who succeeded

'2 Simeon of Durham (Surt. Soc), ii, 199.

him in the earldom, and is the only portion of
the castle of that date now remaining complete.
It was for many years disused, and even now is
only a passage-way to the keep.

The original entrance to the chapel was in the
west bay of the south wall and was approached
by a short vaulted passage from a circular newel
stair in the still existing south-east turret of
Waltheof's building. The lower part of this
stair was diverted about 1840 into Bishop
Tunstall's lower gallery, from which a tunnel
was made to the chapel, which was reached by
an archway formed in the south bay of the west
wall. The window in the corresponding bay
of the east wall was destroyed and the present
staircase leading to the keep was made through
the opening. In tunnelling through the ancient
masonry under Pudsey's building a massive vault
and a stone staircase were revealed."

The chapel is rectangular in plan, 32 ft. 3 in.
long, by 23 ft. 9 in. wide, its height from the
floor to the crown of the vault being about
15 ft. 9 in. It is divided into a nave and two
aisles by arcades of four bays. The vaulting is
supported by three round pillars on each side
of the nave, with half-round responds on the
east wall, corbels on the west wall, and rectangu-
lar pilasters on the north and south walls and
in the angles. This method of construction
renders the building independent of the support
of the north wall, and suggests perhaps that the
north wall belongs to an earlier building. This
suggestion is strengthened by a close examin-
ation of the wall itself, which is rudely built
with large and irregular joints containing stones
of extraordinary form and dimensions, and coarse
and irregular dressings. A comparison may be
made with the lower portion of the wall in the
east bay, where it has been cut away for the
insertion of an aumbry, 2 ft. deep, 2 ft. 6 in.
wide, and 3 ft. high, around which the walling
is carefully coursed, more like the east wall.
In further evidence of the antiquity of this
wall it may be noticed that the rectangular piers,
about 2 ft. 6 in. square, are not bonded into the
wall, but have a straight joint at the back of the
piers and of the arches carried by them. This
joint at the floor level is small, but increases as
it ascends, until at the crown of the arches it
is from 5 in. to 7 in. in width, and has been

" The late Mr. W. Parker, for many years Clerk of
Works to the Chapter, stated that he remembered
working at the tunnel as a boy, and that when the
chapel was entered it was found half full of masons'
rubbish, dust, and refuse of all descriptions. The chapel
had presumably been closed up for many years. Mr.
Parker was a joiner and states that he helped to make
the windows and doors existing in the present south
wall, the openings in which were at that time closed
up with masonry, there being no means of access to the
chapel.

CITY OF DURHAM

filled in and plastered over. Between the piers
of this wall runs a low solid stone bench, finished
with a square angle without projection of any
kind. The two existing semicircular headed
windows are modern, and, being in the outer
defensive wall to the north, they have succeeded
mere loops ; a portion of the old quick splay
of such a loop may be noticed upon one of the
arches.

The east wall appears to be part of the chapel
structure, the half-round responds being bonded
in, and the courses and jointing of the stone-
work fairly regular but wide. This wall originally
possessed three windows, which appear to have
looked out into the inner moat, or the space
between the east wall of the chapel and chemise
of the keep. One of these windows, as already
mentioned, has been converted into an ap-
proach to the keep, but the two remaining
retain original work, though much mutilated.
They were round-headed, unmoulded and ap-
parently without ornamentation. In the middle
window the inner jambs appear to be original,
and their slight splays are finished with plain
angles. The northernmost has been recon-
structed ; the only original stones seem to be the
inner quoin stones, and the outer jambs have
been cut away to form a very wide splay. On
the outside both windows have had the arch
stones cut away at a sharp angle ; and large
areas extending upwards to a considerable
height above the window heads have been
formed in front of them. The jambs and
arches, where mutilated to form this splay, have
been rendered in lime plastering, mediaeval in
character. The centre area is partially of
ashlar work finely dressed ; the northern area is
formed in rubble, and there remains in the
centre area some portion of the lead with which
the bottoms of the areas were lined. There
appears to be no doubt that originally the win-
dows looked out into a clear space, but owing
to the enlargement of the mound by Bishop
Hatfield, the areas were rendered necessary and
were probably constructed by him. Under these
two windows are four corbel stones, two fairly
well preserved with 6i in. projection and 9 in.
on face, sharply splayed on the underside.

The western bay in the south wall appears
to be as originally constructed up to above
the archway of the doorway and is recessed
H in. back from the face of the piers, to which
the lower portion seems to be bonded. This
bay contains the original entrance doorway
already referred to. The doorway is central
between the two side piers and has a semi-
circular plain arched outer head cut out of a
single stone and inner square rebated jambs.

The only other feature in this wall is the
string-course 8J in. deep, which has a flat face
above a splay, the top of which is level with the

upper part of the abaci of the columns, and is
continuous for the full length of the wall be-
tween the piers. The walling in the spandrel
of the arches above is ancient, but it is doubtful
whether it is coeval with the rest of the build-
ing. The late Mr. Parker stated that the two
windows and doorway were inserted about
1840 and that he assisted in making them ; they
appear, however, to be somewhat earher, though
the woodwork may have been renewed at that
time.

The greater part of the west wall appears to
have been almost entirely reconstructed, but
at what period it is impossible to say. It has
in the northern bay a portion of a similar string
to that on the south wall and half capitals under
the transverse arches. The old wall would
probably have half-round responds under the
capitals, as on the east wall, but these have
disappeared and the capitals are now supported
by corbels, which have every appearance of being
worked from the upper part of such responds.
They are rounded and pointed at the base, but
do not form the full half-circle, projecting only
some 4 in. The middle portion of the rebuilt
wall has been advanced some 7 in., leaving only
an inch or two of the soflRt of the transverse
arch above, exposed. The lower portion of the
south bay is occupied by the new entrance
arch to the chapel. Only the east .ind a
portion of the west bay of the south wall are
original.

The pavement of the chapel is of considerable
interest, there being little doubt that the
greater part is coeval with the building. It is
formed of stone blocks of rhomboid form, each
14 in. long by 8i in. wide, with a single central
line of square jointed flags. The jointing of
these blocks gives the appearance of herring-
boning. About one-fourth of the area of the
floor at the east end has been raised two steps,
of 4 in. and 6 in. rise, and the pattern of the
floor of this raised area has been obliterated.
This represents an alteration, for the steps almost
entirely hide the bases of the two east columns.
The ten pilasters on the north and south walls
have no bases, but rise straight and square to
the abaci. The pillars rise from circular
moulded bases. The pillars vary slightly from
I ft. 9 in. to 2 ft. in diameter and are built of
courses of different heights, one course being
generally formed of a single stone, the next of
two stones with a vertical joint. The bed
joints differ greatly, some being | in. wide,
others fairly close, but generally large, the
vertical joints being wide; some few are approxi-
mately 2 in. The capitals are carved rather
rudely, and all are of the volute type. They
have bold round neckings, of which three are
cabled, and abaci moulded with a flat face above
a quarter round, between double fillets. In

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

the north arcade the capitals of the first two
pillars from the east show grotesques, serpents,
conventional flowers and animals. The capital
of the third pillar represents a stag hunt. On
the west face a stag is held at bay by two hounds ;
on the south-west angle, under the volute, is a
conventional representation of a tree, behind
which on the south face a man is approaching
and in the act of releasing two more hounds.
On the east face is apparently a horse from which
the man has just dismounted ; and on the north,
a rude hairy-headed and bearded face. In the
south arcade the capital of the eastern respond
has a human head at each angle in place of the
volute, and immediately under the abacus is a
line of sunk star ornament, a Tau cross being
centrally placed under the line of star ornament.
The capital of the first pillar from the east has
rude figures with exaggerated heads, in place
of the angle volutes, with a design of flowers
or plants between. The capital of the second
pillar has three rude volutes, the fourth taking
the form of an animal's head with two bodies,
one on either face. The animals, from the
stripes, are apparently intended for leopards,
the hnes representing some form of hairy beast.
The capital of the third pillar is probably the
finest of all and is covered with a sunk star
ornament, a volute at each angle and a small
human head, or 'mulberry ' ornament, centrally
on each side. The capitals at the east end of
the north arcade and the two corbels of the west
wall are much decayed and undecipherable.

The vaulting is divided into twelve bays by
slightly stilted semicircular arches of square
section, i ft. 8 in. wide on the soffit. The
springers are apparently worked with square
projections on the same stones, which form the
springing of the groins, and appear to be gener-
ally three or possibly four courses in height,
judging from the abrupt alteration in the curve
of the groin. The cells are of rubble plastered,
and are distinctly stilted for a considerable
distance above the abaci, immediately above
which they present a face of 3 in. The curve
of the cells and transverse arches do not coin-
cide, the latter presenting a face of about i in.
at the springing, increasing to 5 in. or 7 in. at
the crown.

The chapel has been built with a local stone,
which is strongly veined and marked with quite
brilliant colouring. Nothing can be said of the
outside of the chapel, as it is so completely built
in all round and above. That it formed a por-
tion of Waltheof's building there is little doubt,
possibly a projecting wing within the outer
defensive wall. It is doubtful whether it was
originally more than one story in height.
The sinking of the exterior walls, together with
the distortion of the arches, points to the fact
that the foundations were not prepared to carry

the great additional weight added to them in
later years.'*

The old approach to the keep from Pudsey's
hall, including the group of buildings above the
ancient chapel, and extending along the inner
side of the great north wall, is now called the
Junction on account of the modern staircase
and corridor connecting the keep with the rest
of the castle. The exterior of the north wall in
this part has been so much cut about that no
original work is visible except a portion of the
round arch of a Norman window, high up and
almost hidden by more modern facing. In the
core of the wall, however, there is doubtless old
work, and the lower part of the wall contains
probably the oldest existing masonry in the
castle.

The buttresses show that at one time the
wall had a serious bulge or overhang which has
been partly rectified from time to time by cutting
back the masonry and refacing it. Windows
of all sorts and sizes have been inserted, making
it almost impossible to determine the true line
of the north face.

Projecting from the north wall between the
modern areas in front of the chapel windows
is a square turret of unknown date and purpose,
but possibly of Bishop Fox's time (1494-1501).
This turret is locally called the ' Hanging Tower,'
from which criminals are thought to have been
executed. In support of this tradition a hollow
resembling a putlog hole, about 7 in. by 5 in.
by 3 in. deep, is shown inside about the middle
of the west wall, and a similar hole may be seen
on the opposite side. These holes are thought
to have held a beam to which the halter was
attached. There is, however, no record of any
such use of this turret nor any execution at the
castle since the turret was built. The turret
rises to the parapets of the north wall, and has
an average projection of 4 ft. on the east side
and 4 ft. 5 in. on the west, with a face measure-
ment on the north of 5 ft. 9 in. The inside
measurements are 4 ft. from east to west and
4 ft. 6 in. from north to south. In the north
face there is a square-headed opening in the
wall, measuring 2 ft. 6 in. wide and 9 ft. 11 in.
high from the stone head, down to the top of
a modern wall that has been put in to close up
what appears from the outside to be the remains
of an old loop. There is a floor 6 ft. below this
opening, but whether it is old cannot be said.

The roof of the chamber is formed with a
course of wide splayed corbel stones on each
east and west wall on a^level with the corbel of
the opening, but longer in both splay and pro-
jection. The west wall has a return 7J in.'deep,

'* This is shown by the difference in level of their
abaci compared with the level of the abaci of the
independent columns.

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Scale of Feet

Durham Castle : Plan of Xorman Chapel

CITY OF DURHAM

and 3 ft. 6 in. from the inside of the north
wall, which leaves a space of 2 ft. I in.
between the return and the present face of
the great north wall, and it is suggested
that here was the original entrance to this
turret from a passage in the great north wall.
There is the lower part of a blocked window of
two lights in the upper part of the west wall.
The original work of this wall and the roof

surrounded hy the Garter, with the lion and
unicorn as supporters standing on a wTeath
bearing the motto Beati Pacifici. Each side
panel contains a group of three shields, the larger
in the centre bearing the arms of the see,
impaling the arms of Bishop James quarterly
I and 4 (a dolphin embowered), 2 and 3, ermine
on a chief azure three crosslets or, the whole
standing on a ribbon bearing the motto Dei

do not appear to be bonded with the great north gratia sum quod sum. The four earlier
wall, but the joint of the east wall cannot be
seen, as it is covered with a pyramidal mass of
rough uncoursed rubble work.

The only feature of interest on the courtyard,
or south side, is the wall immediately above
Bishop TunstaU's chapel, which appears to be
of 14th-century date. In this wall can be traced
a large pointed double window the upper part
of which has disappeared. This window must
have lighted a large apartment, now divided into
the Bursar's Lodgings, above the Senate Room or
Drawing Room. In the passage, on the inside,
a portion of the jambs of one of the windows
may be seen. In the place of these older
windows, three windows have been inserted ;
the centre one, of 16th-century date, is a square-
headed window of three lights. The east one
is above the jamb of the earlier window, which
is to be seen from the level of the window sill
down to the floor ; it i s deeply splayed and checked
in the centre. Both the new and the old jambs
are of finely dressed ashlar with close joints.
The east and west windows are of modern date
and have two lights with four-centred heads
having small eyelets in the spandrels. Under
this apartment and immediately over the old
Norman Chapel is the Senate Room, probably
formed by Bishop Neile (1617-28), who inserted
the present square-headed windows in the great
north wall, here 9 ft. thick; the flat arches of
these windows are noticeable on the north
front.'* This room was probably refitted by
Bishop Egerton (1772-87). The walls are
covered with Brussels tapestry of the i6th cen-
tury, depicting incidents in the life of Moses.
There is also a fine carved oak overmantel of
the time of Bishop James (1606-17). The
mantel possesses a cornice supported on carved
lion heads as brackets, a frieze and architrave,
the latter supported by caryatides standing
on an ovolo fluted base, and dividing the lower
portion into three compartments each slightly
recessed and decorated with elaborately carved
arches springing from fluted pilasters with
carved Ionic capitals. Each compartment con-
tains a coat of arms on a scroll groundwork ; that
in the centre bears the arms of France and
England quarterly i and 4, Scotland 2, Ireland 3,

shields in the two side panels are insertions,
supposed to be the arms of Palatinate officials
of that time, but several are of obviously later
date. The three panels of the frieze each con-
tain the lion and unicorn standing at gaze on
either side of a Tudor rose. The mantel has had
a somewhat chequered existence. It is supposed
to have been prepared for the place where it
now stands in expectation of the proposed visit
of King James ; it was recovered in later years
from a house in the Exchequer Buildings
and restored to its former position in the
Senate Room by the University.'* The large
oak doors of this room are in two panels with
raised moulds, and together with the architraves
are of Jacobean feeling. In the east wall is a
door leading into a bedroom by a short passage
with closets or stores, the one on the left having
been probably used as a powder or stool closet.
The walls of the bedroom are lined with late
17th-century paneUing, and a portion hung with
an odd piece of tapestry.

The mound and keep are placed practically
on the centre of the total width of the north
front. The mound rises to 45 ft. above the
general level of the courtyard and is divided into
three terraces by means of alternate slopes and
retaining walls. The terraces, it is recorded,
were made during the time of Bishop Cosin
(1660-72), long after the keep had lost any
military value. They have been identified with
the cubitis iribus referred to by Laurence,"
but the words will not bear this meaning, nor
for defensive reasons could terraces be possible
on a castle mound. The original mound may
have been partly natural but enlarged with the
earth taken from the south moat. In any
case it was considerably extended or widened
later by Bishop Hatfield, who is said to have
enlarged the keep, for which purpose the mound
must have been lowered. This widening is
evidenced by the blocking of the east windows
of the Norman Chapel. The base of the mound
was at one period defended by a chemise wall,
the foundations of which exist in places, and the
position of it may be roughly followed by the
various walls at present supporting the base.

'* Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 605 ; iii, p. rvi ; Heylin,
Cypreanus Anglicus, pt. i, p. 74.

'* There is grave doubt whether the jamb supports
are original.

" Laurence of Durham, op. cit. (Surt. Soc.), 11.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

Outside this wall was a moat which, together
with the chemise, was crossed by four walls
ascending the mound. Two of these walls exist,
and the foundations of a third have been found,
but all trace of the fourth is lost.

The north wall descending to the west from
the north-west angle of the keep is on the line
of the main outer defensive wall of the castle
and city, and doubtless includes much early
work, though the facing is chiefly of the 13th
century and later. There are remains of several
arrow slits in the form of a cross, one partially
exposed, being contained in a recess in the wall,
open to the south'* and arched over by a series
of corbel stones. At the bottom of the mound
is a triangular turret of 13th-century date, with
the square outlet and sloping sill of a latrine.
There is no access to this turret at the present
time. Along the top of this wall above the
recess was the stair" forming the only access to
the keep, the latter being entered by a draw-
bridge. The second existing wall ascends
the mound from the castle gate, and formed a
portion of the south screen wall ; the portion
between the gate and the chemise is entirely
modern, but the part ascending the mound
undoubtedly contains a good deal of original
work refaced at various periods. The wall was
at one time considerably higher and was pro-
bably reduced to its present dimensions during
the episcopate of Bishop Egerton (1772-87).**
That it was a strongly defensible wall is shown
by the existence of the lower portion of four
large buttress turrets in its short length. The
third wall, the foundations of which, 12 ft. in
thickness, exist under the soil of the mound,
was the wall completing the line at the main
defences running up from the north gate to
the north-east angle of the keep. The fourth
wall is supposed to have joined the south-east
angle of the keep with the east end of the church,
and is known to have been erected by Bishop
Flambard.

The original mound, as already stated, was
possibly thrown up by Bishop Walcher (1071-80)
and crowned by a wooden palisade and tower,
which has been succeeded by three later keeps.

™ May be seen in several old prints. It is indicated
in an engraving of the keep.

" ' The approach to the gate of Tower was by a
long flight of steps, from the inner court, — so narrow,
that two persons only could pass at a time.' — Hutchin-
son, op. cit. ii, 366.

*" Drawing in the possession of the Very Rev.
Henry Gee, Dean of Gloucester — entitled ' Design
given to Bishop Egerton for the Octagon Tower at
Durham Castle.' It shows the wall reduced to about
its present height, and by dotted lines the height of
the wall as apparently existing at that time. A
plan, Plate H, shows the wall joining on to the
keep.

The first, built by Bishop Flambard, consisted
of a ring wall, probably inclosing the then
existing wooden tower, and is mentioned by
Laurence. The second was built by Bishop
Hatfield (1345-81), and the present one by the
University in 1840. The existing keep forms
an irregular octagon on plan measuring 76 ft. by
65 ft., and is supposed to have been rebuilt upon
the foundations of Hatfield's keep. A good deal
of the old material was re-used, including a few
of the old quoins on the west side. The
dressings are, however, generally new and of
Penshaw stone. Each angle is covered by a
square buttress springing from the main pro-
jecting base course, and surmounted by imita-
tion machicolated turrets rising slightly above
the embattled parapet. The flagstaff turret
at the north-west angle, over the point where
the north wall joins the keep, denotes the
position of a tower defending the entrance both
to the Norman and the 14th-century keep.
The interior of the keep is entirely modern,
consisting of a basement for storage purposes,
and three other floors divided into sets of
students' rooms, each set consisting of bedroom
and sitting room. The various floors are con-
nected by a central well staircase lighted from
the roof. There are no remains existing above
ground of the vaults or other work mentioned
by Hutchinson in his description of the remains
of Hatfield's keep, and it is evident that a clean
sweep must have been made when the rebuilding
was commenced.

Fortunately there are several views of Hat-
field's keep as it existed in the early part of the
19th century and before. The best of them are
a picture in the castle common room, dated 1842,
and a view from the north-east by Bryne, dated
1 799, which shows that there were no windows
on the exposed northern face and that the
north wall between the keep and the north gate
had disappeared before Bryne's time.

Hutchinson" describes the keep in the follow-
ing words : —

Durham Tower, an ill-formed octagon of irregular
sides ; some of the fronts exceeding others in breadth
several feet ; the angles are supported by buttresses.
& a parapet has run round the summit of the whole
building with a breast wall and embrasure ; the dia-
meter of this Tower in the widest part is 63 ft. 6 in.
& in the narrowest part 61 ft. ; It has contained
four stories or tiers of apartments, exclusive of the
vaults ; The great Entrance is on the west side ;
there is nothing now left of this edifice, but the
mount, vaults and outside shell ; which latter, from
its noble appearance, & the great ornament it is to
the city, has been an object of attention of many of the
prelates.

Indeed from the whole mode of architecture, the
roses which ornament the summits of the buttresses

81 Hutchinson, op. cit.

CITY OF DURHAM

& the form of the windows, we are led to believe
that the present shell was the work of Bishop Hatfield,
& repaired & kept standing by his successors.
The tower was only lined round the outward wall
with apartments, so as to leave an inner area or wall
from top to bottom, by which the engines of war,
& necessaries in time of danger & attack, were
drawn up and distributed to the several parts of the
building ; those apartments have been approached
by five different staircases or turnpikes in the angles,
the remains of which are yet visible, so that the parapet
could be mounted, the galleries lined with armed men,
and the apartments guarded in a very short time, &
equally as quick the garrison could descend, &
be ready for a sally. At the present the mount is
formed into terraces, as well for ornament as recreation.
The uppermost terrace is lo ft. wide, and laid with
gravel.

The building appears to have served its
purpose up to the time of Bishop Fox (1494-
1501), who 'Began to repair the Great Tower
and build a Hall, a Kitchen & some other
apartments therein, but before this plan was
far advanced he was translated, & no further
progress was made in that work.' Bishop Fox's
alterations indicate that it was recognised that
its military value had diminished. The improve-
ment in artillery, and the impossibility of pro-
tecting the base of the outer walls by earthworks,
rendered the whole castle useless from a military
point of view, at a much earlier date than a
similar structure buUt in a comparatively flat
country. There is little record of its subsequent
history, and it appears to have been allowed to
fall gradually into decay ; several bishops are
recorded to have made small repairs, but its
maintenance was considered a hardship, and
Bishop Morton (1632-59) obtained a decree
discharging him from future dilapidations.
Some of the later bishops, however, considered
it an ornament to the city and made some
repairs. Bishop Cosin (1660-72) is stated to
have put the castle into repair and doubtless
did something to the keep. Bishop Crewe
(1674-1721) is supposed to have restored the
keep ; at any rate, his arms were placed on the
east side with the following inscription under :**

HAEC DIU RUITURI CASTELLI LATERA Cu'
VETUSTATE TANDEM UTRINQ. EXESA NEC NON
COLLAPSA DE NOVO NUPERRIME EXTRtTXIT
AC CITO CITIUS FIRMIORA EREXIT NATH. d'nUS
CREWE, DUNELM. Ep'uS ET BARO DE STANE
COM. NORTHAM. ANNIS CONSECR. 45, TRANSL.
40, SALUTIS 1 714.

On the death of Bishop Chandler a dispute
arose as to dilapidations on the keep, and it was
then pleaded that the building had not been
used since Bishop Fox's time, some 250 years
before. Bishop Egerton in 1773 had the keep
surveyed, with a view to repairs. Evidently it

*- Hutchinson, ii, 368.

must have been in a very dilapidated condition
about this time, as it is recorded that Bishop
Thurlow in 1789 had the upper stories pulled
down, for fear they should fall, and it doubtless
remained in this condition until finally destroyed
about 1839.

Besides the castle
FORTIFICATIONS fortifications the city
of Durham was pro-
tected by an inclosing wall. Indications of
earthworks on the east and south sides of the
peninsula may represent pre-Conquest earthen
defences ; any defences of this date on the north
side are now obliterated. It is to Bishop Ranulf
Flambard (1099-1128), however, that the in-
closure of the city with masonry walls must be
attributed.*^ These walls followed the Unes of
the banks of the peninsula on all sides, except
on the north. Here was an outer moat within
which was a wall of great strength which varied
from 30 ft. to 50 ft. in height. In places where
good foundations could not be obtained for the
walls, reheving arches were used to carry them,
which were filled up to make the wall solid.
The walls were strengthened with square and
octagonal flanking towers, and round the sharp
southern bend there appear to have been a series
of buttress turrets between the greater towers
both to give increased strength and a better
defence. Some of the lower portions of these
towers remain, but most of them have been
destroyed. Prior Laurence describes three
gates, the King's Gate at the bottom of Bow
Lane, the Water Gate or Porte-du-Bayle, at the
south end of the Bailey, and the North Gate,
which stood at the top of Saddler Street.**
What little is known of these gates has already
been described. Flambard further inclosed the
space called the Palace or Place Green by a
wall running from the east end of the Norman
cathedral church northward to the keep, thus
forming an outer ward. Another wall w-ent
from the Kingsgate along Bow Lane and Dun
Cow Lane with a gateway spanning the North
Bailey. This wall divided the civil from the
ecclesiastical part of the hill. The gateway
crossing the North Bailey was later aimexed to
the church of St. Mary le Bow until it fell
in 1637.

The burgesses of the Borough or those Uving
around the Market Place and the streets leading
out of it, although subject to Scottish raids,
had no protection until after 13 12, when Brus
sacked the town. This disaster led to the build-
ing of the wall inclosing the Market Place from

*s This wall has been attributed to Bishop Pudsey,
but as it is described in the poem about Durham by
Prior Laurence, who died in the year of Pudsey's
consecration, he cannot have referred to work of
Pudsey's lime. See p. 65 for further information.

*» Laurence of Durham, Dialogi (Surtees Soc), p. lo.

Printed by W. H. Smith & Son

Plan of the Ancient Fortifications of Durham City

(Bated upon the Ordnance Surrey Map with the sanction of the
Controller of H.M. Stationery Office)

CITY OF DURHAM

the tower on Framwellgate Bridge round the
Market Square to the tower on Elvet Bridge,
with gates on the northern line of the wall
opening on to Claygate and Walkergate. This
later wall probably did not possess any great
military value, but was merely of sufficient
strength to keep off raiders. The city walls
became neglected in the i6th century and were
allowed to fall into disrepair and so have gradu-
ally disappeared.

Durham Cathedral
CATHEDRAL stands on a rockyheight

CHURCH bounded on the east,

I. HISTORICAL south, and west by a

bend of the river Wear.
To the north and south of the cathedral the
level space is considerable, but the buUding
occupies the whole extent of the level ground
from east to west, the buttresses of the western-
most portion actually descending the face of
the cliff some forty feet, whence the thickly
wooded slope descends rapidly to the river. The
position is one of the most commanding of any
in England, and the view of the cathedral from
the west and south-west is extremely impressive.

The site has been continuously occupied by a
church from 995, when the body of St. Cuthbert
was brought hither after many wanderings, and
a temporary structure was erected over it. This
was superseded by a church of stone begun by
Bishop Aldhun in 996, and known as the White
Church. Aldhun's church was standing at the
time of the Conquest, but excavation has failed
to reveal any trace of it. That it had a western
tower is evident from the account^ of Reginald
the monk, and that, after the fashion of the larger
churches of the time, it was cruciform with a
second tower over the crossing.

Certain crossheads of late style, taken from
below the chapter house, must be relics of the
period between 995 and the Norman Conquest
and may have commemorated members of the
community of secular priests who served the
church from the time of Aldhun to that of
William of St. Calais. The discovery in 1874,
below the graves of the bishops Ranulf Flam-
bard, Geoffrey Rufus and William of St. Barbe,
of the skeletons of men, women and children, and
of an iron spear head with a gold-plated socket,
believed by some to be attributable to this period,
probably points to a pre-Christian settlement
of considerably earlier datc.^

The church which stands to-day was begun,
as Simeon of Durham tells us, in 1093 by Bishop
William of St. Calais (1080-1096). During his
lifetime an agreement was in force between the

* Reginaldi Mon. Dunelm. (Surtees Soc), cap. ivi,

P- 29- .

* The evidence of the cranial indices, though incon-
clusive, is on the whole unfavourable to such a
hypothesis.

bishop and the monks, by which the former
undertook to bear the cost of building the church,
and the latter that of the monastic buildings.
There are indications that the replacement of
the Saxon buildings other than the church had
already been taken in hand before this time, the
east and south ranges of the cloister having been
worked upon during the time of Walcher (1071-
1080), and doubtless in the first thirteen years
of William's episcopate, before he was in a
position to start work on the new church. It is
possible that the site of the earlier church was a
little to the south of the present building and
that Walcher's work, of which mention will be
made in the description of the monastic build-
ings, was joined directly to the south side of
Aldhun's church.

With regard to the church of William of St.
Calais, it may be said that if the Chapel of the
Nine Altars at the east and the Galilee Chapel
at the west end be imagined absent, and if for
the former be substituted a termination con-
sisting of a great central apse semicircular both
inside and out, and two side apses with a square
external termination, one at each of the ends of
the quire aisles, the present building follows the
lines of the plan laid down in 1093.

Comparatively little, however, of this great
design was actually completed in the lifetime of
its originator ; yet, even so, the rapidity of the
work must have been remarkable.

The death of Bishop William in 1096 did not
interrupt the work, which was carried on con-
tinuously but more slowly, and we are told that
the monks devoted themselves to the church,
leaving for the time their work on the monastic
buildings. The see was vacant till 1099, and in
this time the work of the church was carried on
usque navem. Ranulf Flambard, on his appoint-
ment as bishop in that year, did not continue
the arrangement made by his predecessor, but
used the funds arising from the oblations
altaris et cemiurii, and carried on the building
of the church as the money came in, ' so that at
one time little was done and at another much.'^*
This went on till Flambard's death in 11 28,
when the see again remained vacant, this time
for five years. The nave, we are told, was com-
plete up to the vault in 11 28, and by 11 33 the
monks had finished the nave vault.

Although the building of the fabric was one
continuous work, occupying a period of forty
years from 1093, there was a slight break about
mo when the work had been carried from the
east end of the church usgug navem. The
whole was brought to completion, except for the
upper stories of the western towers, in ii33-
The scale and magnificence of the design would

'" ' Circa opus ecclesiae modo intentius, mode re-
missius agebatur.' Simeon of ZJuriam (Rolls Ser.),i, 139.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

alone set Durham in the first rank of the
great Romanesque churches of the north, but
an exceptional value is added to it by the
complete structural evidence of the intention
to cover the whole building with stone rib-vaults
as part of the original scheme. There is no
surviving church in Normandy which can show
so early a use of this construction, but that it is
of Norman origin is equally certain. So much of
the building energy of the Normans was trans-
ferred to English soil after the Conquest that an
advance in development on this side of the
Channel is not a matter for surprise. Certain
features, however, which do not occur in Nor-
mandy at this date, must be noted. The long
eastern arm of four bays, as at St. Albans, has
no existing counterpart in Normandy, where a
presbytery of two bays is normal, and the
cushion capital, practically unknown in Nor-
mandy, is used every^vhere in Durham to the
exclusion of the Norman volute capital, so that
it may be said that the Norman designer of
Durham Cathedral did not come direct from
Normandy to Durham, but had had previous
experience of building in England.

It is not possible to say exactly how far the
work had advanced between August 1093 and
Bishop William's death in January 1096, but the
first design continues unaltered through the
eastern arm and as far as the top of the triforium
on the east side of both transepts. The west
walls of the transepts are of simpler character
and suggest that lack of funds after the bishop's
death may have affected this part of the design,
but a more impressive witness to a modification
of the original scheme is seen in the temporary
abandonment of the intention to vault the
transepts. The clearstory of the south tran-
sept, with its continuous arcade of tall arches, is
clearly designed for a wooden ceiling, and since
no hesitation was shown in vaulting the eastern
arm, it is reasonable to conclude that this alter-
ation was due to lack of funds.

A landmark in the progress of the work is
made by the record of the translation of St.
Cuthbert to his shrine in 1104; the details of
the story make it clear that the stone vault over
the eastern arm was finished by this date, and
it may be suggested that the south transept
with a wooden ceiling was completed by that
time. The two eastern bays of the main arcade
of the nave, and of its aisles, together with one
bay of the triforium, belong, with certain small
modifications, to the earlier work of the church,
and it is reasonable to suppose that the north
transept was finished and its stone vault built
as part of this work. The limit of date may be
c. II 10. At the continuation of the building
of the nave a new feature appears, namely the
cheveron ornament, introduced in the arcade
arches and the ribs of the aisle vaults. It also

occurs in the vaults of the south transept, which
must have been undertaken while the continua-
tion of the nave was in progress. It must be
assumed that the lack of funds which followed
on Bishop William's death had been overcome,
and possibly the translation of 1104 brought a
new era of prosperity.

The last stage of the work, the building of the
stone vault over the nave, falls within the five
years 1128-1133, and it is a matter of much
interest to note, as a landmark in the story of
vault construction, that the springing stones of
the great transverse arches are designed for a
semicircular curve. The weakness which by
then may have been evident in the presbytery
vault, owing to the flatness at the crown of the
diagonal ribs, must have suggested the use of a
higher trajectory in the nave, and the substitu-
tion of pointed transverse arches for the semi-
circular arches was the result.

Geoffrey Ruf us (i 1 30-40), then,found the cathe-
dral church practically complete, together with
the greater part of the monastic buildings. The
slype between the south transept and the chapter
house, with its barrel vault, had been built in
the time of William, or in the interval between
his death and the appointment of Flambard, but
the chapter house was still incomplete, though
there can be no doubt that its plan had long been
settled, and probably the walls had been set
out to the level of the string below the wall
arcading. Ruf us completed the chapter house,
with a very rich doorway in whose capitals the
centaur occurs, together with mermaids and other
monsters carved in spirited fashion.

Hugh Pudsey (1153-1195) began to build a
Lady Chapel at the east end of the church, but,
taking the failure of his work as the result of
divine prohibition, abandoned it and built the
Gahlee Chapel at the west end, c. 1175. He also
enriched the exterior of the south-east doorway
of the nave. His work, which can be identified in
many places throughout the diocese, is always
characterised by boldness and originality.

Richard de Marisco (1217-1226) probably
completed the western towers.

Richard Poore was translated from Sahsbury
in 1229, and by 1235 the serious condition of
the quire vault seems to have decided him to
substitute for the then existing triapsidal eastern
termination of the church a building which is
now represented by the Chapel of the Nine
Altars. The work was not actually begun till
1242,^ under the direction of Prior Melsonby
(1233-1244), but there can be no doubt that the
ground plan was influenced by Bishop Poore,
whose connexion with the building of Salisbury
testifies to his interest in the task. There is
evidence that the design was altered in several

^ Hist. Dun. Script. Ires (Surtees Soc), p. 41.

CITY OF DURHAM

details more than once during the progress of
the building, especiaUy in the earlier stages,
and an interesting feature of these changes is a
departure from and subsequent return to the
original design for the use of detached marble
shafts on the piers, which are built on the arc
of the former apse. A change in the design of
the feretory platform of St. Cuthbert between
these piers is also to be suspected. The chapel
was not finished until 1280, and here again the
problems of vaulting seem to have occasioned
difficulty and delay, and possibly more than one
accident. The work was probably continuous,
and the south-east corner appears to have been
the point of completion, for there are indications
here that the southernmost pier in the east wall
had been standing unroofed for some time, and
needed repair before the vault was built.

The junction of the chapel and the quire
was certainly completed in one design with the
rest of the chapel, the whole of this work being
finished between 1242 and 1255, but the details
of the vaulting, both of the chapel and the quire,
are distinctly later in character, and were
probably not considered until, at the earliest,
1270. The vault of the chapel, especially, dis-
plays a remarkable series of ingenious make-
shifts of construction. The interval of delay
may be traceable to the impoverishment of the
see by the alleged wrongful reservation of certain
lands by Nicholas de Farnham after his resigna-
tion in 1249 and the seizure by the king of the
rest of the temporalities. The latter were
probably restored on the consecration of Walter
de Kirkham at the end of the same year, but
Nicholas de Farnham lived till 1275, retaining
the reserved lands. As one of the first acts of
Walter de Kirkham was an attempt to have the
reservation set aside, it seems likely that the
money was needed for building, for, as the pope
pointed out, he had no case for recovery what-
soever.'' It is very likely, therefore, that the
vaulting was not begun till the bishopric of
Robert of Holy Island (1274), though the main
lines of the design were probably earlier.

The work of the fourteenth century includes
no structural additions except the cloister, which
was begun about 1390, but was not finished
until 1418. The Jesse window in the west wall
of the nave and the window of the Four Doctors
in the north transept were inserted about the
middle of the century by Prior John Fossor,
who also built the fine kitchen of the monastery
in 1365-70. In the episcopate of Bishop Hat-
field the altar-screen or 'French peir'** was

* Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. ed. Wats, 1684, pp.
658, 666, 701.

"The dedication of the high altar in 1 380
probably marks the completion of the ' French peir.'

erected by John Lord Neville, and the Bishop's
throne, which incorporates m its design the
chantry tomb of this bishop, was set up by him

c. 1375-

Walter de Skirlaw (i 388-1406) contributed
largely to the work in the cloister, and the wood-
work of the roof near the chapter house is of his
time, and contains his arms. He also built the
dormitory at the west of the cloister.

In the fifteenth century Thomas Langley
(1406-1437) made the two doorways from the
nave aisles to the Galilee Chapel, erected the
Lady Altar in the old west doorway of the nave,
with his own tomb before it, and also buttressed
the west wall of the Galilee Chapel, inserting
new windows, adding a new roof, and supple-
menting the twin columns of the arcades by
additional shafts (c. 1420). The Te Deum
window in the south transept is of c. 1430.

About 1470 the rebuilding of the central
tower, which had been long failing, was under-
taken and the lower gallery of the lantern and the
arcade above it were completed in the time of
Bishop Laurence Booth, the belfry being added
about 1490, under the direction of Prior Auck-
land.

From this time no additions were made, and
the church was fearfully despoiled at the
Reformation. Bishop Cosin (1660-72), however,
erected the stalls and tabernacle work of the
quire, and the font-tabernacle is his work, as
were also the destroyed quire screen and a fine
screen about the feretory, now removed.

The church suffered much from the devasta-
tions of Wyatt, at the end of the eighteenth
and beginning of the nineteenth century,
when the Galilee Chapel was only saved
from destruction by the vigorous intervention
of Lord Cornwallis, then newly appointed
Dean, who was too late to save the chapter
house, which was pulled down, except its
most westerly portion, in 1796. The exterior
of the building was most horribly scraped, re-
ducing the Norman mouldings to mere shadows,
and a ridiculous ' restoration ' of the north
porch was carried out. The great ' rose '
window in the east wall of the Chapel of the
Nine Altars is Wyatt's work, and is perhaps less
disastrous than the rest of his meddling, which
actually included the destruction of the old
stained glass of the eastern windows.

In 1859 the central tower was restored by
Sir Gilbert Scott, who also supervised a restora-
tion (1870-76) in the course of which the quire
screen and pulpit were inserted, and the quire
stalls replaced. In 1895 the chapter house
was rebuilt as a memorial to Bishop Lightfoot,
unfortunately departing, in the vaulting of the
apse, from its original design, although record of
the latter had been preserved.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

2. DETAILED
DESCRIPTION
OF CHURCH

The church consists of
an Eastern Transept,
129 ft. 5 in. long intern-
ally from north to south
and 34 ft. 2 in. wide,
Aisled Quire of five bays, North and South
Transepts, each of four bays in length, with
eastern aisle, Central Tower, Nave of eight bays,
with North and South Aisles terminating at the
west with Towers projecting in front of the
aisle walls, and a Western Porch, or Chapel,
known as the Galilee.

The Quire is 125 ft. long by 32 ft. 8 in.
wide, and the total width across Quire and Aisles
77 ft. 2 in., the Aisles being each 15 ft. 3 in. wide,
and the piers of the arcades 7 ft. thick. Each
of the Transepts is 62 ft. 9 in. long, by 33 ft. 7 in.
wide, exclusive of its Aisle, the total length across
Transepts and Central Tower being 171 ft. 9 in.
The Nave is 198 ft. long and 32 ft. 4 in. wide
and the width across Nave and Aisles 81 ft. i in.,
the Aisles being each about 17 ft. 6 in. The
Western Towers are each about 24 ft. 8 in.
east to west and 26 ft. north to south, and the
Gahlee measures 76 ft. 6 in. from north to
south and 48 ft. from west to east. All these
measurements are internal.

The whole of the building is faced with dressed
stone, very much renewed, and the roofs of the
Nave, Quire, North Transept and Chapel of
the Nine Altars are slated. All the other roofs
are covered with lead.*

The eastern transept, or CHAPEL OF THE
NINE ALTARS, is divided vertically into three
main sections marked externally by major but-
tresses on the east side in hne with the walls of
the quire, the middle section being thus much
narrower than the others, each of which inter-
nally is divided into three bays. The north-
west and south-west angles are each covered by
a massive octagonal staircase turret, and at the
north-east and south-east angles are strong
piers of masonry forming buttresses weighted
by lofty pinnacles. The chapel is vaulted at
the same level as the quire, but additional
height is obtained by placing the floor 2 ft. 8 in.
below the quire aisle floor, an arrangement due
primarily to the fall in the ground at the east
end of the church. The walls, with the excep-
tion of the north wall, are divided horizontally
into two main stages, the division between the
stages being slightly above the triforium level
of the quire. A passage, approached by large

* The slated roof of the nave and quire appears to
have taken the place of the older higher-pitched cover-
ing of lead subsequent to 1 775. A pordon of the old
lead covering remained in 181 2 over the nave adjoin-
ing the central tower, but it was renewed in the
foUomng year : Raine, Durh. Cath. (1833), 122. The
roof of the chapel of the Nine Altars is sho^vn leaded
in Billings' drawing, 1842.

vices in the western angle turrets, is carried
through the north, east, and south walls at the
sill-level of the windows in the lower stage, and
there is a second passage in the east and south
walls at the base of the upper stage, which is also
the sill-level of the upper windows. Smaller
vices at the top of the main vices lead to passages
on the west side through which access is gained
to the eastern compartment of the quire clear-
story. A vice in the turret capping the south-
east buttress formerly led from the upper wall
passage to the roof, but was blocked at the
time of Wyatt's restoration.

In the ground stage the wall surface below the
windows and between the vaulting-piers is
entirely occupied by an arcade of elaborately
moulded trefoil arches inclosed by labels with
headstops, over the intersections of which are
elongated quatrefoil panels touching the sill
string, but not meeting over the heads of the
arches. Two of these panels, in the east wall,
are enriched — one with foliage and the other with
a sculptured figure — but all the rest are plain.
The arches spring from detached marble shafts
with stiff-leaf capitals and water-table bases
standing on a boldly moulded pUnth, which on
the east wall is stepped upwards to clear the
altars which formerly were placed along it and
drops at the extremities of each section nearly
to floor level, the outermost shafts as originally
designed being nearly twice the length of the
others.

The east wall is divided internally into seven
bays by the vaulting-piers and externally by four
major and four minor buttresses. The width of
the great central bay was governed by that of the
quire, of which it now forms the structural
eastern termination ; three altars were placed
in it, and the three bays on either side were set
out to contain one altar each, the clear -.vidth of
each bay between the vaulting-piers being roughly
equal to one third of the central bay.

The central bay is occupied by three lancet
windows in the lower stage and a large wheel
window above. Each of the narrow side bays
contains a large lancet wndow with a second and
less lofty lancet above it. The vaulting-piers
flanking the central bay are of half-lozenge plan,
each having seven detached marble shafts,
three on either face, and one, somewhat stouter,
at the apex of the pier. These are separated from
each other by stone shaft-rolls, and all have
richly carved stiff-leaf capitals some 4 ft. 6 in.
above the siU-level of the upper windows. The
shafts are encircled by annulets at the sill-level
of the lower tier of windows, and again at a point
about midway between this level and their
capitals. The vaulting-piers which divide the
three bays on either side are of the same char-
acter and rise to the same height, but they are
of slighter proportions, having each only

Durham Cathedral : The Nine Altars

CITY OF DURHAM

five detached marble shafts. The repair to the
southernmost pier referred to above consists
of the renewal in stone, with plain bell-capitals,
of about 2 ft. of the upper part of the detached
shafts next the wall. The rear-arches of the outer
lancets of the group of three which occupy the
lower stage of the central bay spring on the north
and south respectively from twin marble shafts
with foliage capitals and water-table bases with
circular plinths standing upon the sill. The
splayed jambs of the middle window meet those
of the side windows, and at the apex of each pair
of meeting splays are three similar shafts, the
rear-arches thus forming a continuous arcade.
All these jamb shafts are ringed at the level of the
upper annulets of the vaulting-piers. The rear-
arches are of two orders moulded with filleted
rolls, the soffits of the inner orders being enriched
with dog-tooth. They are inclosed by labels
decorated with a foliage ornament set at inter-
vals on their undersides, and having headstops
at their intersections and at the extremities.
The spandrels are plain, and the heads of the
labels touch the hollow string set with stiff-leaf
knobs which divides the two stages of the chapel
here and elsewhere. The jambs are pierced by
shouldered openings to take the lower wall-
passage, and at the level of the heads of these
openings the triple shafts at the splay-angles of
the middle lancet are cut short, and rest upon
short shafts of marble with plain bell-capitals.
These windows, as well as all the other lancets
in the east wall of the chapel, were filled with
two-light tracery in the 15th century like that
which still remains in the southern windows,
but this was removed by Wyatt at the end of
the 1 8th century. Beneath the sill, which is
emphasized by a moulded string-course con-
tinuous with the lower annulets of the vaulting-
piers, are nine bays of the waU-arcading, the
northernmost shaft of which has been curtailed
by the insertion of a later aumbry in the plinth
beneath. A second aumbry has also been formed
in the plinth near the middle of the bay. These,
with a third aumbry in the north wall, make up
the ' 3 or 4 little anvryes in the wall ' described
in Rites.^ In the upper stage the wall is set
back nearly to the face of the tracery of the great
wheel window, and the passage at this level
pierces the piers on either side as far back from
their inner face as possible, to ensure the
maximum amount of stabiUty. The tracery of
the wheel window, which consists of thirty-six
trefoiled lights radiating from a central multi-
foiled circular light, was inserted by Wyatt in
1795. This window is described in Rites as
a ' goodly faire round window called St. Kath-

« Rites of Durh. (Surtecs Soc. no. 107), 2. Dr. J. T.
Fowler's edition has been used throughout this
description.

erns window, the bredth of the quere, aU of
stone . . . hauingeinit 24 lights' verye artificially
made, as it is called geometricall . . .' * The
glazing of the window is known to have been done
in the early 15th century at the cost of Thomas
Pikeringe, rector of Hemingbrough, 1409-12,'
but whether the tracery removed by Wyatt was
of this period, or contemporary with the
building of the chapel, is uncertain.

The lancets in the lower stage of the side
bays are slightly narrower than those in the
central bay, but are of the same general design
except that the outer jamb shafts are of stone
instead of marble.^"

The jambs are pierced by the wall-passage and
the labels touch the enriched string-course
which divides the stages ; the inner orders,
however, have dog-tooth enrichment on the
face as well as on the soffits. ^^ Below each window
are three bays of waU-arcading.

In the upper stage the three lancets to the
south of the central bay have marble shafts to
their inner orders, but the outer orders are
continuous ; the three windows north of the
centre bay are different, having attached double
jamb shafts of masonry, except the south jamb
of the innermost opening, which has a single
shaft of marble made out at the top with stone.
The jambs of all these windows are pierced by
the upper wall-passage, and the heads, which are
partly hidden by the vaulting, are inclosed by
labels. All this work was probably completed up
to the vault within a few years after 1242.

In the four angles of the chapel the vaulting-
piers consist merely of three attached stone
shafts with annulets of the same material and
foliage capitals and bases similar to those of the
other piers. The south wall is divided into two
equal bays by a central vaulting-pier, each bay
being filled by two tiers of coupled lancets. In
the north wall the idea of a central vaulting-pier
appears to hare been abandoned after the work
had reached the lower siU-level, and the whole of
the area above was filled by the present large
six-light window. This window, which cannot
have been constructed much before 1280, is
described in Rites as a ' goodly faire great
glass window called Josephs window, the w"^**
hath in it all the whole story of Joseph most
artificially wrought in pictures in fine coloured
glasse accor(d)inge as it is sett forth uerye good

' This probably referred to the outer lights, the same
number as at present.

8 Rites of Durh. (Surtecs Soc), 2.

* Durh. Acct. Rolls (Surtees Soc.). The present
glazing and that of the three lancets below date from

1873-

1" On the inner side of the two windows adjoining
the central bay both the shafts are of marble.

1* The soffits of both orders are enriched.

»3

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

and godly to the beholders thcrof.''- The
window is of six trefoiled lights under a two-
centred main head, and the tracery is of two
orders, the master-mullions dividing the lights
into three groups with as many two-centred
sub-heads, each filled by a trefoiled circle. The
tracery in the main head is formed by the inter-
section of the master-mullions, which meet
considerably above the sub-heads, and the com-
partments thus formed are filled by cinquefoilcd
and trefoiled circles. The stiffening of the
enormous window surface is effected by an inner
system of tracery, consisting of clustered stone
shafts*' with moulded bases and capitals carry-
ing finely moulded arches, which repeats the
main order of the outer tracery and is connected
with it by through-stones. The lower wall-
passage is continued along the sill, the jambs
being pierced by shouldered openings, but the
upper passage is of course interrupted. The
wall arcade is continued below the sill, the
plinth being stepped upwards at the east end to
clear the altar-pace. In the easternmost bay of
the arcade is the aumbry above referred to,
while the westernmost bay, which is nearly equal
in width to three of the others, has a stilted
two-centred head, and incloses a doorway, now
blocked, with a rear-arch of the same form. The
fact that the arcading is purposely designed to
allow room for the doorway leaves no doubt that
the work is all of one date, despite the tradition
which declares that it was made for the admission
of the body of Bishop Bek in 1311." The
foundations of the intended central vaulting-pier
are visible in the pavement, and indications
exist in the stonework of the arcading which lead
to the conclusion that the pier was actually
carried up some distance above the base before
the change in plan was decided upon. On the
exterior the beginning of the intended sustaining
buttress remains, terminated by a gablet below
the sill of the window.

The south wall with its four coupled lancets
is the least satisfactory feature in the design of
the chapel. This may have been felt by the
builders themselves, and possibly determined
the change of treatment adopted in the north
wall which resulted in the substitution of the
magnificent six-light window for the somewhat
haphazard fenestration necessitated here by the
retention of the constructionally superfluous
central vaulting-pier, the design of which shows
a curious indecision. When the lower portion of
the pier was in course of building, it was not
foreseen that the vaulting-rib which it would
have to receive would be of an entirely subsidiary

12 Rites of Durh. (Surtees Soc), 3. The present
glass dates from 1 877.
" The jamb shafts are of marble.
" RiUi oJDurh. (Surtees Soc), 2.

character, and would therefore need but a single
shaft for its support. The plan at the ground-
stage is therefore identical with that of the
smaller vaulting-piers on the east wall, but the
attached marble shafts rise no further than the
annulet at the sill-level of the lower windows.
At the springing-level of the window heads the
three empty hollows between the outer stone
shaft-rolls of the pier are terminated by gablets,
and the plan of the pier changes to a rectangle
with a central attached filleted shaft, flanked by
attached shafts at the angles. The twin rear-
arches of each pair of coupled lancets spring in
the upper stage from filleted shafts attached to
the extreme jambs and in the lower from shafts
of marble, and are received upon a central
mullion consisting of a cluster of shaft-rolls
connected to the front of the window by slender
through-stones at two levels. In the lower
windows the rear-arches of each pair are inclosed
by a two-centred containing order and in the
spandrel thus formed is a circular quatrefoil
panel : owing to the unequal splay of the jambs,
the rear-arches next to the vaulting-pier are
wider than the others, with the result that the
containing arches are very perceptibly out of
centre with the rear-arches beneath. All the
windows are filled with early 15th-century
tracery, each window having two transomed
lights with vertical tracery in the head. The
whole group is described in Rites as a ' good
glazed window called St. Cuthberts window,
the w<=h hath in it all the whole storye life and
miracles of that holy man St. Cuthbert from
his birth of his natiuitie and infancie unto the
end and a discourse of his whole life, maruelously
fine and curiously sett forth in pictures in fine
coloured glass accordinge as he went in his
habitte to his dying day.'*^ At the west end of
the wall is a doorway like that on the north,
the wall arcade being similarly spaced.

The west side of the chapel, like the east, is
divided by the vaulting-piers into seven bays, but
only the central bay (which is open to the quire
for its whole height) corresponds in width with
the bay opposite. The two bays next to the
central bay are governed by the width of the
quire aisles, which are also open to the chapel
for their whole height, and exceed the width of
the opposite bays by about one-half. Of the
two remaining bays on either side, which project
transeptally beyond the body of the church,
those at the extreme north and south are spaced
so as to correspond very nearly with those
opposite, and consequently the bays next the
quire aisles are very narrow. The only windows
on this side are a skewed lancet, now blocked, in
the lower stage of each of the two end bays, and
a window in the clearstory of each of the bays

1^ Ibid. 3. Thevvindows are nowfilledwith plain glass.

CITY OF DURHAM

formed by the ends of the quire aisles, which
preserve the horizontal division of the quire
into triforium and clearstory. As the string-
course dividing the two stages of the rest of the
chapel is a little above the general triforium level,
the triforium of the quire is correspondingly
raised to face the chapel, so that no interruption
occurs in the main horizontal division, the
clearstory merely forming an additional sub-
division of the upper stage in these bays. In
each of the bays at the extreme north and south,
next to the vaulting-pier in the angle is a door-
way to the vice-turret, with a well-moulded
two-centred head springing from jamb shafts
with foliage capitals. Each of these doorways is
set in a length of plain ashlar, and between it and
the first of the western vaulting-piers is a single
bay of arcading. The skewed lancets in the lower
stage of the end bays are of the same height as
the lancets in the opposite wall and each has a
two-centred rear-arch inclosed by a label, and
shafted jambs of two orders. These windows
were placed out of the centre of the bays in order
to clear the vice-turrets, and the outer jamb in
each case is pierced by a short extension of the
lower wall-passage, which, however, is not con-
tinued beyond the window. These blocked
openings are alike in every respect and have
external jamb shafts and hood moulds. The
upper stage of the end bays is occupied in each
case by a tall recess, across the top of which is
carried the wall-passage leading from the vice
at the angle to the eastern compartment of the
quire clearstory. Each of these recesses has a
moulded head of two orders, the outer two-
centred, and the inner of trefoil form ; the
outer order springs from attached jamb shafts
with foliage capitals and moulded bases, and the
inner order from capitals of the same type
supported by grotesque heads. The vaulting-
piers which divide these bays from the bays
next the quire aisles are similar to their opposite
eastern piers, but the capitals of these and the
other western piers, in which human and animal
forms appear among the foliage, show that
this side of the chapel was the last to be com-
pleted. Each of the narrow bays next the quire
aisles contains a recess in the upper stage like
those in the end bays, with the clearstory pas-
sage carried across the top in a similar manner ;
in the lower stage, above the sill-string, is a tall
shallow blank recess with a moulded trefoil
head and label and shafted jambs of two orders,
the outer shafts being of marble, below which
are two narrow bays of arcading. The vaulting-
piers next the quire aisles are smaller than their
opposite piers, having only three marble shafts.
Above the arches to the quire aisles, which
occupy the whole of the lower stage of the bays
formed by the ends of the aisles, are triple-
arched openings to the eastern compartment of

the quire triforium. The arches of these
triforium openings are moulded and enriched
and are supported by shafts with foliage capitals
and moulded bases. The clearstory window in
the bay on the north is of three lights with
intersecting tracery in a two-centred head, and
has an inner system of tracery like that of the
great north window with which it must be
nearly contemporary. The clearstory window in
the southern bay is of two lancet lights with
twin rear-arches enriched with dog-tooth
ornament, which spring from shafts with foliage
capitals attached to the jambs and are received
upon a central cluster of filleted shafts with
plain bell-capitals connected to the front of the
window by through-stones. The arches to the
quire aisles, which are two-centred and very
richly moulded, have their outer orders stilted
and one of each pair of responds is formed by a
portion of one of the great piers which terminate
the side walls of the quire.

Besides the diagonals of the adjacent vaults
the great piers carry the transverse arch dividing
the quire vault from the central compartment
of the chapel vault, and receive the transverse
arches of the latter. In addition to these func-
tions they also form the responds of the eastern-
most arches of the quire arcades, as well as the
inner responds of the arches from the chapel
to the quire just described. They are of a
complicated polygonal plan with attached stone
shafts at the angles and a marble detached
shaft in the middle of each face having a slight
hollow behind in which it is partly recessed.
The piers are without annulets and the shafts
have capitals richly carved with foliage and
grotesques. The feretory platform, which pro-
jects into the chapel between the piers, is in
reality an extension of the sanctuary floor of
the quire, and the moulded bases of the three
shafts on the inner face of each great pier
carrying the transverse arch between quire and
chapel stand upon it, but the shafts between
this point and the eastern and western apices
of the pier, the limit to which the platform
extends on either side, rise from the floor
without bases. The evidence of change in design
during the early stages of the building of these
piers, already referred to, was furnished in
1895, when excavations were made at the foot
of the north pier in order to give access to the
still existing walls of the old apse of the quire.
The changes took place before the piers had
been carried above the level of the present
platform, and the bases of the pier then un-
covered have been left exposed. A little above
the chapel floor, which below the platform is
raised a step, the plinth as a whole has a moulded
base, on which stand water- holding bases for
both attached stone shafts and detached marble
shafts ; the original intention appears to have

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

been to make the feretory platform narrower in
order to leave the foot of the piers clear. When,
however, the piers had been carried up higher,
it seems to have been determined to discard
the detached marble shafts, but on its being
finally decided to complete the platform in its
present form, the detached shafts were intro-
duced. The pavement of the platform appears
to be that of the apse (which occupied its site)
reset and made out from semicircular to rect-
angular form with new stone, the old curved-
outline stones of the original pavement being
retained appro.ximately in their original positions.
The transverse arch between quire and chapel
is of three elaborately moulded orders towards
the east, the intermediate order being enriched
with dog-tooth ornament.

The setting out of the east wall of the chapel
was no doubt inspired by the design of the Nine
Altars at Fountains, begun a few years before.
There, however, the comparative narrowness of
the quire aisles made it possible to arrange the
western bays to match the eastern bays, but at
Durham the irregular distribution of the points
of support presented a problem in vaulting
which has only been solved by the most in-
genious compromise. The square central bay
of course offered no particular difficulty, but
had the three bays on either side been vaulted
in as many narrow quadripartite compartments
of differing sizes and irregular shapes, the effect
would have been awkward in the extreme. The
pairs of bays adjoining the central bay were
therefore each grouped into one nearly rect-
angular sexpartite compartment, the transverse
rib, owing to the vaulting-piers not being oppo-
site to one another, passing very much to the
side of the centre of the compartment. Of the
two remaining bays, the northernmost was
covered by a quadripartite vault, while the
southernmost bay, having five points of sup-
port, was covered by a vault of quinquepartite
form. The stability of the vaulting is amply
provided for, the four angle turrets and the
buttresses which counteract the thrusts on the
eastern and southern vaulting-piers being pro-
portioned to their varying loads. On the west,
the walls of the quire provide sufficient abut-
ment for the piers of the central bay, and short
buttresses are erected on the walls of the quire
aisles to abut the piers which carry the trans-
verse ribs of the sexpartite compartments. The
two remaining piers are left without further
abutment than the great thickness of the
walls provides, as being sufficiently close to
the western angle turrets. The vault of the
central bay is constructed on a modification of
the quadripartite principle, having divergent
twin diagonals forming a four-pointed star about
a central circular opening or eye-hole. The
transverse arches are of two orders, the outer

order has dog-tooth enrichment, and the ribs
have foliage set at intervals in the hollows
flanking their central rolls. The eye-hole is
surrounded by a heavy moulding sculptured
with figures of the four Evangelists, and upon
this moulding the ribs converge in pairs. The
sexpartite vaults also have large eye-holes with
richly sculptured mouldings. ** The diagonal
ribs are enriched like those of the vault of the
central bay, and the skewed transverses, which
pass to the side of the eye-holes, are of two
orders, the outer enriched with the dog-tooth.
The northernmost and southernmost compart-
ments of vaulting have diagonal ribs of the same
character, but the transverses are of slighter
proportions than those separating the se.xpartite
compartments from the central compartment.

The nine altars placed along the east wall are
enumerated in Rius. In the middle bay was
the altar of St. Cuthbert and St. Bede, flanked
by those of St. Martin on the north and St.
Oswald and St. Lawrence on the south. In the
three northern bays were the altars of St.
Michael, St. Aidan and St. Helen, and St. Peter
and St. Paul. The three southern bays con-
tained the altars of St. Thomas of Canterbury
and St. Katherine, St. John Baptist and St.
Margaret, and St. Andrew and St. Mary Mag-
dalene. ' Between every altar (was) a uerye
faire and large partition of wainscott all uar-
nished ouer, wth fine branches & flowers and
other imagerye most finely and artificially pic-
tured and guilted, conteyninge the severall
lockers or ambers for the safe keepinge of the
uestments and ornaments belonginge to euerye
altar,' while above the altars were ' couers of
wainscote ... in uerye decent and comely
forme.' ^'

At the north end of the chapel is the white
marble monument of Bishop WiUiam Van
Mildert (d. 1836), which stands over his tomb.
It represents him seated, holding a book, and
is the work of John Gibson, R.A. The tomb
of Bishop Anthony Bek (d. 131 1) is close by,
but is marked only by a blue slab, with a modern
inscription. 1^ No trace of the monument of
Bishop Richard de Bury (d. 1345) remains, but
a marble slab with canopied figure in rehef was
placed in 1903 at the south end of the chapel
over the place of his burial. There are other
more modern grave slabs and wall tablets.

1* Vine leaves and grapes in the north compart-
ment, figure subjects in the south.

1' Ritcj of Durh. (Surtees Soc), 1-3.

1* The Inscription, on a brass plate, was taken from
Browne Willis {Cathedrals, i, 239) and is a copy of
the original. It was placed on the slab in 1834. Bek
was the first bishop ' that ever attempted to lye so
neere the sacred slirine of St. Cuthbert ' (Rites). He
was buried in a ' faire marble tomb underneath a fair
marble stone.'

100

CITY OF DURHAM

The floor of the chapel was newly flagged in
1825. The altar pace along the east side is
raised two steps, with a return at the north end.

The exterior of the chapel follows the general
lines of its construction with gables north and
south and a smaller one in the middle of the
east elevation, behind the parapet, over the
wheel window. The great north-east and
south-east buttresses, square on plan, become
octagonal at the line of the sills of the upper
windows and terminate in lofty pinnacles. The
two major buttresses on the east elevation have
smaller pinnacles set back behind gabled heads,
and the intermediate buttresses terminate in
gablcts at the line of the parapet. The character
of the original design of the east front was a
good deal changed at the time of the early
19th-century restoration, many features being
then destroyed and others introduced. Wyatt
removed the canopied niches of the major
buttresses containing the statues of William
of St. Calais and Ranulf Flambard mentioned
in Rites,^^ and the wall surface suffered in the
general paring down process. The north pin-
nacles -' and the windows in the east gable
lighting the roof space date from this period.
All the lower windows have double chamfered
jambs and moulded heads and the upper have
single jamb shafts and labels. In the middle
bay, between the major buttresses, the slender
intermediate buttresses between the lancets are
carried up to support an arcade of three plain
arches, thus advancing the surface of the wall
immediately below the wheel window and
making the lancets appear to be deeply
recessed. The wheel window is moulded all
round and has Wyatt's Gothic ornament in the
spandrels. Horizontally the east elevation is
divided at mid-height by a string-course, and
there is a string also at the level of the sills of
the lower windows. On one of the corner stones
of the major buttress south of the middle bay
is cut in 13th-century characters ' Posuit hanc
petram Thomas Moises,' a record of the name

^' ' Upon the east front of the Nine Altars in two
large buttresses on each side of the round window are
erected statues of Williani of Karileph ... on the south
side, and on the north Ranulph Flambard . . . the first
in his mitre and episcopal habit, and the other having
his head uncovered ' {Riles, p. 93).

** An undated drawing of the east front (Grimm's
Topog. Drawings, Brit. Mus. ii, no. 132, reproduced
in Trans. Durh. and Northd. Arch. Soc. v, 36) made in
the latter part of the 1 8th century, before the removal
of the 15th-century tracery from the windows,
shows only the two south turrets with pinnacles, or
spirelets. The north turrets and the major buttresses
were without them. The canopied niches and statues
are shown. The south-west turret was rebuilt in
1826-9 and the return of the west wall restored; the
north pinnacles would be added about tliis time.

of one of the masons engaged in the work.-*
The north gable has an open arcade of five
trefoiled moulded arches on grouped shafts
with moulded capitals and bases, standing on a
string above the great window. Over this in
the apex of the gable are three smaller trefoiled
arches with canopies.^^ The south gable is
entirely filled by an ascending arcade of seven
moulded arches, three alternate openings of
which are pierced and glazed, lighting the roof
space. In a recess on the face of the north-west
turret is the famous carving representing the
legend of the Dun Cow. The original sculpture
had fallen into decay before 1795 and was in
consequence replaced by the present cow and
milkmaids of frankly modern character.^'

The platform of ST. CUTH BERTS FERE-
TORT is 6 ft. above the floor of the chapel of
the Nine Altars, into \vhich it projects some
10 ft. It is separated from the quire by the
screen of the high altar and is 37 ft. long from
north to south by 23 ft. in width. It has a low
parapet with modern moulded coping and its
north and south sides are plain, but the longer
east face has an arcade of eleven boldly moulded
semicircular arches springing from shafts with
moulded capitals and bases, all work of the
latest date of the chapel. Originally the plat-
form was enclosed by a grille upon which were
' very fine candlesticks of iron ' which had lights
set in them before day ' so that the monks could
see to read on their books in the Nine .\ltars
when they said mass.'-^ The shrine was de-
stroyed shortly after the surrender of the con-
vent, but the precise date is not known. The
oak screen erected on three sides of the plat-
form in the 17th century was removed in 1844 :-*
it is shown in BiUings' drawing engraved the
year before, and a portion of it, four bays in
length, is now in the University Library.^*
The tomb of St. Cuthbert was opened in 1827,
and again in 1899: its contents have already
been described." The Purbeck marble ground-

21 Possibly the master-mason. In the Treasury at
Durham is a grant of a burgage in Elvet by ' Thomas
Moyses filius Dalber,' c. 1240, with a seal inscribed
'S' Thome Moises' (GreenweU, Durh. Cath. 8th
ed. 65). The inscription on the plinth is on the east
and north sides just above the ground.

22 As shown in Carter's drawings, 1810, but much
restored.

23 There is an engraving of the original carving in
Hutchinson, Hist. Durh. ii, 226. The present cow
is of the shorthorn breed, attended by two dames in
the costume of the reign of George IV : Raine, St.
Cuthbert, 55.

2> Rites of Durh. (Surtees Soc), 198.

25 Tlie moulded coping was placed on the parapet
at tliis time.

26 It is in a perfect state of preservation, except
that the cresting is missing.

27 r.C.H. Dur. i, 241.

lOI

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

course of the substructure of the shrine was
recovered from the grave at the latter date and
is now placed on the platform around the blue
marble slab that marks the position of the
saint's burial place.-* The feretory is thus
described in Rita : — ' Next to theise 9 altars
was the goodly monument of St. Cuthbert
adioyninge to the quire and the high altar on
the west end, reachinge toward the 9 altars on
the east, and toward the north and south con-
taininge the breadth of the quire in quadrant-*
form, in the midst whereof his sacred shrine was
exalted with most curious workmanshipp of fine
and costly marble all limned and guilted with
gold, hauinge foure seates or places conuenient
under the shrine for the pilgrims . . . sittinge
on theire knees to leane and rest on, in time of
their deuout ofleringes and feruent prayers to
God and holy St. Cuthbert.' The shrine had
an elaborate cover ' of Wainescott ' which besides
other enrichments was ' all gilded over, and of
eyther side was painted fower lively Images
curious to -f beholders, and on the East End
was painted the picture of o"^ Savio"^ sitting' on
a Rainebowe to give Judgm' . . . and on the
West end of itt was y" picture of o"^ Lady &
Savio"^ on her knee . . .' Elaborate arrange-
ments were made for lifting the cover, and the
main suspension rope was hung with silver bells.
The hole into which the pulley was fixed is still
visible in the shell of the vault just to the east
of the transverse arch between quire and chapel.
The magnificent stone reredos, known as the
NEVILLE SCREEN, divides the sanctuary from
the feretory. It is placed a little to the east of
the centre of the easternmost bay of the quire
and is described in Rites as being ' all of
french peere uerye curiously wrought both of
the inside and the outside (i.e. on the east and
west faces) with faire images of Alabaster . . .
the s** curious workmanshipp of french peere or
Laordose reachinge in height almost to the middle
vault (i.e. the aisle vaults) and containinge the
breadth of the quire in lengthe.' The ' french
peere ' or free-stone of which it is constructed
is a variety of clunch, but where quarried it is
difficult to say. The ' faire images of Alabaster '
have long disappeared, but otherwise the struc-
ture remains practically intact, with the four
contemporary sedilia on either side, which are
placed under the adjacent arches of the quire
arcades, and separate the sanctuary from the
aisles. The screen is divided into nine bays by
slender uprights of rectangular plan with but-
tressed angles, and the lower part, which is

^* The slab is of blue marble 6i in. thick. It measures
9 ft. by 4 ft. 4 in. It has been lettered ctrrHBERTVs since
the last opening of the grave. The marble ground-
course formed part of the new work of John Lord
Neville in 1 372. It was used in the new grave in 1542.

*• I.e. quadrate, or quadrilateral.

solid, is pierced by two doorways opening into
the feretory, while the whole of the upper por-
tion, extending from a little above the heads of
the doorways to the ' middle vault,' is occupied
by open tabernacles for images placed between
the uprights. The tabernacles in the central
bay and the alternate bays on either side are
arranged in two diminishing stages with octa-
gonal canopies to each stage, those of the upper
stage, which rise clear of the uprights between
the bays, being surmounted in addition by open
octagonal lanterns with crocketed spirelets.
The tabernacles in the intermediate bays are of
one stage only, and have hexagonal canopies
crowned by hexagonal lanterns of the same
character as those of the octagonal tabernacles.
The western projecting angles of the canopies
are unsupported, leaving the tabernacles entirely
open towards the quire, but on the side towards
the feretory they are supported by slender
buttressed uprights or mullions, those of the
octagonal tabernacles rising from the buttressed
angles of three-sided pedestals projecting from
the lower portion of the screen. The canopies
and lanterns throughout have cinquefoiled
arches, gabled and crocketed, in each face, and
each tabernacle contains a richly panelled
pedestal for an image, while all the minute
buttress work is elaborately finished with
gables, crockets and pinnacles. The dividing
uprights, which, as will be clear from the
foregoing description, do not rise higher than
the lower tier of tabernacles, each contain four
tiers of small niches with pedestals and cinque-
foiled heads on both faces, and are crowned by
crocketed and finialled pinnacles. On the
quire side the three middle bays of the solid
lower portion of the screen are without projec-
tions, to allow for the High Altar to be placed
against it. Below the two octagonal tabernacles
on either side of the three altar bays are richly
panelled three-sided pedestals rising from the
floor to the base of the tabernacles, while below
the intermediate hexagonal tabernacles are the
two doorways to the feretory, which have cinque-
foiled and subfoliated two-centred heads with
spandrels containing shields with the Neville
saltire in quatrefoils. On the side towards the
feretory the heads of the doorways are of the same
form, but are uncusped. Beneath each of the other
hexagonal tabernacles on this side are two small
niches with pedestals and cinquefoiled heads,
ranging with the lowermost of the niches in the
uprights, and the pedestals beneath the octa-
gonal tabernacles have similar niches in their
east faces. The sedilia are treated in the same
style. The four seats in each range are sepa-
rated from each other by slender buttressed
piers supporting octagonal canopies with gabled-
cinquefoiled arches in each face, and the canopies
are surmounted by tall open tabernacles of the

102

Durham Catucdrai. : The Neville Screen. East Side

Durham Cathedral! The Chancel, looking West

CITY OF DURHAM

same plan, crowned by crockctcd and finialled
spirelets.

St. Calais' QUIRE consisted of the two
aisled double bays which still exist, a single bay
to the east of the double bays, and beyond this
the apse. The aisles originally terminated on
either side of the single bay in small apses,
which appear by the foundations discovered to
have been internal only, their external eastern
terminations having been rectangular. In
the 13th century the apse was demolished,
and the adjacent single bay, with the apsidal
easternmost bays of the aisles, was rebuilt to join
up with the new work of the Nine Altars. Be-
tween the double bays are shafted responds of
two orders rising from the floor, which were
evidently designed to carry a semicircular
transverse arch of two orders, like those in the
transepts. The shafts of the responds, like all
the other attached shafts, are St. Calais' work,
of half-round section with cushion capitals and
moulded bases consisting of flat, slightly chan-
nelled, splays. Each respond has a square plinth
common to its three shafts, with a larger sub-
plinth below, the off-set being finished with a
plain chamfer, but the westernmost shafts on
both sides have been cut away for the stalling.
The quire is bounded on the west by the eastern
arch of the crossing, which is of three orders
towards the east, but of only two towards the
west. The innermost order has hollow-cham-
fered edges and a large half-round on the soffit,
the next order has a plain roll on each edge,
while the third order on the east face is
unmoulded. The responds form part of the
eastern piers of the crossing, which may be
described as consisting of shafted responds
of two orders on each cardinal face, with
single attached shafts between, the whole
number of attached shafts amounting to sixteen.
The responds of two orders on the inner north
and south faces of the piers, together with the
single shafts adjoining on the east, suffice to
carry the orders of the arch, the answering
single shafts on the west being carried up the
internal angles of the tower. The shafts are of
the same detail as those of the responds of the
main transverse, and rest on a plinth of the same
height, but of different detail, the chamfered
off-set being replaced by a projecting band
with a quirked chamfer on its upper and lower
edges. In both cases it may be noted that the
central shaft of each group of three is larger than
the flanking shafts and has a capital of corre-
spondingly greater size. There are clear indica-
tions that the division of sanctuary and quire
was marked by an arch of the same type as the
eastern arch of the crossing (probably of three
orders on both faces) between the single bay
next the apse and the adjoining double bay ;
the piers between these bays still remain, but

the shafted responds, which must have corre-
sponded with those of the eastern arch of the
crossing, were cut away in the 13th century,
when the junction between the new work and
the old was effected. Each of the original double
bays has on either side, opening to the aisles, a
pair of semicircular arches supported by a
central cyHndrical pier of massive proportions,
and shafted responds against the main piers.
The arches are of two orders moulded with
hollows and angle-rolls, the inner orders having
in addition a large roll on the soffit. The west
responds of the arcade are formed by the
three attached shafts on the east face of each
crossing-pier, which have cushion capitals and
moulded bases like those of the shafts on the
inner faces of the piers from which the eastern
arch of the crossing springs. The responds
against the other main piers are designed to
correspond, but the plinths of the responds
in the eastern bay foUow the pattern of those
of the responds of the central transverse
already described. As the ground-stages of
the piers between the double bays are made
of the same length on plan from east to west as
the crossing-piers, though the shafted responds
of the central transverse attached to them have
one order less than those of the eastern arch of
the crossing, short spaces of blank wall interrupt
the continuity of the suites of shafts. The
intermediate piers are not complete cylinders,
for shafted responds of two orders, from which
spring the transverses of the aisle vaults, are
attached to their aisle sides. The drum of the
cyHndrical portion of each pier is ornamented
with left-handed spiral fluting, and the main
capital, the plan of which is composed of five
sides of an octagon (the remaining sides being
merged in the capitals of the shafts of the
responds of the aisle transverses), is of cushion
type, approximating to the scalloped form. The
abacus is continuous round the whole pier, which
stands on a base and plinth corresponding to
those of the responds against the main piers. The
walls are set back 1 1 in. at the level of the tri-
forium sill, w^hich is marked by a plain chamfered
string-course, and upon the set-off thus formed
stand short vaulting-shafts ; these consist of
single attached shafts placed in the nooks formed
by the setting back of the face of the wall next
the shafts on the main piers, and of triple shafts
in the centre of each bay over the minor or
cylindrical piers. All have cushion capitals
and moulded bases standing on square plinths,
but the capitals of the eastern nook-shaft and
the triple shafts in the east double bay are
carved with foliage similar to that of the
13th-century capitals adjoining, while retain-
ing generally their old form. As the nook-
shafts, which were designed to receive the
diagonals of the vault, were necessarily placed

103

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

next the responds of the main transvcrscs
without regard to their unequal length from
east to west, the western nook- shafts of the
western double bay are exactly above the shafts
of the outer orders of the westernmost arches of
the arcades, while the eastern nook-shafts are
a little to the east of the corresponding responds
beneath. The same relative positions of the
nook-shafts are repeated in the eastern bay, the
eastern nook-shafts answering exactly in position
to the western nook-shafts of the western bay,
a circumstance which can only be explained by
the former existence to the eastward of shafted
responds of the same number of orders as those
of the eastern arch of the crossing. In each of
the vertical subdivisions formed by the vaulting
shafts is an opening to the triforium with a clear-
story window above it. The triforium openings
are double, each having a pair of semicircular
arches, wth hollow- chamfered edges and a
half-round on the soffit, contained under an
outer inclosing arch of the same form moulded
with a quirked angle-roll below a hollow. Both
orders spring from half-shafts attached to the
jambs, and the inner pair of arches rest in the
centre upon a circular shaft of the same detail
as the jamb shafts. The triforium is lighted
by pairs of small semicircular-headed lights in
the outer walls of the aisles. There is no clear-
story passage ; the windows in this stage have
plain internal openings with semicircular heads
and stepped sills.

The double bays were evidently each designed
to carry two compartments of quadripartite
vaulting, the middle shafts of the groups of
three vaulting-shafts placed over the cylindrical
piers of the arcades supporting a transverse rib,
while the flanking shafts and the nook-shafts
received the diagonals.-*'" The thrusts of the
vault were counteracted at the points of
support by semicircular arches which still span
the triforium beneath the aisle roof, and by
broad pilasters on the outer wall. In the
western double bay, which is a little shorter
than the eastern, the arches of the arcades
next the crossing-piers are considerably narrower
than the eastern arches, and consequently, as the
triple vaulting-shafts are placed exactly over the
cylindrical piers of the arcades, the western
compartment of the double vault of this bay
must have been, as it still is, much narrower
than the eastern compartment. Even had both
bays been subdivided equally with respect to
the ground-stage, as is the case in the eastern
bay, the compartments of the vaults next the
central main transverse would still have been
slightly wider than the other compartments,
owing to the greater width from east to west

29uf}jg lines of the lunettes of the original vault
still exist in p.irt here.

of the eastern arch of the crossing and the former
great sanctuary arch.

The remains of the apse, which were un-
covered in 1895, show that an interlacing
arcade like that which runs round the outer
walls of the original portions of the church
occupied the lower part of the ground-stage,
and that there were two vaulting-responds
similar to those of the central transverse of
the surviving portion of the quire. The ground-
stage of the original single bay next the apse
must have been blank, as it was flanked by the
eastern apses of the aisles. The interlacing
arcades were most likely continued from the
apse along the foot of the walls, and the tri-
forium and clearstory probably repeated the
design of each subdivision of the upper stages
of the double bays. The vault was almost
certainly a single quadripartite compartment
carried by triforium shafts, and it was probably
separated by a transverse arch of two orders
from that of the apse.

The 13th-century rebuilding entailed the
demolition of all this bay except the substance
of the piers which divided it from the original
double bays. Single arches open to the eastern-
most bays of the aisles, which were also rebuilt
to join up with the new eastern transept. These
arches are of the same type as those which open
from the east end of the aisles into the Nine
Altars. They are each of three richly moulded
orders, the outer order stilted, and the inter-
mediate order ornamented with the dog-tooth.
Their western responds are the counterpart of
the eastern responds, which form part of the
great piers terminating the side walls of the
quire. The labels are enriched with knobs of
foliage and touch the enriched string-courses
which mark the sill of the triforium. The walls
are not set back above the ground-stage as in
the original western bays. The triforium open-
ings are nearly alike on both sides ; each consists
of three two-centred drop arches with dog-tooth
enrichment inclosed by a nearly semicircular
arch with an enriched label and headstops. The
subsidiary arches spring from circular shafts
with foliage capitals and moulded bases, the
shafts at the responds being flanked by smaller
detached shafts with similar capitals and bases.
Outside these again on both quire and triforium
faces are slender marble shafts with capitals and
bases of the same character, those towards the
quire carrying the inclosing arch. In the tym-
panum above the subsidiary arches are two
circular quatrefoiled panels, those of the
northern triforium opening being filled with
rich foliation, while those of the southern opening
are plain ; below these panels, immediately over
the intersections of the arches, are richly carved
bosses of foliage. The abaci of the jamb shafts
of the northern opening are continued as string-

104

CITY OF DURHAM

courses to the extremities of the bay, and in
both cases the back of the wall is carried by a
pair of two-centred arches springing from a
central shaft, circular on the north and octa-
gonal on the south. The clearstory string is
like that of the triforium. The clearstory has
on either side a pair of pointed windows, each
of two uncusped lights, those on the north
having a plain circle in the head ; the twin rear-
arches, which are enriched with the dog-tooth,
spring from marble nook shafts with foliage
capitals and moulded bases flanked by stone
shaft-rolls round which the main capitals are
continued, and are received upon short stone
shaft-rolls with similar capitals attached to the
central pier, the lower part of which is cut away
for the wall-passage and rests upon an isolated
cluster of marble shafts with elaborately carved
capitals and moulded bases of the same type as
those of the nook shafts. The wall-passage is
entered from the western clearstory of the Nine
Altars, and is not continued westward beyond
this bay. The openings in the jambs have
shouldered heads like those of the wall-passage
openings in the Nine Altars, and the lintel
supporting the upper part of the central pier
has hollow-chamfered edges filled with carved
ornament.

As has been pointed out above, the piers
between this bay and the next belong mainly
to St. Calais' work, but their faces have been
made flush with the adjacent walling by the
cutting away of the shafted responds of the
former sanctuary arch. The junction of the
old and new work is clearly shown by the changes
in the masonry which occur at this point, the
small and comparatively irregular coursing of
the 13th-century builders giving place to
the still more irregular ' making good ' of the
facing of the truncated piers, which is in turn
succeeded by the regularly-coursed ashlar of the
original bays. The flush surface of each pier is
masked by a tall arcade of three trefoiled arches,
the gabled canopies of which extend to the sill-
level of the triforium, while the shafts upon
which they are carried rest on carved corbels
placed at a distance from the sanctuary floor
equal to about one-third of the whole height
from the floor to the triforium. The shafts,
which are alternately of stone and marble, are
banded, and have capitals richly carved with
foliage, birds and grotesques ; the arches are
moulded with a deep hollow filled with rich
sculpture, and the gabled canopies are crowned
with rich finials and crockcted with foliage in
which occur human figures in miniature niches
and birds of a most naturalistic type. The
corbels of the shafts are treated in the same
style of elaboration, being carved with human
and grotesque forms. Below this arcade is a
band of arcaded panelling consisting of six

trefoiled arches springing from shafts with plain
capitals and inclosed within a square containing
label, and between the panelling and the floor
is an aumbry with double doors. The tri-
forium string-course is stepped upwards as it
crosses the pier, clearing the canopies, and is
again dropped to join the plain string-course of
the original bays.^" Immediately above the
raised portion of the string-course is the richly
carved corbel upon which the short triple shafts
of the present easternmost transverse are carried.
These consist of a central stone shaft flanked by
two slighter marble shafts, all having elaborately
sculptured capitals.

The present high vault of the quire belongs
to the period of the 13th-century reconstruction.
The irregularity which St. Calais' method of
spacing must have entailed in the sizes of the
compartments of the original high vault has
already been pointed out.

The entire rebuilding of the single bay next
the apse, however, and the removal of the great
sanctuary arch by which it was separated from
the double bays, rendered it possible approxi-
mately to equalise all the compartments except
the westernmost. The new transverse arches,
which are of the two-centred form, were all made
slighter and of equal size, the double compart-
ment system being abandoned in favour of a
series of single quadripartite compartments, and
as it was necessary to keep the crown of the
vault as nearly as possible at the old level, the
centres of those transverses which are carried
by the old points of support are dropped below
their springing. In consequence of this re-
arrangement of the vault, only the middle
shafts of the responds of the old transverses
of two orders between the double bays are
required to carry the new transverses at this
point, and the shafts on cither side, which
carried the outer order of the old transverses,
now receive the diagonals. The short flanking-
shafts rising from the triforium sill upon which
the old diagonals were received, being thus
rendered useless for their original purpose, were
utilised to support slender marble shafts with
foliated capitals from which the present stilted
wall-ribs spring. The triple attached shafts
standing upon the triforium sill in the middle
of each bay received as before the transverses
and diagonals of the vault, and the vaulting
shafts next the responds of the eastern arch of
the crossing, which were necessarily left un-
touched, still continued to discharge their
original functions, the slender shafts of the
wall-ribs being supported by carved corbels.

^ On the north side it clcirs the two eastern
canopies only, its junction wth the original string-
course being masked by the finial of the western
canopy.

105

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

In the case of the transverse between the new
and the old work, however, which is placed at
about the centre line of the former sanctuary
arch, the cutting away of the original shafted
responds left the shafts of the old diagonals
isolated some distance westwards from the
triple corbelled shafts provided for the new
transverse and diagonals, and consequently
useless for the direct support of the wall-ribs
of this compartment. Marble shafts extending
to the shell of the vault, like those of the wall-ribs
of the other compartments, are, however, placed
upon their capitals, and the space intervening
between them and the eastern spring of the
vault is occupied on both north and south sides
by trefoiled gables forming canopies to small
figures on sculptured brackets. These canopies
die into the vault on the east and thus mask the
springing of the wall-ribs, while on the west they
rest on small marble shafts supported by carved
corbels placed immediately to the east of the
capitals of the shafts of the old diagonals. The
transverse arches of the vault are like those of
the vault of the Nine Altars, being each of two
orders, the inner order moulded with filleted
rolls, and the outer order enriched with dog-
tooth ornament. The diagonals are moulded with
a central filleted roll with hollows on either side
filled with dog-tooth ornament set at intervals.
The easternmost compartment has in addition
a transverse ridge-rib terminated on the north
by a seated figure flanked by lizard-like monsters,
and on the south by an angel ; the wall-ribs
of this compartment spring from richly carved
corbels. The central bosses of the whole vault
are very elaborately sculptured ; that of the
middle compartment has a figure of the Agnus
Dei, while the boss of the westernmost compart-
ment appears to represent Abraham receiving
the souls of the saved into Heaven.

The treatment of the remodelled easternmost
bays is nearly alike in both QUIRE AISLES.
Each has seven bays of wall-arcading of the
same type as that of the Nine Altars, and is
lighted by an original late 13th-century window
with restored four-light tracery and a two-
centred rear-arch of two orders with dog-tooth
enrichment, springing from twin jamb shafts
with foliated capitals, the inner shafts being of
marble and the outer shafts of stone. These
windows are placed close against the responds
bounding the bays on the west, and the outer
of the western jamb shafts is utilised in each
case to carry one of the diagonals of the vault,
into which the outer order of the rear-arch dies.
The waU-arcade of the bay on the north has no
bounding string-course above it, and the
quatrefoils over the intersections of the arch-
mouldings are omitted in the four bays beneath
the window, the sill of which is splayed down-
wards nearly to the tops of the labels of the

arcade, and finished with a projecting moulding
on the edge. The siU of the corresponding
window of the south aisle is not splayed so far
downwards, and the string-course above the
arcade is confined to the four western bays,
stopping at this point upon a foliated boss.
The shafts of the second bay from the west are
cut short and rest upon the ogee-shaped label
of an inserted 14th-century doorway, now
blocked. The quadripartite vaults have richly
sculptured central bosses, and the ribs are of
the same character as those of the high vault.

The transverse arches dividing these bays from
the western bays are of the original work of
St. Calais. They are each of two semicircular
moulded orders, and, as has been explained
above, marked the commencement of the
original apses. The orders are moulded with
rolls and hollows and the responds have
attached half-shafts with cushion capitals and
moulded bases to each order. The plinths and
sub-plinths are like those of the eastern quire
piers, and are of the same height. Imme-
diately to the west of the responds of the
transverses are single attached half-shafts for
the diagonals of the vaults, those on the quire
sides of the aisles connecting the responds of
the transverses and those of the adjoining arches
of the quire arcades into continuous suites of
shafts. The four remaining bays of each aisle,
which, being spaced by the centre-lines of the
quire, are of unequal length, are divided from
each other by transverses of a single order,
springing from the middle shafts of triple
shafted responds like those of the easternmost
transverses, the flanking shafts receiving the
diagonals. The plinths and sub-plinths follow
the design of those of the quire piers to which
they are severally adjacent. The westernmost
bays open north and south to the transept
aisles ; the lower portions of the outer walls of
the other bays are occupied by interlacing
arcades, the longer bays having six bays of arcad-
ing, and the shorter bays five. These arcades,
which, as stated above, are continued round the
outer walls of the whole of the original church,
though interrupted in many places by later
insertions, stand upon a sub-plinth formed by
a continuation of that of the responds of the
transverses ; they consist of interlacing semi-
circular arches moulded with edge-rolls and shallow
hollows and springing from coupled shafts with
cushion and scalloped capitals having an abacus
common to each pair and moulded bases standing
on square plinths above the sub-plinth. The
present windows of the north aisle were originally
inserted in the last half of the 14th century, but
they were all renewed in 1 848, their tracery being
for the most part copied from windows to be
found in the churches of Sleaford and Holbeach
in Lincolnshire and Boughton Aluph in Kent.

106

CITY OF DURHAM

Their internal sills are lower than those of
St. Calais' windows, the string-course marking
the sill-level of which has been lowered about
9 in. in the second and third bays, and has been
replaced by a 14th-century string-course in the
fourth bay. In each bay is a stone bench ; that
in the third bay opposite the site of Bishop
Skirlaw's altar is of the late 14th or early 15th
century, and the front has multifoiled circular
panels containing Skirlaw's shield of arms
alternating with smaller cinquefoil-headed
panels. The bench in the second bay is quite
plain, while that in the fourth bay has a pro-
jecting moulding with nail-head enrichment and
is stopped by a doorway formerly leading to the
Sacrist's Exchequer, or later Song School.'*

The windows of the south aisle are also 14th-
century insertions. They are each of four lights
with flowing tracery in a two-centred head,
and are said to have been ' restored as they were
found' in 1842. The original sill-string has
been replaced by a 14th-century siU-string. In
the third bay is a plain stone bench. The wall-
arcade in the fourth bay has been partly cut
away for the insertion of two doorways ; the
eastern, which is of the 13th century and
has a trefoiled head and shafted jambs, is the
* reuestrye ' doorway of Rites, while the
western doorway, a 14th-century insertion, may
perhaps have opened to stairs to the ' Chamber '
over the west end of the vestry. The ribs of the
quadripartite vaults which cover each bay of the
original portions of the aisles are moulded with
hoUow-chamfered edges and have half-rounds on
their soffits.

Traces of the fittings of the aisles described
in Rites can still be seen in the stonework.
In the easternmost bay of the north aisle was
the loft or 'porch' called the ' Anchoridge.'
In it was ' an altar for a monke to say dayly
masse beinge in antient time inhabited with an
Anchorite, wherunto the Pretors (priors) were
wont much to frequent both for the excellency
of the place as also to heare the masse standinge
so conveniently unto the high altar . . . the
entrance to this porch or Anchoridge was upp
a paire of faire staires adioyninge to the north
dore of St. Cuthbert's feretorie, under the w"^*"
staires the pascall did lye. . . .' The fifth and
westernmost bay of the aisle, which opens into
the eastern aisle of the north transept, was
occupied by a ' porch . . . hauinge in it an
altar and the rood or picture of our sauiour,
w'^'' altar and roode was much frequented in
deuotion of D''' Swallwell sometime monke of
Durham. . . .' In the easternmost bay of the

south aisle ' adiojTiinge to the pillar next St.
Cuthberts Feretorie, next the Quire door on
the south side there was a most fair Roode or
picture of our Saviour, called the black rood of
Scotland with the picture of Mary and John
being brought out of holy rood house in Scotland
by King David Bruce, and w-as wonne at the
battle of Durham with the picture of our Lady
on the one side of our Saviour and the picture
of St. John on the other side, the which Rood
and pictures were all three very richly wrought
in silver, the which were all smoked black over,
and on every one of their heads, a Crowne of
pure bett gold of goldsmithes work. . . .' The
rood was attached to ' fine Wainscot work . . .
redd Varnished over very finely, and all sett
full of starres of Lead, every starre finely guilted
over with gold. . . .'

On the south side of the quire, between the
piers of the western arch of the east double bay,
is the MONUMENT OF BISHOP HATFIELD
(d. 1 381), with the great throne of stone above
it erected by the bishop during his lifetime.
The alabaster effigy of the bishop lies on a high
table tomb with moulded plinth and arcaded
sides, the canopy of which forms the ground
story of the throne. This is an elaborate
piece of work, open to the north and south by
foliated segmental arches, on each side of which
are trefoiled niches containing brackets for
statues, flanked by narrow buttresses of two
stages terminating in pinnacles. The arches
are richly moulded and have large shields with
the bishop's arms in the spandrels ; the arms
also occur on smaller shields all over the monu-
ment, the ground work of which is of rich diaper.
The canopy has a lierne vaulted roof with
moulded ribs, the intersections of which have
bosses of sculptured foliage, and on the walls
at the east and west ends are the remains of
paintings representing in each case two angels.^
A flight of steps on the east side leads from the
quire to the throne, which is a kind of pulpitum
or gallery containing five seats, for the bishop
and his chaplains. The fronts of the seats
have quatrefoil panelling and that of the bishop
projects in hexagonal form. This middle seat
has above it a hexagonal niche with canopy of
rich design, and above this again is another
canopied niche rising to a considerable height.
The backs of the other seats are panelled in the
lower part, and above is open tracery work
with canopied niches for statues flanking the
central opening at a lower level. The back
of the throne thus forms an elaborate piece of
stone tabernacle work in five bays divided by

'1 The Exchequer was built by Wessington (1416-
1446) and pulled down about 1633-34. ^^^ doorway is
now blocked ; externally all traces of it have been
effaced.

*^ Those at the east end hold blank sliields ; the
painting at the west end is badly damaged and the
objects held by the angels cannot be identified — they
were probably shields.

107

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

slender pinnacled buttresses. The sloping wall
of the staircase is arcaded with trefoiled arches
in which are brackets for statues, but the iron
handrail is modern. The throne was restored
about 1700^ by Bishop Crewe, but the present
painted wooden front, which takes the place
of the original one of stone, is nearly a century
later. The whole monument was originally
richly gilded and coloured and still retains
much of its colouring.**

In the middle of the quire in front of the
altar steps is the great blue marble slab which
covered the GRAVE OF BISHOP LEJVIS
BEAUMONT (d. 1333). It was discovered
beneath the pavement in 1848 when the east
portion of the floor of the quire was lowered
to the level of the west section and the steps
moved nearer the altar. The slab, now in two
pieces, measures 15 ft. 10 in. by 9 ft. 7 in., and
formerly bore a large brass, the matri.x for which
alone remains. It is described in Rites as ' a
most curious and sumptuous marble stone . . .
adorned with most excellent workmanshipp of
brasse, wherein [the bishop] was most excellently
and lively pictured, as he was accustomed to
singe or say mass, with his mitre on his head and
his crosier's staff in his hand . . . being most
artificially wrought and sett forth.' ^

In the bay opposite the Bishop's throne, on
the north side of the quire and occupying the
site of ' Skirlaw's altar,' ^ is the monument,
with recumbent EFFIGT OF BISHOP
LIGHTFOOT (d. 1891) in white marble,
designed by Sir Edgar Boehm, R.A., and com-
pleted after his death by Alfred Gilbert, R.A.
There is also on the south side of the quire a
modern tablet to Joseph Butler, Bishop of
Durham (d. 1752), with an inscription by W. E.
Gladstone.

THE STALLS, with the tabernacle work over
them, were erected during Cosin's episcopate,
c. 1665, and are interesting examples of the

^' The carved balustrade to the stairs shown in
Billings' drawings was of this period.

^* The throne was ' new painted and gilt ' in 1772
by Bishop Egerton. Dr. GreenweO points out that
the upper portion, or reredos, is not well fitted into
the space it occupies between the pillars, and that
some of its parts do not quite correspond with each
other. He conjectures that Hatfield used some pieces
of stonework already carved before he planned the
throne, and that it possibly was not from the first
intended to occupy the position in which it was ulti-
mately placed (op. cit. 80).

^* The monument was prepared by Beaumont be-
fore he died ; the epitaph and the ' sayings of Scrip-
ture,' which he had selected, are recorded in Rius of
Durh. 15. The monument is described and figured
in Ptoc. Soc. Antiq. 16 June 1890.

^8 i.e., the altar of St. Blaise and St. John which he
founded, and where he had constructed his own monu-
ment. He was buried in the aisle opposite.

characteristic work associated with his name, in
which the general form and spirit of the 15th
century are preserved side by side with Renais-
sance or classic detail. There are eighteen stalls
on each side, and originally there were four
returns on each side of the quire entrance, but
when Cosin's screen was taken down in 1846
the return stalls were removed ; the rest were
altered and the tabernacle work * cut to pieces
and placed between the piers instead of in front
of them.' ^' The side stalls were restored to their
original positions thirty years later by Sir Gilbert
Scott, the tabernacle work replaced in front of
the piers and new parts carved to take the
place of those destroyed; new front seats were
also added. The stalls have tall and rich cano-
pies supported by circular shafts, traceried back
panelling, and a series of carved misericordcs.^
The desks and carved bench-ends^ are of the
same date, as is also the litany desk, which
bears the arms of Cosin and those of the see.
The oak faldstools in the sanctuary are also
Cosin's.

Of other mediaeval QUIRE FITTINGS no
proper record of the quire-screen has been
preserved, but it appears to have been of stone
and adorned with statues of kings and queens
of England and Scotland and of bishops,
founders and benefactors of the church.'"' The
destruction of Cosin's screen is much to be
deplored. It is described as a magnificent work
of elaborately and richly carved oak vigorously
treated. Upon it was placed in 1684 the organ
built by Bernard Schmidt (Father Smith) in a
very handsome oak case on which were the arms
of Bishop Crewe. The case was removed from
the church in 1876 and is now in the Cathedral
Library .■•I

The present open quire-screen, by Sir Gilbert
Scott, is of three bays, of marble and alabaster,
with clustered piers and spandrels of mosaic
work.

The altar put up by Dean Hunt (1620-38),
consisting of a red marble slab on six supporting
pillars, is still in position, though covered by the

^' Boyle, Guide to Durh. 212, quoting King.

^* The misericorde carvings are without supporters ;
most of the subjects are the usual mediaeval ones, but
there are many repetitions, especially on the south side.
The 17th-century feeling is in some cases pronounced.
The stalls are believed to be the work of James
Clement, architect, of Durham, who died in 1690.
Boyle, op. cit. 207.

^' There are two gangways and twelve bench-ends
on each side.

*" Rites of Durh. (Surtees Soc), 20 ; Boyle, op. at.

235-

*^ The present organ dates from 1876, and was
restored and enlarged in 1905. It is di\'ided and placed
in the second arch from the west on each side of the
quire, above the canopies of the stalls. The cases
were designed by Mr. C. Hodgson Fowler.

CITY OF DURHAM

later altar designed hy Scott. The ' cherubim
faces ' complained of by Peter Smart have disap-
peared, but holes on the faces of the pillars mark
their position.

Two brass chandeliers, dating from 1751,
hang in the quire ; another and larger one has
been lost.

THE CROSSING was designed to receive a
vault, but it is impossible now to say whether the
vault was built. In each of the four internal angles
is a single attached shaft ; these shafts are original
up to rather more than half the height from the
springing of the crossing arches to the gallery
above, but the walling shows that there has
never been a vault below the gallery level.*^ It
is possible that no central tower was built, the
crossing being perhaps covered with a low
pyramidal roof; but, supposing a tower of some
sort to have been erected, it seems to have been
rebuilt or heightened in the latter half of tlie
13th century by Prior Hugh de Derlington, and
it was this upper structure or bell-tower which
was set on fire by lightning and destroyed in
May 1429. It seems to have been constructed
largely of timber, and was surmounted by a small
cupola covered with copper or brass. The new
tower which took its place was ' so enfeebled and
shaken ' by 1458 that doubts were entertained
as to its standing for any length of time, and its
rebuilding, as already stated, was carried out in
1470-76, the lantern or bell-chamber not being
completed till about fifteen years later. Above
the arches of the crossing the great tower rises
some 150 ft., its total height above the ground
being 218 ft. The internal gallery is reached by
doorways with crocketed ogee hood-moulds,
one in the middle of each of the four walls, and
is carried on corbels. It has a parapet pierced
with quatrefoils in circles and a moulded
coping ; the alternate corbels are carved with
grotesques, and two on the west side bear respec-
tively the arms of Bishops Booth and Langley."
Between the gallery and the great windows the
wall surface on either side the doorways is
covered with an arcade of tall cinquefoiled arches
set in pairs, each pair below a crocketed canopy
and separated from the next by slender buttresses
of two stages. The arcading stands on a project-
ing string-course in which are set four-leaf
flowers and small corbels supporting the but-
tresses. Two of these corbels are carved with
the rebus of Prior Richard Bell (1464-78) and a

** Bilson, Jrch. Jour. Ixxix, 133 ; 'if, however, the
usual type of Norman lantern tower was used any
vault would be above this level.' Mr, Bilson's paper
is, by permission, made use of, and his conclusions
foUowed in the present description.

*' A third has a lion passant. Langley's arms are
diflScult to account for, the work being undoubtedly of
Booth's time.

third with a mermaid. Above the arcade are a
string-course and band of quatrefoils at the
level of the sills of the great windows, in front of
which the quatrefoil panels are pierced and the
band forms the parapet of a wall passage which at
this level goes round the whole tower. Imme-
diately above the windows the tower is vaulted
with a quadripartite vault subdivided by inter-
mediate and lierne ribs with carved bosses at
the intersections and having a large well-hole.
The diagonal ribs spring at the angles from round
vaulting-shafts and the transverse ribs from a
shaft in the middle of each wall carried on a cor-
bel. Above the vault is the beU-ringers' floor,
and over this again the bell chamber. Externally
the tower is of two unequal stages above the
roofs. The loftier lower stage has on each side
two tall pointed windows, lighting the crossing
below the vault, each of two lights divided by a
transom and covered by ogee crocketed labels
with tall finials. The windows are flanked and
separated by narrow panelled pilasters, each with
figures in the lower panels. This stage is divided
from that above by a narrow external gallery,
reached by a doorway in the north wall, called
the Bell-ringers' Gallery, which has a pierced
embattled parapet. The upper, or bell chamber,
stage has also two pointed windows on each side,
each of two lights, with ogee crocketed labels,
and slender buttress between, and finishes
with a pierced embattled parapet. The roof is
leaded. There are double buttresses at each
angle of the tower, carried up its fuU height, in
the front of which are canopied niches containing
statues. The higher stages above the main roofs
are reached by a staircase in the south-west
angle, entered from the roof space of the south
transept.

In 1 8 10 the exterior of the upper stage was
cased in cement, and the whole tower ' made to
suffer serious indignities,' but at the restoration
of 1859 the cement was removed and the whole
of the upper stage refaced in stone. The statues,
which had been taken down in 18 lo,** were re-
instated and thirteen new ones added. The
exterior of the tower was much altered in detail
at this time.*^ Massive squinches in the angles
of the upper stage may point to an intention to

*^ The statues, twenty-seven in number, were
removed and placed in the Chapel of the Nine Altars
round the sides of St. Cuthbert's platform ; several
were put back before the restoration. Boyle, Guide
to Durh. 329.

** Greenwell, op. cit. 93. The cresting of the
parapet of the lower stage is entirely of the 1 8 10
cement. The outer surface of the tower, which was
in an advanced stage of decay (especially the 1 8 59
work), was repaired, and cracks in the walls mended
vrith tile-stitching between 1921 and 1923. What
Uttle mediaeval masonry remained on the outer faces
was in very bad condition.

109

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

build a spire, or octagon,** an intention never
carried out.

THE TRANSEPTS with their eastern aisles
nearly resemble each other in their details.
Each transept consists, or rather was originally
intended to consist, of two double bays of
unequal size. The double bay next the crossing
on each side is considerably longer than the
other, and the bays are separated by a semi-
circular transverse of two orders, with shafted
responds of the same type as those of the former
transverse between the double bays of the quire.
The widths of the arches next the crossing are
governed by the width of the quire aisles, and
consequently they occupy in each case more
than half the width of the first double bay, so
that the span of the adjoining arch is less by
nearly 3 ft. The same relative diminution is
preserved in the pair of arches in the narrower
end bay, but the crowns of all are kept approxi-
mately at the same level by the expedient of
stilting their springing. The southern cylindrical
pier of the south transept has an incised cheveron
pattern upon it in place of the spiral fluting of the
others, and the bases and plinths of the piers
and responds all follow the design of those of
the crossing piers, but with these exceptions the
detail of the arcades is the same as that of the
quire arcades. It should be noted, however,
that the main piers between the double bays are
made shorter on plan than the crossing piers, so
that the shafts carrying the transverses form
continuous suites with the shafts of the re-
sponds of the adjoining arches.

The east walls of both transepts up to the
top of the triforium stage belong to St. Calais'
work, and nearly resemble in their general design
the original portion of the quire, both showing
preparation for a high vault. The ground-stage
of each double bay is occupied by a pair of
arches to the aisle springing from heavy cylin-
drical minor piers and from shafts attached to
the main piers. The face of the triforium wall
is set back to receive the vaulting shafts, as in
the quire, with the difference that the shafts
over the minor piers are double instead of
triple. The triforium openings are of the same
character as those in the quire, with their pro-
portions modified to suit the narrower middle
bays ; in the still narrower end bays the opening
is single. The semicircular abutting arches
beneath the triforium roof are repeated.

Above the triforium stage the details of the

^* Sir Gilbert Scott was of opinion that the inten-
tion was to erect a ' crown ' like that at St. Nicholas,
Newcastle-on-Tyne, but the squinches seem to sug-
gest either a spire or octagon. Wyatt's drawings,
now in the Dean and Chapter Library, only show that
he intended to give the tower a top of this type ;
there is no reason for supposing that this was the
origin.ll design.

east walls of the transepts vary. As already
mentioned, when the building of the walls had
advanced thus far the intention to vault the
transepts was for the time abandoned, but in
the case of the north transept it was resumed
without modification of the original conception.
The triple shafts on the face of the major
pier and the vaulting shafts in the double bay
next the crossing, which start from the tri-
forium string, are finished with capitals at
the same height as those of the crossing pier,
and the clearstory arcade was designed for and
built with the vault.*' The shafts in the tri-
forium stage w'ere planned for vaulting each
double bay in two compartments, but the nar-
rowness of the northern bay, together with the
projecting staircase in the angle, made this
difficult and the whole space was covered with
a single bay of vaulting ; the double shafts over
the minor pier thus became useless and were
carried up to the curve of the vault. Each of
the four clearstory openings has a plain semi-
circular highly stilted arch in front of the
window, flanked in the double bay next the
crossing by a narrow and lower arch on each
side, the arches springing from plain outer
jambs and from monolithic shafts with cushion
capitals. In the northern bay, owing to its
single vault, the position of the clearstory
windows left room only for a narrow opening on
each side of the double wall-shaft, the space for
corresponding openings on the other side of
each window being insufficient. These openings
were therefore omitted and square jambs built
to receive the window arches, over which the
lateral cell of the vault passes, forming an
elliptical lunette. The vaulting of the double
bay next the crossing introduces the type of
vault which was afterwards followed in the
south transept and nave (which probably
existed originally over the quire), consisting
of two quadripartite compartments without any
intermediate transverse, and a strongly empha-
sised transverse between it and the adjoining vault
on the north. The curve of the transverse,
like that of the crossing arch, is a semicircle
slightly stilted and the diagonal ribs are seg-
ments of circles struck from centres below the
springing line. The transverse is of two orders,
the outer square and the wider inner order
moulded with a roll between two hollows, similar
to the inner order of the crossing arches. The
ribs also are moulded with a roll between two
hollows (as in the quire aisles) and are con-
structed of thin stones with lozenge-shaped
keys.

In the south transept the east clearstory was
built to receive a flat wooden ceiling, and
differs considerably from that just described.

*' Bilson, Arch. Jour. Ixxix, 136.

CITY OF DURHAM

Internally the openings in front of the windows
have plain semicircular arches which were flanked,
except in the narrow end bay, by tall narrow
openings with semicircular heads springing
from the same level as those of the windows.
When the idea of vaulting was abandoned the
wall shafts were carried up to the wall head and
thus governed the setting-out of the clearstory
arcade, but later, when the vault was added, it
was found necessary to insert capitals to the shafts
so as to receive the vault members. The capital
of the shaft next the crossing was inserted at a
slightly higher level than that of the crossing
pier and the others were placed at the same
height. All the capitals are single cushions,
except that of the south shaft of the group of three
on the major pier, which has its cushion divided
into two. The double shafts over the southern
cylindrical pier still remain their full height, as
they were not interfered with by the vault,
and a single shaft in the south-east angle,
originally planned as a vaulting shaft and after-
wards carried up the wall, also remains unal-
tered, the diagonal rib of the added vault
springing from an adjoining shaft which rises
from the floor. The narrow openings flanking
the clearstory windows are now partly masked
by thevault, and when this was added all but one''^
were walled up. The vaulting followed the plan
and system of that of the north transept, the
only difference being the addition of the cheveron
ornament. This occurs on each side of the outer
order of the transverse, and flanking the roll-
moulding of the diagonal ribs, as well as on the
outer order on the south side of the crossing
arch.*' The keys of the vault in the Uvo bays
next the crossing are jointed at right angles to the
direction of the rib, but in other respects the
system and construction of the vaulting are the
same as that in the north transept.

The west walls of the transepts probably
belong to the period of the vacancy of the see
after St. Calais' death, their simple character
being in marked contrast to the work opposite.
The only vertical division in each case is formed
by the great triple shafts carrying the main
transverse, and as there is no set-off at the tri-
forium sill no supports were provided to receive
the diagonal ribs of the vaults, their place
being taken by corbels. Next the western
crossing piers each transept opens to the nave

*^ Thit on the south side of the window in the
second bay from the end.

*' The cheverons on 'the transverse are similar to
those of the outer order of the nave arcade arches ;
those of the ribs are of the same type as on the ribs
of the nave vault, but simpler. ' This vault was cer-
tainly built while the nave was in course of con-
struction . . ., it is probably of slightly earlier date
than the vault of the nave.' Bilson, Arcb. Jour.
Izzix, 140.

aisle by a semicircular arch of two orders, with
shafted responds, the inner ones forming part
of the great piers, and in each end bay is a semi-
circular headed window ; in the north transept
this window retains the mullions and tracery
inserted in the 14th century, and is of three
lights.

In the north transept the capitals of the great
triple shafts on the west were probably built
with the walls, but in the south transept, when
the idea of vaulting was abandoned, the shafts
were carried up to the wall-head, capitals being
afterwards added to receive the transverse (as on
the east wall), and corbels to take the diagonal
ribs. The corbels in both transepts are carved
with grotesques, but those in the south are of a
more advanced type, the sculptured heads being
similar to the corresponding corbels of the nave.
The treatment of the west triforium stage is
alike in both transepts, but there is variety in
the design of the openings ; that next the
crossing in each case consists of a pair of moulded
semicircular arches like those in the quire, but
with single half-shafts attached to the jambs,
and the whole slightly recessed within a plain
semicircular outer order. The opening next to
this is of a different type, consisting of two very
narrow semicircular arches without moulding
of any sort supported by a central circular shaft
of heavy proportions ; the shaft is not a monolith,
as in the other openings, its drum being built up
in narrow courses. In the further end bay
there is in each case a triple opening, with wide
middle and narrower flanking arches carried on
shafts with cushion capitals and plain outer
jambs.

The west clearstory of the north transept cor-
responds with that opposite, except that in the
contracted northern bay there is a single window
with a triple arcade. In the south transept the
clearstory follows generally the design of that
opposite, but as there are no vaulting shafts
at the triforium stage the arrangement of the
narrow flanking openings is somewhat different ;
in the double bay, next the crossing, there were
two such openings between the two windows and
a single one beyond each, while in the south
bay the single window was flanked by two
narrow openings on each side. Three of these
eight flanking openings (in the outer bay) remain
as first constructed, but the others were walled
up, or removed when the vault was built.'' Both
transepts have clearstory wall-passages on each
side covered with small barrel vaults, but the
vault in the south transept is some 3 ft. 6 in.
higher than the other, having been constructed
at a time when the walls were not expected to
sustain the weight of a vault.

The wall-arcade of the quire aisles is continued

*" Bilson, op. cit. 131.

Ill

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

round the outer walls of both transepts, broken
only by the projecting angle turrets, and on the
west side of the south transept by a doorway,
now blocked, opening to the east alley of the
cloister. This doorway has a plain semi-
circular rear-arch and jambs and externally
the head is of two roll-moulded semicircular
orders springing from nook shafts with cushion
capitals. In the same wall further south is a
fireplace," opened out and restored in 1901.
The angle turrets contain vices to the triforium
and clearstory passages, access to which is gained
in each case from the transept by a plain doorway
with flat lintel and semicircular relieving
arch.

In the north transept the end wall is almost
entirely occupied above the level of the arcading
by a large six-light window inserted by Prior
Fossor about 1355. The triforium and clearstory
passages are of course interrupted by it, but a
passage a little below the level of the former is
carried across the window by an arcade of six
bays coinciding with the muUions. The lights
are cinquefoiled and the tracery in the head is
composed of forms resembling five-leaved flowers,
the petals of which consist of elongated quatre-
foils. The six cinquefoiled arches which carry
the passage across the lower part of the window
appear to have been added late in the 15th
century or early in the i6th century by Prior
Castell ; this gallery gives the window from
the inside the appearance of being transomed,
though it is not visible from outside. The
window is thus described in Rites : ' In the
north end of y* allei of the Lantrene ther is a
goodlie faire larg & lightsum glass wyndovve
havinge in it xij faire long pleasant & most
bewtifull lights being maid & buylte w"" fyne
stone & glas w"^'' in the ould t)-me was gone to
decaie, and y* prior at that tyme. called prior
Castell, dide Renewe it, & did buylt )t all up
enowgh againe called the VVyndowe of the iiij
Doctors of y* churche w''^ hath vj long fair
lightes of glas in y* upper parte of y* said
wyndowe.' The gallery is described as ' the
breadth of the thickness of the wall at the
division of the superiour Lights from the in-
feriour . . . and is supported by the Partitions of
the Lighte made strong, and equally broad with
the Gallrey.' The original sill-string, which,
with the clearstory and triforium string-courses,
is continued round the vice-turret, is cut away
from the sill of the window. In the south
transept the end wall remains in its original state
up to the sill of the triforium except that a
modem opening has been made in the ground-

" Here, perhaps, charcoal was kept alight for use
in the thuribles, and here may have been heated the
' obley-irons ' for making altar breads. Greenwell,
Durh. Cath. 49.

Stage to communicate with the slype. In this
portion of the wall is a large blocked window
with an internal semicircular head and shafted
jambs of two orders. The original sill-string,
which forms the bounding member of the
arcade beneath, remains. A large early 15th-
century window fills the two upper stages ; it is
of six lights with vertical tracery in the head,
and the jambs are pierced by the triforium pas-
sage. This window is described in Rites in the
following terms : — ' Also in y* southe end of the
allei of J* Lantren aboue y* clocke there is a
faire large glasse wyndowe Caulede the Te deum
wyndowe veri fair glased accordinge as eu'y verse
of Te deu is song or saide, so it is pictured in y*
w}-ndowe. . . .' The clock which formerly stood
beneath the window was removed in 1845. The
case was of carved oak, made originally by Prior
Castell, and at one time it stood, according
to Rites, at the south end of the rood-loft. Dean
Hunt in 1632 made several additions to it, but
much of Castell's work remained. The dials are
now set within the blocking of the lower win-
dow.

The vaulting of the transept aisles corre-
sponds in every respect with that of the quire
aisles, the transverses having shafted responds
attached to the outer walls and to the main and
cylindrical piers of the transept arcades. In the
north wall of the north transept aisle is a 14th-
century window with modern three-light tracery.
Two coupled shafts and the west respond of the
original wall-arcade beneath remain, but the
arches have been removed, the internal sill of
the window being now at the level of the abaci
of the capitals of the shafts. The two east
bays of the arcading have been filled up, and in
the blocking are two rectangular aumbries ;
the eastern aumbry is probably of the 13th
century, while the western one appears to be
contemporary with the insertion of the window
above. The three semicircular-headed windows
in the east wall were all at one time filled with
14th-century tracery of three lights, but the
two northern ones were restored in the ' Nor-
man ' taste in the 19th century, the tracery
being removed. The two bays of wall arcading
beneath the northernmost window have been
thrown into one semicircular-headed bay in
which traces of painted decoration remain.
The other bays of the transept each contain three
bays of arcading ; that in the southernmost
bay has been renewed. The floor of the aisle
is raised three steps above that of the quire
aisle and transept, and an altar-pace is provided
along the east wall. Here were the altars of
St. Nicholas and St. Giles, St. Gregory, and St.
Benedict. In the south transept aisle the three
windows in the east wall are all modern ' Nor-
man ' restorations. The openings of the two
northern windows were enlarged internally,

112

CITY OF DURHAM

probably in the 14th century, their sills being
splayed down to the abaci of the shafts of the
wall-arcades, and the lower portion of the wall-
arcade in the middle bay blocked. The wall-
arcades have recently been restored and the sills
of the windows raised, the two northern bays
of the aisle now forming a memorial chapel
to the officers and men of the Durham Light
Infantry who fell in the Great War. The chapel
is enclosed at its north and south ends by oak
screens, that on the north being based upon
the design of the screen which enclosed the
chapel before 1840.^2

The window in the south wall of the aisle
is a 14th-century insertion, and as in the case
of the other 14th-century windows, the sill
is splayed down to the abaci of the arcade shafts.
The floor is raised like that of the north transept
aisle. In the northernmost bay was the altar
of Our Lady ' alias Howghel's altar,' and in the
other two bays were the altars of Our Lady
of Bolton*' and of St. Faith and St. Thomas the
Apostle.

THE NAVE consists of three double bays
from the crossing westward, followed by two
single bays. The double bays are divided from
each other by the great triple shafts which rise
from the floor on the face of the major piers and
receive the great transverses, and each is covered
by a double quadripartite vault without any
intermediate transverse. The two western
bays are covered each by a single quadripartite
vault and are separated by a simOar transverse
springing on each side from the three middle
shafts on the inner faces of great piers similar
to those of the crossing ; these were required
for the support of the angles of the western
towers, the inner walls of which form the sides
of, and are open to, the westernmost bay of the
nave, while their ground stages constitute the
corresponding bays of the aisles. The vault of
the westernmost nave bay has a large circular
eye-hole. The arcades of the three double bays
follow the general design of those of the quire
and transepts, with semicircular arches on
alternate major and minor piers. The single
western bays, which are each about half the
length of the double bays, have single arches
springing from shafted responds against the

'^ Some fragments of Cosin's work, which had been
preserved in the Cathedral Library, have been incor-
porated in this work. The regimental badge appears
in both screens.

*' The altar of the Memorial Chapel occupies the
position of the Altar of Our Lady of Bolton, two
pillars of which remain restored to their original use.
The designation of this and the adjoining altar arose
from their being endowed respectively with lands at
Bolton in the parish of Edlingham (Northumberland),
and at Houghall, near Durham. Greenwell, Durh.
Cath. 62.

main piers. The general design of the triforium
stage follows that of the quire,^ and the
clearstory that of the north transept, with
certain modifications named below.

As already pointed out, the first double bay
of the arcade, the first two bays of each aisle,
and the first bay of the triforium stage date
from the end of the first stage of the work,
which coincided approximately with the early
years of the 12th century. In this earlier
east portion of the nave the general scheme
of the first work, with but slight modifications
of detail, was followed. The first two major
piers belong to it and are similar to those of the
transepts, and the arches are simply moulded.
The supports on the back of these piers and
on the aisle walls opposite are triple shafts,
as in the quire and transepts ; but in the case
of the minor cylindrical piers the attached shafts
at the back are omitted and the corresponding
piers, or responds, on the aisle walls are half
cylinders. In omitting the shafts, however,
the builders increased the diameter of the
cylinder, thus giving it a projection into the
aisle sufficient to receive the springing of the
vaulting ribs on that side. This change was
followed Ln the later work westward. The first
triforium opening resembles in general design
that in the quire next the east crossing piers,
where there are three jamb shafts on each side,
the inner receiving the sub-arch, the middle one
the moulded containing arch, and the outer
being continued up as a vaulting shaft. In
the nave, however, where there are no vaulting
shafts, the outer shaft is finished with a capital
at the same level as the others, and receives
an unmoulded outer order to the containing
arch. The wall thickness, which in the quire
is reduced by recessing, is here retained, the
wall surface being the same as that of the arcade
wall below ; this treatment of the w^all is con-
tinued westward throughout the nave tri-
forium. The triple jamb shafts are repeated
on each side of the pier over the minor pier
of the great arcade, with a narrow strip of wall
surface between the outer shafts, at which point,
on this story, the work of the first building
period ends. Thus far, the work, like that of the
triforium stage on the west side of the tran-
septs, shows no preparation for a high vault,
and as the triforium design of the first bay
was continued in an enriched form westward in
the second building period, it has sometimes
been assumed that when the great arcade and
the triforium of the rest of the nave were built,

^ More strictly it continues the motive of the
triforium openings in the bays of the transepts next
the crossing, where the earlier design is followed,
except that the outer order of the arch is not moulded
and has no shaft to receive it.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

the idea of a vault had been abandoned. The
later builders, however, could scarcely have done
otherwise than follow in the triforium what had
been done in the easternmost bay, and they may
have intended from the first to construct a
high vault with corbel supports, as had been
done on the west side of the north transept."
However that may be, there is evidence to
show that before the clearstory was reached
the construction of a high vault had been
thought out, and there can be no doubt that the
existing vault was built as the original covering
of the nave.

That a vault was intended before the
clearstory was completed is indicated by the
clearstory arcade itself (which is designed to
fit the lunettes of the vault), and by the con-
struction of the abutting arches over the tri-
forium. Both the major and minor piers of
the triforium are reinforced at the back by
broad pilasters of single projection,^ and the
vault is abutted by half-arches, or rudimentary
flying buttresses,*** of the same width as the
pilasters across the triforium stage beneath
the roof, \vhich on the outer wall spring from
shorter pilasters with chamfered plinths. The
fact that these plinths were built with the wall
shows that preparation was already being made
for the abutment of a high vault, and the arches
themselves could only have been built when the
outer and inner walls had been carried up to a
sufficient height to receive them. The clearstory
arcade is of the same type as that of the north
transept, but of different proportions and more
advanced in character. The semicircular arches
spring, as in the transept, from monolithic
shafts, but the outer jambs have attached
shafts with cushion capitals. The wide stilted
arch in front of the windo^vs is decorated with
cheverons, but the smaller arches remain un-
moulded. It should be noted that the barrel
vault over the waU passage is reduced in height
through the pier between the openings, a measure
for which there would have been no need unless
a vault over the nave had been intended, its
purpose being to avoid undue weakening of the
abutment. The whole of the clearstory is a
homogeneous work built at one time ; the
cheverons on the middle arches are of the same
type as those of the triforium arches below,
and the cheveron string-course belongs to the

*5 Bilson,in Arch. Jour, bcxix, 143.

** On the easternmost pier on the north side, which is
part of the first work, there is perhaps an indication
that the first intention was to build a semicircular
abutting arch as in the quire and transepts, but there
is no such indication on the corresponding pier on the
south side. Bilson, op. cit. 143.

66a "Pyvo orders were added under the flying arches
in 1914, which brought some strong critici'^m. Cf.
Ptoc. Soc. Antiq. (Ser. 2), xrviii, 52.

second building period in its whole length,
up to the west side of the crossing. The set-back
of the face of the clearstory wall is very slight,
varying on the north side from i-J in. to 6 in.,
and on the south never exceeding 2j in. The
height of the clearstory stage is about 12 in.
more than in the north transept, and seems to
have been controlled by the vault.

The height of the nave vault was governed
to some extent by the semicircular west arch
of the crossing, w^hich is slightly stilted. In
addition to the three shafts which receive the
principal orders of this arch the west piers of
the crossing have, as elsewhere, an additional
shaft designed to receive the outer order of the
arch on that side. This shaft, however, is here
utilised for the springing of the diagonal ribs
of the east bay of the nave, and the outer order
of the crossing arch, which is decorated with
cheverons, dies into the cell of the vault." When
the walls of the nave were carried up it was in-
tended that the great transverses should be
semicircular, repeating the west crossing arch,
and springer stones were set on the capitals
of the great triple shafts for arches of that shape.**
The semicircular curve was, however, actually
employed for the diagonal ribs, and this in a
large measure controlled the design of the nave
vaulting, the transverse arches becoming
pointed almost as a matter of course in order
to keep the ridge level.*' But as the height
did not allow of pointed arches of a normal
form, they were made segmental, the centres
being dropped so considerably that the curves
spring from the capitals with great abruptness.
The pointed arch, too, avoided the weakness
of a flat crown, and the whole vault of the nave
shows a remarkable advance on those of the
transepts. The transverses have two orders,
the wide inner ones moulded with a roll between
two hollows, and the outer ornamented with
cheverons. In the easternmost sub-bay the curves
of the diagonal ribs are very slightly stilted,

*' The vault springs from the same level as the
crossing arches.

** Mr. Bilson points out that in five cases of the eight
the lowest stone of the inner order was thus built for
a semicircular arch, but that in the three others the
segmental curve of the inner order starts directly from
the top of the capital. The lowest voussoirs, or
springers, of the outer order are some 5 in. to 7 in.
wider than those above them. They were built on the
capitals as the work went up, but when the walls had
been carried up to a sufficient height to enable the
arches and vault to be built the soffit width of the
outer order was reduced in order that the diagonal ribs
might clear themselves better at the springing. Op.
cit. 147.

*9 The apex of the extrados of the pointed transverse
arch is only a few inches higher than the crown of the
extrados of the semicircular crossing arch. Bilson,
op. cit. 152.

114

Durham Catiiedrai. : Tiik Nave, looking South-east

CITY OF DURHAM

but in the second and third bays the height from
the springing to the key of the ribs increases ;
from this point, tlie width of the bays being
greater and the height of the ribs the same,
their curve is a Httle less than a semicircle.
In consequence of this the keys of the diagonal
ribs are higher than the crowns of the trans-
verse arches, and the crowns of the cells rise
from the latter to the former.

The ribs are moulded with a roll between
two rows of cheverons, and, like the transverses,
are constructed of thin stones. With one excep-
tion all the keys are lozenge-shaped. The cells
are built of coursed rubble, plastered on the
underside ; where tested their thickness varies
from 12 in. to 20 in. throughout the vault;
except in the two western compartments, the
diagonal ribs spring from corbels, set in pairs in
the middle of each double bay and singly next
the capitals of the great triple shafts. The
corbels are carved with grotesque masks and
each pair has a common abacus. The piers of
the transverse arch between the western towers
have an extra shaft on either side which receive
the ribs.

Westward of the first double bay the arches
of the main arcade differ in detail from the
earlier work. In the inner order the soffit
roll is flanked on each side by a single hollow
instead of a roll and hollow, while the second
orders are decorated with cheverons worked
round a convex profile. On the side facing
the nave there is an outer order of slight pro-
jection decorated with a series of sunk squares
above a small angle roU. The arches spring
from triple-shafted responds with cushion
capitals set against the great piers and from minor
cylindrical columns, the cushion capitals of which
have each an eight-sided abacus. The western-
most pier on each side is oblong in general plan,
being thus strengthened to carry the towers.
The respond shafts have plain moulded bases
standing on the pedestals of the great piers,
which carry also the bases of the vaulting shafts,
and are cruciform in plan, consisting of a course
of plain stones capped by a double quirk-
chamfered moulding, or projecting band, like
that of the piers on the east side of the cross-
ing and in the transepts. The pedestals of the
cylindrical columns are similar, but square on
plan.

All the cylinders have incised decoration,
but of a more advanced character than that of
the columns in the quire. The two which belong
to the first work have a lozengy pattern with two
narrow V-shaped grooves, leaving blank squares
at the intersections ; the next pair are covered
with cheverons worked with a sunk bead between
two fillets and hollows, and have a narrow band
of star ornament immediately below the necks
of the capitals j while the pair in the third

double bay have vertical flutes and large beads
separated by fillets.*** The wall face above the
arches is quite plain throughout.

The triforium is of eight bays. The eastern-
most opening has already been described ;
the next and all the remaining openings west-
ward are similar in design, but the containing
arch is decorated with the cheveron, on the
south side on both orders, but on the north on
the inner order only,** the outer having an angle
roll with plain cheverons sunk in the flat face
above. The tympanum is solid in every case,
and the triforium string has a plain chamfered
face throughout. The triforium gallery is lighted
from the outside by round-headed windows with
external shafted jambs; on the south side small
pointed windows were inserted, one on each side
of the original opening, at a later date, but
have since been blocked up.*^

The clearstory arcade has been described.
The wall-passage runs from end to end and
the windows are semicircular arched, with
external shafted jambs and arches of two orders,
the inner ornamented with cheverons.

The aisles are covered throughout with
quadripartite vaults divided by semicircular
transverses, and are lighted by large round-
headed windows, one to each bay, all of which,
like most of those of the triforium and clear-
story, have been 'restored.'*' Below the windows
the wall arcade is continued along the whole
length of the aisles and across the west end of the
nave, interrupted only by the several doorways.
The vaulting of the two eastern bays of each
aisle is in every way similar to that in the quire
aisles, the ribs being plainly moulded with a
roll between two hollows. In the later bays west-
ward the ribs have cheverons on each side of the
roll, similar in type to those in the arcade arches.**
The half-round piers, or responds, on the outer
walls, have cushion capitals and pedestalled
bases similar to those of the nave columns
and piers. The westernmost bay on each side
(beneath the towers) is of greater width than
the others, as the towers project considerably

*" The decoration in all cases was worked on the
stones before they were set. Bilson, op. cit. 112.

*i The cheverons of the inner orders start with
a roll on each side, but those on the outer order of the
south side have a single roll between the fillets. All
are modelled on a convex profile.

*2 In 1849; they c.in still be seen from the in-
terior.

** The mullions and tracery inserted in these win-
dows in the 15th century were removed in 1S48 in
order to restore them to their ' Norm.in simplicity.'
Externally the heads and jambs are entirely new. The
clearstory windows on the south were restored in
1849, and those on the north in 1850, the inserted
tracery being then removed.

** Except in the westernmost bays below the towers,
where they are simply moulded.

IIS

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

beyond the walls of the aisles. The ribs of the
vault are therefore of greater span and the vault
itself is higher than in the other bays. In
order to give the ribs greater height their spring-
ing was lowered by placing the capitals of the
shafts which receive them below the level of
those of the arches opening into the nave and
aisles. The staircase turrets of the towers
project into these bays in their north-west
and south-west angles respectively, each stair-
case having a doorway similar to those in the
transept turrets. The vault of the north-west
tower has a round eye-hole in the cell next
the nave. There is a window at the west end
of each aisle above the roof of the Galilee.**
The window on the south side of the south-
west tower is blocked by the west range of the
monastic buildings.

The west wall of the nave has three doorways
in the ground stage, the middle one being
the original great doorway, which has a semi-
circular arch of two orders supported on each
side by a single shaft with cushion capitals.
The inner order is decorated with cheveron and
the outer with enriched circular medallions, the
centre one having on it a human face, the others
grotesque animals and figures. The exterior
recessed face of the doorway, now in the Galilee,
has four** orders of cheveron and a hood mould
of lozenges each divided into triangular spaces,
alternately sunk and in relief. The lower part
of the opening has long been blocked by the
altar platform of the Galilee chapel erected by
Bishop Langley, but the upper part remained
open until 1846, when the present great wooden
doors were erected. The doorways on either
side, at the ends of the aisles, have four-centred
heads within a square label and were inserted by
Bishop Langley when he fiUed in the west door-
way ; his arms are in the spandrels. Over the
middle doorway, filling the wall of the nave
proper, is the great pointed west window of
seven lights, with very beautiful leaf tracery,
inserted by Prior John Fossor about 1346. It
is known as the Jesse window and originally
contained glass representing the stem of Jesse.
It is described in Rites as ' a most fyne large
wyndowe of glass, being the hoU storie of the
Rute of Jesse in most fyne coloured glas, verie
fynely and artificially pictured and wrought in
coulers, veri goodly and pleasantlie to behoulde,
with Mary and Christ in her arms in the top.'*'
The present glass dates from 1867.

The great north doorway of the nave is in the
sixth bay of the aisle and has a semicircular

*^ The glass in these windows dates from 1848.

•' Originally there were five orders, the inner one,
with the shafts belonging to it, having been removed
probably when the Galilee was built. Greenwell,
Durh. Cath. 52.

•' Rites of Durh. 42.

arch of three orders** on the inner face, supported
by two shafts on each side. The two inner
orders are decorated each with the cheveron, and
the outer with a foliage pattern having eighteen
lozenge-shaped compartments on it carved
with grotesque animals, birds and figure sub-
jects.*' The outer shaft on each side is plain,
but the whole surface of the inner ones is covered
with interlacing foliage work forming circles
and lozenges, which contain grotesque beasts
and human figures, one a man riding a lion.
The capitals of all the shafts are carved with
foliage and animals and the abaci with a leaf
pattern.'" The exterior face of the doorway
has five recessed orders supported on shafts,
but only the innermost order, which has the
cheveron moulding, is in its original state. The
middle and outer orders have also the cheveron,
and the intermediate ones a hollow between two
rolls, but the whole of the surface suffered con-
siderably in Wyatt's restoration and is also
much weathered. The ogee label and panelled
gable above, together with the flanking pinnacled
buttresses, are late 18th-century work of
poor type,'i but the side walls behind form
part of the original shallow porch which rose
the full height of the triforium stage. Over
the porch were two chambers, the steps down to
which still remain in the triforium passage, for
the use of those who admitted men to sanctuary,
lighted by two round-headed windows facing
north above the doorway .'^ The porch appears
to have been heightened and otherwise altered
in the 13th century, old engravings showing a
high gable between great turret buttresses,
below which was a wide pointed arch springing
at the level of the triforium roof, and enclosing
an arcade of three arches.'^ On the door are
indications of former elaborate ironwork, but
the 12th-century bronze ring, or 'knocker,'

*• The outer order, like that of the west doorway,
might be termed a label.

*' Two are centaurs, another has two figures em-
bracing, a fourth a boy being vvliipped, a fifth a man
strangling another with a rope ; two others have each
a man performing some gymnastic feat, and another
what appears to be a representation of Samson and
the Hon. Greenwell, op. cit. 52.

'0 Ibid. 51.

'1 ' The present doorway exhibits externally a
wretched mass of incongruity. The greater part of
the arch itself is original . . . but above, all is in the
most miserable taste.' Raine, Durh. Cath. (1833),
20.

'2 There were also two windows to the aisle, now
blocked, but visible over the north doorway.

'* The porch is shown in Carter's drawing of the
north front (18 10), reconstructed from the evidence of
older drawings. It is also seen in a water-colour
dravvdng of the north side of the cathedra] of the
end of the i8th century, reproduced in Trans. Durh.
and Northumb. Arch. Soc. 1896-99, p. 29 and pi. i.

■-J

Durham Catiii;drai. : Thl Prior's ])oorv\ay

CITY OF DURHAM

is still in position. The ring hangs from the
jaws of a grotesque head, the eyes of which,
now hollow, were originally filled in some way,
perhaps with enamel.'*

On the south side of the nave are two doorways
opening to the cloister and forming the eastern
and western processional doors. The first is in
the easternmost bay of the aisle and has a semi-
circular stilted arch of two orders on the inside, of
the end of the first building period ; both orders
are moulded with a
roll between two
hollows, the inner
continuous and the
outer on single jamb
shafts with volute
capitals. The ex-
ternal face is of later
date, probably of the
time of Pudsey, and
has an unstilted
semicircular arch of
four orders, the inner-
most continuous, the
others supported on
shafts with carved
capitals and moulded
bases on high plinths.
All four orders are
richly moulded, the
innermost with
lozenges, the second
with enriched billets,
the third with a
deeply hollowed
spiral pattern, while
the outer order, now
much broken, appears
to have consisted of
a species of cheveron.

The other doorway
is in the sixth bay
doorway, and has

Durham Cathedral: 12th-century Ring or
Knocker on North Door

opposite the great north
a semicircular arch of
three orders, the inner supported on single
shafts, the two outer on coupled shafts, all with
cushion capitals. The two inner orders are
decorated with cheveron and the outer with a
floriated ornament set with medallions, the
lower four on each side containing alternately
conventional leaves and grotesque animals, and
the three middle ones each a leaf. The shafts
are all elaborately ornamented, the two outer
ones on each side with a lozenge pattern of
parallel ridges and grooves, and the inner one
with a pattern of the same type but different in
character, the space in the centre of each lozenge

'* ' The flanges by which something representing
eyes were fixed still remain.' Boyle, op. cit. 261. The
diameter of the head, from tip to tip of the ray-like
mane, is 22 in.

being occupied by four leaves. The capitals
are covered with a pattern of grotesque animals
and foliage." On the external face the arch is
of three cheveroned orders supported on shafts
with lozenge ornament ; the ornament on this
side of the doorway is much decayed. The
door itself retains its scroll hinges and is covered
with elaborate contemporary ironwork of beauti-
ful design.

This doorway and the great north doorway
opposite appear to
be as late as the time
of Bishop Geoffrey
Rufus (1133-40), or
even later, the re-
semblance between
certain features in the
sculpture and that
on the doorway of the
Chapter House and
on the corbels which
once supported its
eastern vaulting ribs
being very marked.'*
In the fifth bay of
the south aisle a door-
way, now blocked,
was at a later time
cut through the wall
to the enclosed north
alley of the cloister.

In the floor of the
nave between the
great piers immedi-
ately west of the
north and south
doorways is the ' row
of blue marble ' de-
scribed in Rites,'"
forming a cross of
two short arms at
of which no woman was

the centre, eastward
allowed to pass.

Of the various FITTINGS AND FURNISH-
INGS OF THE NAFE few traces remain.
The rood screen, described in Rites as ' a high

'^ GreenweU, op. cit. 51.

'* Ibid. The Chapter House was finished by
Geoffrey Rufus. Prof. Hamilton Thompson would
give the date of the north doorway, that opposite to
it and the west doorway as about 1160, and the
doorway to the eastern alley of the cloister he
considers contemporary with the completion of the
Gahlee (c. 1 1 75).

" ' There is betwixt the pillar of the north syde . . .
and the piller that standith over against yt of the south
syde, from the one of them to the other, a rowe of
blewe marble, and in the mydest of the said rowe ther
is a cross of blewe marble, in token that all women
that came to here di\Tne service should not be suf-
fered to come above the said cross.' Rites, 35-

117

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

stone wall,' stood before the western piers of
the crossing, with the Jesus altar in front and a
doorway at either end.'* On the face of the
screen, from pillar to pillar, was ' the whole
story and passion of our Lord wrought in stone '
and over this the * story and pictures of the
twelve apostles,' while upon the wall * above the
height of all ' stood the ' most goodly and
famous rood that was in aU the land, with the
picture of Mary on the one side and the picture
of John on the other, with two splendid and
glistering archangels.' '• Each end of the Jesus
altar was ' closed up with fine wainscot,' in
which were four aumbries on the south side
and a door in the north.

The second and third bays of the south aisle
formed the Neville chantry, in which was an
altar ' with a faire allabaster table'* over it.'
This chantry chapel was enclosed at each end
by ' a little stone wall,' that at the east being
' somewhat higher than the altar ' and wains-
coted above ; the other had an ' iron grait '
on top, and towards the nave the chapel was
' invyroned with iron.' In 1416 the bodies of
Ralph, Lord Neville (d. 1367), and Alice de
Audley, his wife (d. 1374), were moved to the
chapel from before the Jesus altar where they
had been originally buried,'^ and their monument,
much defaced,*- still stands ' betwixt two
pillars ' of the nave arcade in the second sub-
bay. The alabaster effigy of Ralph Neville is
reduced to a headless and mutilated trunk, but
that of the lady is tolerably perfect, though the
face is destroyed. The table tomb on which
they rest has been stripped of nearly all its
ornamentation, a portion of panelling above
the plinth, with shields set in quatrefoils, alone
remaining. In the next bay westward is the
monument of their son John, Lord Neville
(d. 1386), and his wife Maud Percy ; the tomb
has canopied niches,*^ with weepers, all round,
separated by trefoiled panels containing shields
which bear alternately the Neville saltire and
the Percy lion rampant. Of the effigies little
remains but the shattered and broken trunks.

'* ' Two rood doors for the procession to go forth
and come in at.' Rites, 32.

'* ' What for the fairness of the wall, the stateliness
of the pictures and the livelyhood of the painting, it
was thought to be one of the goodliest monuments in
(the) church.' Ibid. 34.

*" Reredos.

** Ralph, Lord Neville, was the first layman to be
buried in the church.

*2 The mutilation of this and the adjoining tomb is
said to be due to the Scottish prisoners taken at the
battle of Dunbar, who were confined in the church in
1650.

*' There are six niches on each side and three on
each end ; the weepers remain in aU but two, but are
without heads.

' reduced to something like great boulders.'**
In the floor close by is a blue slab with the
matrix of the brass of Robert Neville, Bishop of
Durham (d. 1457).**

The altar of Our Lady of Pity*" stood between
the pillars of the north arcade in the bay im-
mediately west of the north doorway, and that
of the Bound Rood*' in the corresponding situa-
tion on the south ; both were ' enclosed on each
side with wainscote.' Another altar, known as
St. Saviour's, stood on the north side of the
north-west tower.** Attached to the piers
immediately west of the north and south doors
were holy water stoups of marble, that on the
north serving ' all those that came that waie
to here divyne service,' the other ' the prior
and all the convent with the whole house.'*'
These stoups were taken away by Dean Whitting-
ham (1563-79) and put to ' profane uses ' in
his kitchen and buttery.** There was another
near the south-east doorway.'*

Of modern monuments west of the quire the
chief is that of Bishop Shute Barrington (d.
1826), a marble statue by Chantrey, in which the
bishop is represented kneeling. In the nave is
a recumbent marble statue of Dr. James Britton,
sometime master of Durham Grammar School
(d. 1836), and a tablet to Sir George Wheler,
antiquary and traveller, the holder of a stall
in the Cathedral (d. 1723).'^ There are other
memorial tablets but none of interest.

The present font dates from 1846 and has a
rectangular bowl of Caen stone supported on
pillars, in the style of the 12th century. It
took the place of a white marble font of chalice
type erected by Cosin in 1663, which was given
in 1846 to Pittington Church, where it now is.
Cosin's lofty canopyof tabernacle work, however,
survived all the 19th-century restorations. It is
a splendid piece of work, standing on eight
fluted pillars with composite capitals, the lower

^^ Rites of Diirh. (Dr. Fowler's notes), 245.

*^ According to Rites, p. 40, he was buried in the
chantry, but Leland says he lay in ' a high plain mar-
ble tombe in the Galile.' Greenwell, op. cit. 95.

** So called from ' a picture of our Lady carrying
our Saviour on her knee, as He was taken from the
crosse, very lamentable to behold.' Rites of Durh. 38.

*' ' An alter with a roode representing the passion
of our Saviour, having his handes bounde, with a
crowne of thorne on his head, being commonly
called the Bound Roode.' Ibid. 41.

** The north end of the altar slab was built into the
wall. Its site is now occupied by the monument to
Capt. R. M. Hunter, killed at Ferozeshah, 1845.

*9 Rites of Durh. 38.

»» Ibid. 61.

'1 Ibid. 40. ' A piece of Frosterley marble let into
the corner where the south transept and south aisle
of the nave join may mark its site.' Greenwell, op.
cit. 97.

'2 He is buried in the Galilee.

118

CITY OF DURHAM

stage being of classic, and the upper stages of
pronounced Gothic design."^

The present pulpit dates from the restoration
of 1876 and is of Devonshire alabaster and marble
inlay, standing on columns of Siena marble
inlaid with mosaic.'*

The pelican lectern was designed by Sir

Gilbert Scott from the description of the ancient

■ lectern at the north end of the high altar in

Rites. It is of brass,'^ enriched with filigree

work and adorned with crystals and amethysts.

THE GALILEE CHAPEL, built by Bishop
Pudsey, consists of five aisles,** separated by
four arcades, each of four depressed semicircular
arches resting on pairs of separate Purbeck
marble shafts with joined moulded bases and
square waterlcaf capitals having high moulded
abaci. These columns are now converted into
clustered shafts, quatrefoil on plan, by the
addition of stone shafts on the east and west
sides of each pair, with capitals and bases in
close imitation of the old work. This addition
was made by Bishop Langley, who put a new
roof on the chapel, and raised the wall above
the two middle arcades. These extra shafts
may have been added out of timidity, or for
ajsthctic reasons. The arches of the arcades
are very richly decorated with three rows of

'^ Of the prc-Rcformation font no proper record
seems to have been preserved. Peter Smart described
the font in use in Elizabethan times as ' comely, like
to that of St. Paul's at London and in other cathe-
drals.' Tliis was replaced by one of marble about
1621, which was described thirteen years later as ' not
to be paralleled in the land.' It was ' eight square,
with an iron grate raised two yards every square,' and
all about it was ' artificially wrought and carved with
such variety of joiners work as makes all the beholders
thereof to admire.' Raine, Durh. Cath. 15. Smart
called it ' a mausoleum, towering up to the roof of the
church, a most sumptuous fabric and costly, partly of
wood and partly of stone.' This font and cover were
destroyed by the Scotch prisoners in 1650.

'* In 1845 a new pulpit, designed by Salvin, was
erected in the quire opposite the Bishop's throne. It
took the place of one of wood, which was presented to
the University. Raine in 1833 described the pulpit
then in use as of ' comparatively modern date.' It
stood originally in the middle of the quire, with a
sounding board over it. It was probably the pulpit
erected in 1726, recorded in the chapter minutes.
Salvin's pulpit was removed in 1876.

'^ The brass is described as ' a new composition,
the result of an analysis of the ancient gray brass.'
The ancient lectern is described in Rites, 13.

"* The aisles vary slightly in width between the
arcades, the northernmost measuring 12 ft. H in.,
and the others from north to south 13 ft. 11 in., 13 ft.
9 in., 13 ft. 7 in., and 13 ft. 8 in. respectively. The
thickness of the arcade wall is in each case 2 ft. 2 in.,
making up the tot.il width of 76 ft. 6 in. from north to
south. The floor of the chapel is 20 in. below that of
the nave.

double cheveron moulding separated by rolls.
The responds on the east and west walls have
not the additional shafts. Those abutting upon
the jambs of the west door of the nave are some-
what clumsily adjusted in relation to the older
work. The east side of the chapel has in the
centre the great black marble platform of the
Lady Altar*' erected by Bishop Langley, of
which his tomb forms part, steps rising on either
side of it to the altar platform itself. The
opening of the west doorway was at one time
filled hy a painted wooden reredos of 15th-
century date, unfortunately destroyed in 1845.
It is described in Rites as having been ' devised
and furnished with most heavenly pictures . . .
lively in colours and gilting,' and is shown in
drawings made by Carter in 1795.** The
altar stood within the doorway opening, in
the south jamb of which is a large recess which
originally formed part of one of the ' two fine
and close aumeryes ' of wainscot at either side
behind the portal.** The mensa is now placed
in the floor of the platform where the altar
formerly stood. Langley's tomb is of blue
marble and its top is quite plain, but round its
moulded edge is a chase for an inscription in
brass, now lost. The tomb projects some 6 ft.
westward into the chapel, and at its west end
are three panels each containing a large shield
with the bishop's arms. The chantry chapel,
or Canterie, in which the tomb and altar stood,
occupied two bays of the middle aisle, a space
of about 24 ft. by 13 ft., its floor raised a step
above that of the Galilee, and enclosed each side
by an open screen. ^

On either side of the west doorway of the nave
is a wide round-headed altar recess, quite plain
in section but having a double cheveron ornament
on the face of the arch ; that on the north
contained the altar of Our Lady of Pity and that
on the south Bede's altar. These recesses are
formedin the original west wall of the church, and
cut away the foot of the buttresses flanking the
west window of the nave. The east end of the
northernmost aisle, now pierced by one of
Langley's doorways, has a 13th-century inner
pointed arch of two moulded orders and dog-
tooth label, supported on short shafts with

*' The chantry of the Blessed Virgin and St. Cuth-
bert was founded by Langley in 1414 ; the deed of
dedication is dated 18 June. Greenwell, op. cit. 89.

** Three drawings of the east side of the Gahlee,
reproduced in Trans. Archit. and Arch. Soc. Durh.
W Northumh. v, 29 (1907). The back of the reredos was
divided into five panels, each of which contained a
large standing figure with a smaller figure above. There
were also side wings and a ceiling of wood divided into
oblong panels.

** Rites of Durh. 44. Fowler's Notes, 232.

1 It appears to have been made between 1433 and
1435. Greenwell, op. cit. 89.

119

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

moulded capitals, and bases raised 5 ft. above the
chapel floor. The recess thus formed may have
originally contained an altar, and it has been
suggested that the altar of Our Lady of Pity
first stood there and was removed by Langley
to its present position,'^ a position probably
occupied originally by the principal altar to the
Blessed Virgin which Langley placed in front
of the great doorway. In the soffit, jambs
and back of each of the recesses on either side of
the doorway are considerable remains of paint-
ing, those in the northern recess being in a fine
state of preservation. This painting, which is
for the most part contemporary with the build-
ing, consists of a band of conventional leaf orna-
ment running round the recess at the level of
the springing, a larger pattern of similar nature
on the soffit, and a panel on the inside face of
each jamb ; on the panels on the north and
south sides respectively are figures of a king and
bishop, probably St. Oswald and St. Cuthbert,
in architectural canopies. The colours — green,
blue, red and yellow, with dark brown outlines —
are still very fresh, and the figures are boldly and
effectively drawn in the finest style of 12th-
century painting, in round arched niches with
masonry towers in spandrels and apex. The
back of the recess, below the ornamental band,
is occupied by a painted representation of hang-
ings, or looped drapery, with borders at top and
bottom, but the middle part on which no doubt
was the picture of Our Lady ' carryinge our
Saviour on her knee, as he was taken from the
cross,'' is now completely defaced. This drapery,
which is of a pale yellow colour, is probably of
later date than the rest of the painting, but is
certainly not post-Reformation.*

The grave of the Venerable Bede,* in front of
where his altar stood, is marked by a plain table
tomb of blue marble made in 1542, after the
shrine had been defaced.* The grave was opened
in 1831,' when the coffin and bones were found
3 ft. below the floor. The present inscription —
' Hac sunt in fossa Basdas venerabilis ossa ' —
was afterwards cut upon the slab.* The words

* Greenwell, op. cit. 61. An altar was re-erected
here in 1927 in memory of Canon Cruickshank.

^ Rites of Durh. (Surtees Soc), 44.

* It may date from Langley's time, when our Lady
of Pit)''s altar was transferred here. Prof. Hamilton
Thompson, however, considers that this picture was
later and that it is unlikely there was a dedication to
our Lady of Pity before Langley's time, as it
represents a late mediaeval devotion popular in the
15th century. He does not suppose the dedication of
the altar to Bede is earlier than 1370.

* Bede's remains were removed from near St. Cuth-
bert's shrine to the Galilee in 1370.

* Rites of Durh. (Surtees Soc), Fowler's notes, 235.
' Examined to the level of the pavement in 1830.

* Slab 8 ft. S in. by 3 ft. 10 in. with moulded edge.

form the last line of the epitaph written by
Cosin and placed over the tomb about 1633,
and are derived from the first line of the older
inscription recorded in Rites? There is a
rectangular aumbry at the south end of the Bede
altar recess and a smaller one at the north end of
the altar of Our Lady of Pity. A pulley still in
the roof over where Bede's shrine stood was
probably used for suspending a lamp before his
altar. There is another in the same position
in front of Our Lady of Pity's altar.

The side-walls of the chapel are almost wholly
restored or modern. The round-headed door-
way on the north side, after being long blocked,
was opened out in 1841, but the whole wall was
rebuilt in 1866, the original design of the door-
way being, however, reproduced. The opening
is below a gable and deeply recessed — the wall
being increased in thickness on both sides — and
is of three richly moulded orders, the two outer
decorated with cheverons, springing from shafts
with volute capitals. The doorway is in the
third bay from the east, the others being
occupied by windows of two, three, and two
lights respectively. Originally, the chapel was
lighted by round-headed windows placed high
in the walls above the arches of the outer
arcades, four on each side, the outlines of which
are visible. There were probably windows in
the west wall also. The present arrangement
dates from the end of the 13th century, when the
outside walls were increased in height and win-
dows placed on all three sides of the chapel.
There are stiU two openings of this date in the
west wall, one at each end, the others having
been replaced by windows of Langley's time.
The two 13th-century windows are of three-
pointed lights in a two-centred head with pierced
spandrels, and those in the south wall are of the
same design. The three 15th-century windows,
which are larger, are each of three lights with a
transom and have perpendicular tracery in high-
shouldered drop-centred heads, the middle
window being taller than the others. A few
fragments of ancient coloured glass remain in
the tracery, including part of a Flight into
Egypt and a Virgin and Child.*'

Below the second window from the north is a
small doorway leading to a chamber built out
on the outer face of the west wall, on an arch
between two of the buttresses added in the
15th century by Langley to counteract the visible
tendency of the arcades to lean westward. This
chamber contains a well,** and south of it,

• ' Condnet haec theca Baede venerabiUs ossa.'
*" This is the only ancient glass remaining in the

church ; some other fragments are now in the Chapter

House (q.v.).

** The well was opened up in 1896. It could be used

as a draw-well from the Galilee and as a drip-well by

the townspeople at the bottom of the rock ; it is

120

Durham Cathedral : The Galilee

CITY OF DURHAM

between the central pair of buttresses on a
similar arch, is a wide and low recess opening to
the chapel under the window at the end of the
middle aisle. Small rectangular loops in the
outer walls of the chamber and recess command
a magnificent view across the Wear. On the
outer face of the west wall of the chapel, within
the chamber, are the remains of a bold pattern
of intersecting straight lines of roll-moulding
which, as part of the original design, is carried
across the west wall below the windows, with
two stages of arcading below it, the upper inter-
laced and the lower single, with solid spandrels.

In the floor of the Galilee are several grave
slabs, three of which have indents for brasses.
The grave of John Brimley (d. 1576), master of
choristers and organist, is in the middle aisle ;
there is a good armorial slab to Mrs. Dorothy
Grey (d. 1662). The two outermost aisles have
lean-to roofs, and the three inner ones flat open
timber roofs of seven bays, with moulded
principals on stone corbels, all of Langley's
time. Externally, the roofs are leaded, behind
embattled parapets.^^

Until 1822 the north aisle was walled off and
used as a repository for wills, and the south aisle
was stalled and benched and used as a Consistory
Court until 1796, ^vhen the court was transferred
to the north transept."

There is a ring of eight BELLS in the central
tower, five of which are by Christopher Hodson,
1693 ; the treble is by Pack and Chapman, 1780,
the third by the same firm (then Chapman), 1 78 1 ,
and the fourth a recasting by Mears and Stain-
bank in 1896 of one of Hodson's bells. With
the exception of the treble these bells are in
direct descent from the ' seven great bells in the
steeples ' mentioned in 1553, four of which were
in the north-west tower, or Galilee steeple, and
three in the central tower." During the time
of Dean Whittingham (1563-79) three of the
bells in the Galilee steeple were removed to the
central tower,^^ and the remaining one at a
later date. Of these four, the great, or Galilee,
bell is recorded to have been given by Prior
Fossor, two others were known respectively as
St. Bede's bell and St. Oswald's bell, while the
smallest is described as having been long and
narrow skirted.i^ The whole of the bells seem

46 ft. below the floor of the chapel. Trans. Archit.
and Arch. Soc. Durh. and Northd. v, 27.

12 Except on the south outer wall, where the parapet
is straight.

1^ Boyle, Guide to Durh. 274. The Latin motto in
the Galilee over the great doorway has reference to the
Consistory Court.

1* ' In the lanthorn, called the new work, was hang-
ing there three fine bells.' Rites of Durh. (Surtees
Soc.), 22.

** By the intervention of Dr. Spark.

1* It appears to have been of 13th-century date.

to have been recast in 1632, and three of them
again in 1639 (and 1682), 1664, and 1665 respec-
tively. The number was increased to eight by
the addition of a new treble when Christopher
Hodson recast the whole ring in 1693."

Bishop Cosin presented a fine set of silver-gilt
PLATE to the cathedral, but of this only one
piece, described by him as ' a fair, large, scallopt
paten, with a foot and cover of fair embossed
work,'** now remains. The rest was recast in
1767, and in its present form consists of two
cups, two patens, two flagons, two large patens,
two loving cups, and one alms dish. All these
pieces are engraved with Cosin's arms, and bear
the mark of Franijois Butty and Nicholas Dumee,
with the London date-letter 1766-7 ; they are
of silver gilt enriched with flower sprays and
gadroons. There are also two spoons, undated,
but with the mark of Paul Callard, of London ;*'
a silver-gilt 17th-century chalice,bearingGerman
or Dutch assay marks, given by Archdeacon
Watkins in 1905 -f" and a silver-gilt paten made
in 1912-13, presented in memory of Canon
Body (d. 191 1). For use in the Durham Light
Infantry Memorial Chapel there are a chalice and
paten of 1903-4, and a flagon of 1904-5, London
make. The silver-gilt candlesticks on the high
altar are recastings in 1767 of those given by
Cosin.

THE EXTERNAL ELEVATIONS of the
main fabric have been altered chiefly by the
insertion of tracery windows in the quire aisles
and transepts and by the paring of the wall
surfaces already mentioned,-* but the general
outlines of the first design have been preserved.
Between the aisle windows and those of the
nave clearstory are flat pilaster buttresses, but
in the clearstory of the quire and transepts they
occur only in front of the major piers. There

1' The ancient dedications were recorded in the
inscriptions. Those remaining are (2) St. Margaret,
(S) St. Michael, (6) Bede, (7) St. Oswald, (8) St. Cuth-
bert. The new fourth preserves the dedication to St.
Benedict. Chapman's bells have only the names of the
founder and the dean. The tenor weighs approximately
30 cvvt.

18 It is a handsome piece with gadrooned edge,
diameter loj in., height to top of cover 12 in. It was
given in 1667, but bears no marks or inscription:
Cosin's Corr. (Surtees Soc), ii, xiv.

1* Entered as goldsmith in 1 75 1.

2" The chalice is 9| in. high, and has a six-lobcd
foot. The bowl rests on a calix of repousse work, with
cherubs' heads, swags, and flowers. On the foot are
representations of the Crucifi.xion, with the\'irgin and
St. John, cherubim, and two unidentified coats-of-arms,
one surmounted by a mitre. The chaUce was shown at
the Exhibition of 1862 at South Kensington, and was
presented to .\rchdeacon Watkins by the owner. It
bears no date-letter or maker's mark.

21 The repairs of the north front seem to have been
begun in 1775. Raine, Durh. Cath. I18.

121

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

are strings at the level of the sills of the aisle and
triforium windows, dividing the walls horizon-
tally into three stages, and an intermediate one
at the springing of the arches of the aisle windows
continuing the labels. All the strings are taken
round the buttresses. The ground stage through-
out, beginning with the earliest work from the
east, is occupied by a wall-arcade, which stands
upon a plinth of the same character as that
already noted inside the building, with pro-
jecting double chamfered band. The arcade
consists of simple semicircular arches, two to
each bay, and of two moulded orders,^^ on
shafts with cushion capitals and moulded bases.
The small two-light triforium windows of the
quire, enclosed within a segmental containing
arch, are repeated on the east side of the tran-
septs, but on the west the windows are large
single openings like those of the nave. On
both sides of the transepts the windows of the
clearstory follow the treatment of those in the
quire, but with an arch of two orders ; the
nave clearstory windows are similar with cheve-
rons on the inner order. Above the triforium the
walls now finish with a straight parapet, but
formerly each bay of the nave aisles had a
transverse roof ending in a gable, traces of which
may be seen on the north side.^' The parapet
above the clearstory is also plain, but rests on a
corbel table. At the north-east and south-east
angles of the transepts respectively are flat
clasping buttresses with angle-rolls carried up
above the roofs as square turrets ; the wide
staircase turrets at the opposite angles have also
angle-rolls, but change to octagonal form at the
clearstory level. The gable and turrets of the
south transept and the western return wall
were rebuilt and refaced in 1826-9; ^^^ north
end of the north transept was altered a good
deal in detail about the same time, the turrets
being modernised and made to finish with open
parapets, the gable ' barbarously treated,' 2* and

22 The inner order has a quirked angle-roll below a
hollow; the outer is the same with an additional roll on
the soffit. Wyatt's treatment played havoc with the
mouldings, but some of the arches on the south side
of the quire, then covered by the revestry, were left
untouched. The revestry was taken down in 1802.
Raine says the walls were chiselled and pared down to
the depth of 2 in. or 3 in., in consequence of which the
shafts and capitals, moulding and strings ' lost their
due proportion to the fabric': op. cit. 118.

2' Similar indications on the south side are shown in
Billings' drawing (1843), as well as the small pointed
openings flanking the triforium windows. The refacing
of the south side of the nave in 1849 obliterated all
these marks. At what time the gables gave place to
parapets is not recorded.

** ' The space was once iiUed with boldly pro-
jecting Norman strings crossing each other lozeng-
wise.' Raine, op. cit. 119. It has now an arcade
of seven arches.

new figures placed in the roundels above Fossor's
great window.-^

The western towers were in all probability
originally covered with pyramidal roofs above the
level of the corbel table, which is a continuation
of those of the nave. The 12th-century work
terminates at this height and is of the same plain
and solid character as that of the body of the
church, with flat clasping buttresses at the
angles and blank round-headed windows in the
upper stages. The external wall-arcade and
string-courses are carried round the tovvers.
The 13th-century upper portions consist of four
unequal stages, the first and third with open
arcades of tall pointed arches,-' and the less
lofty second and fourth stages with wall-arcades
of semicircular arches, the arcading in each case
being carried round the buttresses. All the
arches are moulded and supported on shafts.
The open parapets and pinnacles date only from
about 1 80 1," before which the towers seem to
have terminated with solidmoulded battlement S.2*
Until the time of the Commonwealth they
were surmounted by ' great broaches,' or timber
spires covered with lead.^* From the turret
staircases there is access to the triforium passages
and from this level the towers are open to the
roof. There is access also to the platform at
the base of the great west window, and at the
level of the nave clearstory is a passage, now
blocked, wrhich ran round all four sides. The
north-west tower was known as the Galilee
steeple, and four bells hung in it.

The lower part of the west front of the
church is hid by the Galilee, above the roof of
which, between the towers, is Fossor's great
window, set within a wide semicircular stilted
arch. Over this again and immediately below
the gable is a wall-arcade of seven tall round-
headed arches, richly ornamented with cheveron.
The west front, seen from the high ground at the
opposite side of the river, forms a very majestic
and well-balanced composition, buttressed as

-^ The original figures are said to have represented
Priors Fossor and Castell ; ' in their stead was placed
a full length figure of Pudsey, and an effigy of a man
said to be a prior in his chair.' Raine, op. cit. 119.

-' The first arcade has three arches on each side
between the angle pilasters, of which the two outer
ones are open and the middle one blank. The third
arcade has six narrow arches on each side, all of which
are open.

*' A drawing published in that year shows the para-
pet on the north-west tower finished, but on the other
as in course of erection. Greenwell, op. cit. 38.

-' Carter's drawings on the authority of old views
The merlons were moulded all round.

-* Cosin at his first visitation in 1662, and again in
1665, enquired what had become of the wood and lead.
No satisfactory answer was returned. The spires are
shown in 17th-century engravings.

122

Durham Cathedral : The Cloister and Western Towers

o
-J

CITY OF DURHAM

it were by the projecting mass of the Galilee
and towering high above the tree-clad cliff.

In the cathedral church there were several
CHANTRIES. Of these one of the earliest was
founded about the year 1355 by Ralph Lord
Neville,^" who assigned an annual rent-charge of
j^io, which was later compounded for by the
release of a debt of ;^400 by his son John. The
mass of this foundation was sung at the altar
of the Great Rood {Magnae Crucis). Another
Neville chantry, that of Thomas Neville, is men-
tioned in the i6th century.^' A third chantry,
probably situated at the altar of St. Bede in the
Galilee, was that of Bishop Neville (d. 1457) and
Richard of Barnard Castle.^- The chantry of
Walter Skirlaw (d. 1405) was attached to the
altar known previously as that of St. Blaise.^
The chantry of the Holy Trinity of Prior Fossor
(d. 1374)^'* was founded for a monk to say mass
for his soul daily at the altar of St. Nicholas and
St. Giles in the north transept. The chantry
of the Name of Jesus^^ was either founded or
augmented by Prior Thomas Castell (d. 1519),
who also built the chapel of St. Helen. The
chantry of John Rude may have been identical
with that of Robert Rodes of Newcastle and
his wife Agnes.^^ Of the important foundation
of Bishop Langley (d. 1437), the chantry of
Our Lady and St. Cuthbert in the GaHlee, an
account has been given in an earlier volume.^'
Other chantries in the cathedral church which
may be mentioned were those of Isabel Lawson^*
and of Our Lady of Pity.^^

The most important gild associated with the
cathedral church was that of St. Cuthbert, often
known as the Frary. Its foundation was early.*"
At the Dissolution the gross yearly value of the
revenuesof this gild was estimated'" at £j 14/. 8f/.,
or, less reprises, £6 i6s. T,d. The Anchorage in
the cathedral has already been mentioned.*^

In the chapel of the castle of Durham was a
chantry which in 1535 was of the annual value
of ^os}^

3* Scriptores Ires (Surt. Soc), 134 ; Durh. Acct. R.
(Surt. Soc), iii, Intro, p. Ivii.

31 Durh. Household Bk. (Surt. Soc), 91.

32 Durh. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), iii, Intro, p. Iviii.

33 Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), 145 ; Durh. Acct. R. iii,
Intro, p. lix.

3* Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 131 ; Durh. Acct. R. iii,
Intro, p. Ixi.

^Durh. Acct. R., loc cit. Cf. Script. Tres (Surt.
Soc), 153.

3* Durh. Acct. R. iii, Intro, p. Ixii ; Durh. House-
hold Bk. 99. 37 i^,c.H. Dur. i, 371.

38 Durh. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), ii, p. 418.

3* Rites oj Durh. (Surt. Soc. 107), p. 44.

** The foundation of 1437 was obviously merely a
reorganisation. Hutchinson, Durh. iii, 260 n.

" Injunctions and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes (Surt.
Soc), Ap. vi, p. bcii. <« V.C.H. Dur. ii, 130.

*3 Valor Eccl. (Rec Com.), v, 324.

The monastic
MONASTIC BUILDINGS buildings are

grouped on the
south side of the church around the cloister and
follow the usual arrangement of the Benedictine
plan, with the chapter house in the east
range and the frater on the south. The
dorter, too, was originally in the usual position
on the first floor of the east range, south of the
chapter house, but was afterwards moved to the
west range, a change of plan perhaps determined
by the fact that the river forms the western
boundary of the site and affords special con-
venience for drainage, and also possibly by the
west range being on the side farthest from the
town houses. A part of the old east range was
then used as a prison, while the rest was taken
by the prior's lodging. The nature of the site,
which is longer from north to south than from
east to west, also determined the position of the
outer court, which was placed south of the
cloister, and the infirmary stood between the
west range and the river, a position dictated by
convenience. With these variations, and allow-
ing for the inevitable changes to which the
buildings were put after the Dissolution, the
normal arrangements of a Benedictine house can
perhaps be nowhere better studied than at
Durham. Although a certain amount of re-
building has been done since the i6th century,
especially in the south range, the references to
the various parts of the buildings in ' Rites of
Durham ' can generally be followed, and afford
a vivid picture of the Hfe of the monastery in
the years immediately preceding the surrender.

Mention has already been made of work in
the east and south ranges which is earlier than
any part of the existing church, and in all
probability forms part of the buildings begun by
Walcher. According to Simeon, Walcher began
the erection of ' suitable buildings for a dwelling
place of monks, '^ but met his death before they
were finished. It is not unhkely, however, that
the existing undercrofts at the south end of the
east range and the east end of the south range,
with the passage between them, were completed
by 1080, and it would seem probable that
Walcher's work was planned round a cloister
about 115 ft. square, the north side of which
was formed by Aldhun's White Church. The
evidence for this was set forth by Sir William
Hope in 1909,- and though not conclusive, as
no trace of Aldhun's church was found, fur-
nishes strong probability that Walcher's build-
ings were attached to it, and that the east and
south sides of the present cloister preserve the
lines of the first cloister. When the site of the
lavatory opposite the frater door was uncovered

^ Sim. of Durh. (Rolls Ser.), i, 10.

* Proc. Soc. Antiq. Land. (2nd ser.), xjrii, 416.

123

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

in 1903 the foundations of a 12th-century con-
duit house were also found, built against an
earlier wall running north and south, which
seems to have been the garth wall of the west
alley of the first cloister.^ There is reason to
suppose that the Norman conduit thus stood
in the south-west angle of the early cloister, the
alleys of which would therefore be of the same
width as at present, and from this and other
evidence* the extent of the cloister planned by
Walcher can be deduced. If these deductions
be correct, the south wall of Aldhun's church
must have been some 30 ft. south of that of the
present building, or approximately in a line with
the projection of the vice-turret of the south
transept,^ and the west wall of the first west
range would coincide with the east wall of the
existing range, which there are grounds for
believing was built upon it."

The superstructures of the two undercrofts,
consisting of the dorter in the east and the
frater in the south range respectively, were
probably finished during the exile of St. Calais
(1088-91) if not before, and after the completion
of the existing church the chapter house was
begun probably by Flambard, and completed by
Geoilrey Rufus (1133-40).' In the 12th cen-
tury the south range appears to have been
extended westward and the west range rebuilt
on its present plan, the dorter then being
moved to it. Part of the walling of this period,
including the dorter stair doorway at the north
end, still remains, but the range was again rebuilt
in the 13th century. To the 13th century also
belongs the prior's chapel at the south-east
corner of the group of buildings now forming
the Deanery at the south end of the east range.
The main structural part of these buildings,
chiefly of 14th-century date, is noticed later ;
the existing great kitchen of the monastery was
erected in 1367-70. The cloister was rebuilt in

* The rubble foundations of this wall, 2 ft. 10 in.
wide, run across the cloister in a northerly direction
from nearly opposite the third buttress from the south-
west angle. It was laid bare for about 30 ft. and traced
for 24 ft. 6 in. further ; Arch. Iviii, 444.

* The distance from the old walling on the east side
of the cloister to the bonding mark on the south side
beyond the hbrary doorway, which marks the extent
of the early undercroft, is almost exactly 115 ft.
Other evidence is set out in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Land.
(2nd ser.), xxii, 417-21.

* Sir William Hope pointed out that the chapter
house does not occupy the middle of the east wall
of the existing cloister as it normally should, but
is exactly in the middle of the east side of the first
cloister assuming it to have been 1 1 5 ft. square. From
this he inferred that it is an enlargement of an older
chapter house on the same site, which abutted the
south transept of Aldhun's church ; ibid. 420.

* Ibid. 417.

' Simeon, op. cit. ii, 142.

more or less of its present form at the beginning
of the 15th century, being begun by Skirlaw* (d.
1406) and finished by Langley about 1418.* Of
what immediately preceded it little or nothing is
known, but if Leland'" is right in stating that
Pudsey built a cloister it may have subsisted
down to Skirlaw's time. Nothing of it, how-
ever, remains, unless some marks on the north
and east walls indicate the lines of its lean-to
roof.^* The upper part of the west range was
rebuilt in its present form in 1398-1404,^^ and
during the same period considerable reconstruc-
tion of the prior's lodgings took place. Later
in the century Prior Wessington (1416-46) also
extensively repaired the prior's lodgings and
other parts of the monastery buildings, and
Prior Castell (1494-15 19) made further changes,
all of which are noticed later. Castell also re-
built the gatehouse.

After the Dissolution, apart from the different
uses to which the buildings were put, the chief
change was the rebuilding of the frater, or
' fair large hall ' on the upper floor of the south
range, by Dean Sudbury, so as to serve as the
Chapter Library. The hall was described in
1665 as having ' long been useless and ruined,'*^
but was finished in its present form soon
after Sudbury's death in 1684. The cloister
was repaired in 1 706-11 and on a larger scale in
1764-69 ; it was again restored in 1856-7. The
dorter was restored in 1849-53, and Dean
Sudbury's Library in 1858, the latter by Salvin.

The CLOISTER is approximately 145 ft.
square,*'' and is surrounded by covered alleys
about 15 ft. wide, each of eleven bays divided
by buttresses, with a pointed window of three
lights in each bay. The diagonally flagged
pavement of the alleys is of 18th-century date,*-"
but the flat oak panelled ceiUngs are substantially
of Skirlaw's and Langley's time, though much
restored in 1828, when many new shields of arms

' Skirlaw ' caused to be built a great part of the
cloister ... at a cost of ;^6oo ' ; Chambre,
Continuatio Hist. Dunelm. quoted by Boyle, Guide to
Durh. 198.

* ' From 1408 to 141 8 there was expended on the
erection of the cloister ;^838 ' ; ibid. 200.

1" Collectanea, i, 122 (ed. 1774).

" Greenwell, Durh. Cath. 99.

^ The contract is dated 22 Sept. 1 398 ; a second
contract was made with a new builder 2 February
1401-2, at which time the work was well advanced.
The building was begun at the south end.

1' Hutchinson, Hist, of Durh. ii, 131 n.

^^ The dimensions as given by Billings are : north
alley 147 ft. 8J in., south alley 146 ft. 8J in., east alley
144 ft. 10 in., west alley 145 ft. 6 in.

1^ The flags are of Yorkshire stone laid on sleeper
walls of brickwork built lattice fashion in plan,
so as to leave a space of about 18 in. beneath
the slabs; Proc. Soc. Antiq. Lond. (2nd ser.), xxii,
422.

124

CITY OF DURHAM

were introduced.'' The original windows were
destroyed in the i8th century, apparently
during the restoration of 1764-9, when the
present uninteresting mullions and uncusped
tracery were substituted. About one-third of
the east side of the cloister is overlapped by the
south transept of the church, beyond which are
the slype (or parlour), chapter house, and a
portion of the early building containing the
prison and the stairs to the first dorter. The
entrance from the outer court is at the end
of the east alley farthest from the church and
opposite the eastern processional doorway.
All the stone wall benches have disappeared,
but there is one along the garth wall in the
east alley. The roofs are flat and lead covered,
behind straight moulded parapets. The north
alley, between the processional doorways, was
probably screened off at both ends, and was
divided by short partition walls into a number
of studies or carrels," three to each window,
' all fynely wainscotted and veri close, all but
the forepart which had carved wourke that gave
light in at ther carrell doures of wainscott,''^
and over against the carrels against the church
wall were ranged ' great almeries,' or book
cupboards. The church wall has been refaced
in grey stone.

The first doorway in the east alley beyond the
transept is that to the SLTPE, or passage
separating the chapter house from the church,
which gave access to the ' centory garth,' or
cemetery of the monks, and is said to have
been used in the later days as a parlour, to
which merchants were allowed to bring their
wares for sale.'^ It has a plain barrel vault and
intersecting wall arcades"" similar to those of
the chapter house, with which it is contem-
porary. The doorway has a semicircular arch
of two cheveron moulded orders with label,
the inner order continuous and the outer on
single jamb shafts with cushion capitals, but
the detail has suffered considerably at the
hands of restorers and the cheverons are almost
obliterated : the cheveron also occurs on the
inside of the doorway. The slype now serves
as an ante-room to the chapter house and place
of assembly for the choir on weekdays, and has

1* ' In consequence of the mistake as to the source of
the arms engraved on the two armorial plates in
Surtees' History the whole work was carried out in a
very inaccurate and misleading way ' ; Boyle, Guide
to Diirh. 2H.

1' Caroli-enclosed spaces.

'^^ Rites of Durh. (Surtees See. 1902, no. 107), 83 —
i.e., the carrels were entered by doors, the tops of
which were pierced. Hereafter this edition of the
Rites of Durham will be quoted as Rites.

"Ibid. 52.

20 The arcades are much restored, but some of the
shafts are old.

a modern doorway to the church cut through
the transept wall and another to the chapter
house.'"' The east wall is modern, with a single
round-headed window. A staircase, stiU partly
remaining in the south-west corner, led up to a
room above built in 1414-15 as a library, usually
known as Wessington's Library, though it
appears to have been completed before he
became prior in 1416. Some time between
that year and 1446 he repaired the roof and put
in a large five-light window at each end. Wes-
sington's flat-pitched roof of four bays remains,
but the windows have been whoUy renewed.
This upper room is now used as a song
school, access to it being by a modern wooden
staircase."

The CHAPTER HOUSE is entered from the
cloister by a semicircular headed doorway of
three orders, the two outer on nook-shafts with
cushion capitals and the inner on cushion
capitals and moulded jambs. The two outer
orders-* have cheveron ornament, but the inner
is simply moulded ; internally there are also
three orders of the same type with nook-shafts
in each jamb, the capitals and abaci of which
are elaborately carved.-* On each side of the
doorway, and forming with it a single com-
position, is a window of two round-headed
Hghts with cylindrical mid- shaft and plain
tympanum enclosed by a semicircular cheveron
arch on nook-shafts with cushion capitals, the
whole set within a shallow moulded outer order.
These openings were originally unglazed, but
are now filled with fragments of painted glass
from the church.-^ Before the destruction of
its eastern portion in 1796 the chapter house
was 78 ft. 6 in. in length, with a breadth of
34 ft. 6 in. and an apsidal east end. In the apse
were five three-light windows with flowing
tracery inserted in the 14th century and at the
west end above the cloister roof a large 15th-
century pointed window of five lights, which

-' The partitions which till lately divided it into
three have been removed.

22 Carter's plan (1801) shows an earlier staircase
starting from within the west doorway. The present
staircase was erected between 1 897 and 1904, at
which latter date the slype was restored.

23 The outermost is covered by a later segmental
arch with four-leaf flowers in the hollow moulding.

-* Upon one of the capitals is a centaur shooting
with bow and arrow.

25 The glass was for long in the staircase window
of the house formerly occupied by the prebendary
of the second stall and has only recently been placed
in the chapter house. It is described in Boyle,
Guide to Durh. 365. It includes a 14th-century
figure of St. Leonard, probably the one mentioned in
Rites as in the south transept ; but there was
another in the destroyed revestry south of the quire.
There are also 14th, 15th and l6th century quarrels
and fragments.

125

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

still exists in a restored form, but with these
exceptions the building seems to have remained
pretty much as completed in the first half of the
1 2th century. It consisted of two bays, each
covered by a quadripartite vault, and a third
bay over the apse, the vault of which was set
out by keeping the four western ribs in straight
Hnes on plan, thus making them of unequal
length and throwing the keystone to the east of
the centre of the apse curve.-* The transverse
arches were semicircular, and the ribs of the
vaults had a shghtly pointed soffit roll flanked
by cheverons of convex profile : in the apse the
ribs sprang from large figure corbels and the
soffit roll was flanked by a row of star ornaments
and cheverons.-' A wall arcade of semicircular
intersecting arches ran round the building,
except at the west end, below which was a stone
bench raised on two steps, and in the middle of
the east wall, standing on a dais, was a con-
temporary stone chair in which the bishops were
installed. The floor was covered with monu-
mental slabs of the bishops buried beneath it,
including those of St. Calais, Flambard, Geoffrey
Rufus, and Pudsey, and at the west end of the
south wall was a doorway with flat lintel and
semicircular reheving arch similar to those of
the transept turret staircases.-* The destruc-
tion of its east end reduced the length of the
chapter house to about 35 ft., making it practi-
cally a square room. The whole of the vault
was demoHshed and a new coved roof erected,
cutting across the great west window, the walls
being covered with lath and plaster, and the
windows flanking the west doorway blocked.
In 1830 part of the lath and plaster on the north
side was taken down and the whole was removed
in 1847, when the wall arcades were restored.
In 1857 the west wall, including the doorway
and the window above, was restored, and in
1874 excavations were carried out on the site
of the destroyed part of the building, the floor
of which was exposed and the graves of Bishops
Flambard, Geoffrey Rufus, WiUiam de Ste.
Barbe, Robert de Insula, and Kellaw were
opened.^^

The rebuilding of 1895-6, under the direction
of Mr. C. Hodgson Fowler, restored the chapter
house to something like its former appearance,
the east end being erected on the old plan,
though the original design of the apse vault
was not followed, and round-headed windows of
12th-century type take the place of the 14th-
century windows destroyed by Wyatt. The

28 Bilson, ^owr«. Roy. Inst. Brit. Archts. vi, 318.

2' Three of the corbels and the keystone have been
preserved ; the former are in the Chapter Library.

2* These particulars are taken from Greenwell,
op. cit. 47, based on drawings by Carter, made in
1795-

2* The excavations are described in Arch, xlv, 385.

height to the crown of the new vault is 44 ft.,
above which is a low-pitched lead-covered roof.
The stone bench and steps round the building
have been reconstructed and the wall arcades
renewed. The removal of the floor in the
western part, constructed in 1796, brought to
light several fragments of early sculptured
crosses, probably of late 10th-century date, and
also the arms of the stone chair, which have been
worked into a new chair in the original position.
The reconstructed doorway'" at the west end
of the south wall leads to a small chamber be-
longing to the earliest buildings, against which
the chapter house was erected. The juxta-
position of the two walls is plainly seen within
the recess of the doorway, the depth of which
is about 5 ft. This chamber, which in the later
days of the monastery was used as a PRISON
for light offences, is about 23 ft. long from west
to east, and 12 ft. wide, and is Hghted by a
round-headed window. It has a flat wooden
ceiling, and on its south wall are traces of painting
representing Our Lady in glory,'' while in the
north end of the west wall is a triangular-headed
recess. A doorway in the south wall leads to
two smaller chambers, or cells, in the first of
which is a hatch for conveying food to the
prisoner, and in the inner a latrine. These
cells were under the stairs to the first dorter, the
doorway to which still remains in the cloister
wall, together with the first two or three steps
of the staircase itself. The face of the wall here
is of rubble, in contrast with the squared ashlar
north of it, a break, or setback of 14^ in., in
the wall at the south end of the chapter house
marking the junction of Rufus' work with that of
Walcher. The staircase doorway is, however,
an early 1 2th-century insertion and has been much
restored ; it has a semicircular arch of three
orders, the innermost square and the others
with a roll on the edge, springing from moulded
imposts on single nook-shafts with cushion
capitals and moulded bases.'- Beyond this,
at the end of the eastern cloister wall, is the
so-called ' Usher's Door,'" a restored 15th-
century pointed doorway with a single con-
tinuous hollow moulded order with label, which
opened to ' the entrie in under the Prior's
lodginge, and streight in to the centorie garth.' ^

'* The original design has not been followed.

'1 Greenwell, op. cit. 49.

'- Tlie shafts are modern restorations. The impost
moulding remains in its entirety on the inner faces
of the jambs, but has been mutilated on the outer side,
apparently when the opening was blocked. It is now
opened out and is fitted with a door, which gives on
to the remains of the stairs.

" ' Here probably the gentleman usher waited to
attend the prior to the church, as the verger still
waits for the dean ' ; Fowler's notes in Rites, 256.

^ Rites, 87.

126

CITY OF DURHAM

This doorway appears to have replaced one
contemporary with the earlier buildings, for the
passage it leads to has at the end a round-headed
window which may have been the arch of the
doorway to the cemetery. The passage now
communicates by a stair with the Deanery.

ThtSUB-VJULT OF THE FIRST DORTER,
now a cellar under the entrance-hall of the
Deanery, lies on the east side of the passage from
the cloister to the outer court, from which it was
entered by a doorway now blocked. It is 38 ft.
long from north to south, and 23 ft. wide, and is
divided into two aisles by an arcade of four
semicircular arches supported on short square
piers. The walls are quite plain, and each aisle
is covered by a barrel vault.^^ The arches are
now closed with masonry and cross walls have
been built to form cellars.

The contemporary passage between this
sub-vault and that of the monks' frater in the
south range has a wall arcade of low round-
headed arches on each side, but the archway
from the cloister is of 15th-century date, with
a continuous hollow- chamfered moulding and
label, while at the south end to the outer court
the entrance is modern. The level of the passage
floor is two steps below that of the cloister.

A doorway in the west wall of the passage
opens into the FRATER SUB-VAULT. This
begins at the east end with a narrow chamber
running north and south the full width of the
range, and covered by a plain barrel vault ;
from this a round-arched opening leads to the
main apartment (50 ft. by 32 ft.) running east
and west, which is divided into three aisles by
two rows of short, massive, square piers, four
in each row, supporting a groined vault of the
simplest form, without ribs or transverse arches.
The height to the crown of the vault is only
7 ft. 6 in. The piers have plain abaci chamfered
on the lower edge and there are pilasters of the
same type along the side walls. ^* To the west
of the main apartment, and opening from it,
are two long narrow chambers like that at the
east end, covered by barrel vaults, and beyond
these again a third of less length. The whole of
the sub- vault was lighted from the south by
small round-headed windows, five in the main
area and one in each of the narrow chambers,
now blocked by the modern passage from the
Deanery to the great kitchen. The extent of
VValcher's work is marked by the thick wall west
of the third chamber, which is now pierced by a
doorway to the later buildings erected against
it. The whole of the north wall on the cloister

'* Canon Fowler was of opinion that this sub-vault
was the original common-room of the monks. Its
position favours the view, but the entire absence of
windows makes it doubtful. Notes in Rites, 265.

9* The piers are 2 ft. 6 in. square, and the width of
the aisles 7 ft. 6 in. Each bay is a square of 7 ft. 6 in.

side was refaced by Dean Sudbury and all traces
of ancient work obliterated, but a bonding mark
west of the library doorway indicates its term.

The whole of the upper story of the south
range having been rebuilt, no part of the arrange-
ments of the MONKS' FRATER or REFEC-
TORT as set out in Ritrs^'' can now be seen
above the sub-vault. The Frater is described
as having been ' a fair large hall finely wains-
cotted on the north and south side,' and was
entered at the west end from the cloister by a
doorway and staircase in the same position as the
existing library doorway and stair. It was an
aisleless hall about 106 ft. long'' by 32 ft. in
width, with timber roof, and the high table at
the east end. The screens, or kitchen passage,
were at the west, and adjoining them a pantry
above the cellar known as the Covey, which
abutted Walcher's basement on the west. Over
the pantry, the roof of which was on a much
lower level than that of the hall, there was a
room known as the Loft, used in later days for
the daily meals of the monks,'' who used the
frater only on certain festivals, leaving it on
ordinary days to the novices.'" At the west
end of the hall was a stone bench from the
cellar door to the pantry door,*' and above the
bench was ' wainscot work two yards and a half
in height, finely carved and set with embroidered

3'^tto, 80-82.

'* It extended eastward over the passage to the
cloister.

'' ' And also there was a door in the west end of the
frater within the frater house door where the old
monkes or convent went in, and so up a greese with
an iron rail to hold them by, that went up into a loft
(which was at the west end of the frater house)
wherein the said convent and monks did all dine and
sup together, the sub-prior did always sitt at the upper
end of the table as chief ; and at the greese foot
there was another door that went into the great
cellar or buttery, where all the drink did stand that
did serve the Prior and all the whole convent of monks,
having their meal served to them in at a dresser
window from the great kitchen through the Frater
House into a loft above the cellar ' ; RiUs, 87.
This, of course, describes the order and arrangement
in the l6th century. It cannot now be seen how the
monks went up from the frater house door into the
loft, as the steps are gone ; ibid. Fowler's notes in
RiUs, 269.

*" ' Within the Frater House the prior and the whole
convent of the monks held their great feast of St.
Cuthbert's day in Lent . . . Also in the east end
of the frater house stoode a fair table with a decent
skrene of wainscott over it, being keapt all the rest
of the yeare for the master of the no\ices and the
novices to dyn and sup in ' ; Rites, 32.

*i ' A fair long bench of hewn stone in mason work
to sitt on which is from the sellar door to the pantry
or covey door ' ; ibid. 80. The cellar door and the
covey door are still to be seen blocked up in the cellar
and pantry, but not in the library where they are
concealed by wainscot ; ibid. Fowlers notes, 258.

127

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

work, and above the wainscot there was a fair
large picture of our Saviour Christ, the Blessed
Mary and St. John, in fine gilt work and excellent
colours.'*- The ' picture ' had been washed
over in lime, and the wainscot bore an inscription
recording its erection by Prior Castell in July
1518. On the left of the entrance doorway
was a strong aumbry in the stone wall, with ' a
fine work of carved wainscot before it . . . that
none could perceive that there was any aumbry
at all,'''^ in which was kept aU the chief plate
used in the Frater house on festival days," and
on the right a large wooden aumbry or cupboard,
' having divers ambries within it, finely wrought
and varnished all over,' which contained the
table linen, salts, mazers, cups and other things
pertaining to the frater house and loft.'* The
frater pulpit is referred to as ' a convenyent
place at the south end of the hie table within a
faire glasse wyndour, invyroned with iron, and
certain steppes of stone with iron rayles of the
one side to go up to it and to support an iron
desk there placed ' ;** here one of the novices
read some part of the Old and New Testament
during dinner time.

The frater is said to have retained the name
of the Petty Canons' Hall till Dr. Sudbury
erected the Library in its place.*' Nothing of it
has survived except the wall at the east end,
which is part of the west wall of the first dorter.
The long north and south walls are Sudbury's,
but the tall two-light windows** date only from
1858 and the embattled parapets are also modern.
Sudbury's doorway in the cloister, however,
remains unaltered and is characteristic of the
period, with semicircular keystoned arch below
a classic entablature supported by Doric pilasters
on panelled pedestals.** The oak bookcases
and other furnishings of the Library and of the
hbrarian's room adjoining it on the west,

*- Ri(ei, Fowler's notes, 258.

*^ Ibid. 81. The keyhole of the lock was under the
wainscot.

** Tliis included ' a goodly great mazer called
Judas Cupp ' which was used only on Maundy Thurs-
day, when the prior and the whole convent met in
the frater, and a cup called Saint Bede's Bowl ;
Rita, 80.

** An inventory of the plate, drawn up in 1446, is
printed in Rius, 8l.

*' Ibid. 82. The base of the pulpit was identiiied
by Sir William Hope, built against the south wall
outside and covering three bays ; it is below the
present passage from the kitchen to the Deanery ;
ibid. Fowler's notes, 260.

*'' Riles of Durh., Hunter's 2nd ed. (1743), 95-

*' They have four-centred heads and cinquefoiled
lights ; no attempt was made to reproduce Sudbury's
windows.

*' The building of the Library was not finished at
the time of Sudbury's death in 1684, but he left
instructions in his wdl for its completion by his
executors.

128

which partly occupies the place of the Loft,*"

are of Sudbury's time.

Below the hbrarian's room are the * Covey '
and a cellar north of it. This cellar, which runs
east and west, has a restored window to the
cloister and a square opening in the middle of its
vault ; beside the door leading to it from the
covey is a small opening which has had a small
door and fastenings as if to serve drink from
the cellar to the covey without opening the
door." Between the cellar and the sub-vault
of the west range is another doorway, now
blocked.

The MONKS' LAVER stood in the cloister
garth ' over against the fraterhouse door,' and
is described in Rites as ' being made in forme
round, covered with lead, and all of marble
saving the verie uttermost walls.' *^ The basin
had in it ' many little conduits and spouts of
brass, with twenty-four cocks of brass round
about it,' and in the walls were ' seven *' fair
windows of stonework ' with a dovecote on top
covered with lead. The basin still exists in the
centre of the garth, but is not in its original
position. The foundations of the Laver house
were discovered in 1903, opposite the eighth
bay (from the east) of the garth wall.^ There is
reason to believe that the structure was of
13th-century date,"** and that it had been joined
to Skirlaw's cloister alley by a short length of
pentise. A statement of accounts still preserved
shows, however, that the basin and trough sur-
rounding it were made in 1432-3 and that the
marble came from Eggleston.^* The basin is
wrought from a single block and is octagonal in
form, the sides sloping outwards, each with a
blank shield in the middle and another at each
angle.'"" It now rests on the ground, but was

*" After the Dissolution the loft was made the
dining room of the fifth prebend's house, and after
the suppression of six of the prebendaries it was con-
verted to its present purpose ; Rites, Fowler's notes,
269.

« Ibid. 268. 62 Hites, 82.

63 This shows that it was octagonal externally, the
eighth side containing the entrance from the cloister
alley, to wliich it was attached. ' The building appears
not to have been vaulted, but to have had a wooden
ceiling surmounted by a pyramidal roof covered with
lead and containing a dovecote ' ; Hope, Arch.
Iviii, 447. The dovecote was probably a later
addition.

6* The foundations of a small 12th-century lavatory
were also found on the same site, as already stated,
together with a channel for the lead pipe and a well
of the same period. The discoveries then made are
fuUy described by Sir William Hope in Arch. Iviii,

444-57- ... , ^

66 The evidence for this is given at length, op. cit.

452.

«» Ibid. 448.

6* The diameter of the basin is 7 ft. and it is hollowed

CITY OF DURHAM

no doubt originally raised a convenient height
above the floor of the Lavatory.

The GREAT KITCHEN or MONASTERY
KITCHEN adjoined the frater on the south-
west. It is now attached to the Deanery by a
modern passage built against the south side of the
frater sub-vault, and is the only early monastic
kitchen in England still in regular use." It
communicated originally by a doorway and
passage on the north-east side with one of the
rooms under the Loft, from which food was
carried up to the frater, or to the Loft itself.
A doorway on the east side (now the external
entrance) may have originally communicated
with the prior's lodgings, and another doorway
on the west, now blocked, opened to the

larders, or store-rooms, behind the fireplaces
in the south-east and south-west angles in the
thickness of the waUing.^^ About 1752 Dean
Cowper put two ' gothick windows ' in the
kitchen on the south side, and these still afford
the principal means of hghting."'- Externally
the kitchen has angle buttresses and finishes
with an embattled parapet, with a series of
gabled roofs over the vault abutting on the
louvre. The flanking structures on the east
side have been modernised with larder below
and bedrooms above. The Treasurer's chequer
was a ' little stone building ' between the kitchen
and the Deanery, erected before 1371.^^

The GREAT DORTER or DORMITORY
occupied the whole of the upper floor of the

cellarer's chequer, which adjoined it on that west range, the south end of which overlapped
'^' ' ' •' '■ 1.1-1] • . the frater some 20 ft. The early 13th-century

SUB-VAULT OF THE DORTER is a good
example of the work of the period and remains
substantially unaltered. It is about 194 ft.
long and 39 ft. wide internally, and is vaulted in
twelve bays of two spans, divided by a central
row of circular pillars with moulded capitals
and bases. Each bay is thus covered by two
plain quadripartite compartments, about 15 ft.
in height to the crown, with pointed transverse

side. This building was later absorbed into
one of the canons' houses and was pulled down
in 1849.**

The kitchen is a semi-detached building,
generally described as octagonal, but built in
reality on a square plan with fireplaces at the
angles, the arches of which support an octagonal
superstructure and vaulted roof, the smoke
from the fireplaces being conveyed through flues
to a central louvre. The bursar's roUs for the

period 1366-71 set out the cost of making 'the and wall ribs. There are half-round responds,

new kitchen,' but whether it took the place of
one on the same site can only be conjectured.
The main structure at least appears to have been
completed in Fossor's time, but it was not
finished in its present form till the episcopate
of Langley (1406-37), who contributed largely
to the work.'* Internally the octagon is
36 ft. 8 in. in diameter and is covered with a
vault consisting of eight semicircular ribs, each
extending over three of its sides, the space left

similar in detail to the piers, against the walls.
The floor is five steps below that of the cloister
alley. The sub-vault was originally divided into
a treasury (in the bay next the church), the
common house,** a passage from the cloister
to the infirmary, while the four southern bays
contained the great cellar or buttery with en-
trances at one end from the infirmary passage
and at the other from the cellarer's checker and
the kitchen buildings. There was a window in

within their intersection (14 ft. in diameter) each bay on the west, but none of the original

forming the lantern. The ribs are chamfered
and spring from moulded corbels in the angles
high up in the walls ; the wall ribs are sharply
pointed. The openings of the louvre were not
filled with glass till 1507."'' The six sides, other
than the east and west doorways, have each a
chimney, one of which (on the north-east) was
used as a curing-room. The principal fireplaces
were north and south, but the former is now
modernised. The other sides show remains of
fireplaces of different kinds, and there are small

out to a depth of 8 in. It rests upon two stones
forming the trough and projecting about 13 in. beyond
it.

" G. W. Kitchin, The Deanery, Durh. 37.

'* It is shown on Carter's plan (1801) and consisted
of two chambers, each covered by a barrel vault
running east and west.

'• Greenwell, Durh. Caih. 104, quoting Hist.
Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surtees Soc), 146.

•0 Kitchin, op. cit. 42, quoting Durh. Acct. Rolls
(Surtees See), 105.

openings remain, all the existing windows being
modern. Of these divisions only the treasury**
remains, being still separated from the rest by a
thick wall. It is entered from the cloister by a
pointed doorway with a single continuous order,
probably a 15th-century insertion, in which are
still the ' strong door and two locks ' mentioned

'^The cellarer's roU of 1481 mentions the flesh
larder, the fish larder, the store-house and the slaughter
house. The latter was probably east of the kitchen.

'* A window on the north side, mutilated and
blocked, can be seen from one of the cellars under the
Librarian's room ; Fowler's notes in Rites, 274,

•3 Kitchin, Deanery, Durh. 46.

** It is not clear how many bays were occupied by
the Common House. The two bays next to the
Treasury appear to have been the Song School of
Rites, 'a convenient room for the instructor of the
boys for the use of the quire,' and probably the next
four bays were the Common House.

•* ' A strong howse called the Treasure Howse where
all the tresure of the house did lie ' ; Rites, 84.

129

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

in Rites. The ' strong iron grate ' within
also remains. Here the muniments of the con-
vent were icept until quite recent times, when
they were removed to the room over the gate-
house. In the cloister ' over against the trea-
sury house door ' the novices were taught, for
whom there was a ' fair stall of wainscott ' and
their master had a seat opposite on the south side
of the doorway."'

The Common House had ' a fyre keapt in
yt all wynter, for the mounckes to cume and
warme them at, being allowed no fyre but
that onely,' and belonging to it was a garden
and bowling alley, ' on the backside of the said
house towards the water, for the novyces
sume tymes to recreat themeselves.'" All traces
of the fireplace, as well as of the dividing walls,
have disappeared, but the garden and bowHng
alley still exist in a modern form on the west
side. The common house appears to have been
entered at its south end from the infirmary
passage, on the other side of which was the
' great cellar ' of Rius entered from a doorway,
now blocked, at the foot of the stair to the
loft ; the buttery was probably in the end bay.
The infirmary passage occupied the eighth bay
from the north, but the doorway from the cloister
is a later insertion with a single continuous
moulded order ; the passage walls have dis-
appeared and a wide modern opening has been
made in the west wall. The present arrange-
ment is that the eight southern bays of the sub-
vault form a single apartment, in which (at the
north end) are preserved a large number of
mediaeval grave covers and moulded and carved
stones of various kinds from the cathedral and
other churches in the county.^ The two bays
north of this (third and fourth from north) are
now used as vestries for the choir men and boys,
with a single modern doorway, and that next
the treasury is the minor canons' vestry, the
doorway of which has a flat four-centred head
in one stone.*'

The entrance to the DORTER or DORMI-
TORT was at the north end by a stair from the
cloister, close to the church, in the recess formed
by the projection of the south-west tower.
The doorway and the wall in which it is set
belong to the 12th-century west range, and a
round-headed opening, now blocked, stiU remains
in a portion of this older walling on the west

«« Rliet, 84.

6' Ibid. 88.

•*Greenwell, op. cit. loi. The south end serves
as a public way from the cloister to the outer court
(College Green) by a modern doorway in the south
wall.

*' It is a restoration, but apparently is a copy of the
old doorway, perhaps of early 16th-century date.
Carter's plan shows a door here, but not in the fourth
bay, where the choir vestry door now is.

side overlooking the garden. The doorway has
a semicircular arch of three moulded orders, the
two inner on jamb shafts with cushion capitals,
the outer resting on extended imposts. The
whole surface has been pared down and the
label and outer order cut away.

The dorter was divided by wainscot partitions
into a series of cubicles, or ' little chambers,'
with a passage down the middle. Each cubicle
was lighted by a window'" and contained a desk,
while in the wall above on each side were widely
spaced two-light pointed windows lighting the
whole of the apartment. The lower windows
are square-headed and of two trefoiled lights
divided by a transom, and all are restorations ;
the upper windows have cinquef oiled lights,
vertical tracery and labels.'^ At the south end
is a modern pointed window of five lights below
a plain flat-pitched gable, and the side walls
have embattled parapets on corbel tables. The
dorter still retains its original open roof with
plain oak principals, barely touched by the axe,'^
wall pieces on stone corbels, and struts, the
span of which is 41 ft. The upper windows occur
in every third bay. The novices occupied the
south end, ' having eight chambers on each
side . . . not so close nor so warme as the
other chambers,' there being no windows to give
light ' but as it came in at the foreside.'" The
middle passage was paved with ' fine tyled
stone,' which in part remained till past the
middle of the 19th century,'* and at either end
of the dorter was a large four-square cresset
stone each with a dozen bowls. The sub-prior's
chamber was ' the first in the dorter for
seinge of good order keapt.' '^ A doorway at the
north end, now blocked, opened into the church
under the south-west tower, and led probably
by a wooden gallery by another doorway into
the tower staircase and so to the church itself,'*
The original fittings have disappeared and the
room is now used as a part of the Chapter
Library, bookcases being placed along the walls
below the upper windows. The room also
contains a series of Roman altars and inscribed
stones from Lanchester and other stations in the
county, and on the line of the Roman wall, a

'" ' Every windowe serving for one chamber, by
reason the particion betwixt every chamber was close
wainscotted one from another ' ; Rites, 85.

'1 The lower windows are without labels. ' The
present windows to a great extent occupy the places
of the old ones ' ; Rites, Fowler's notes, 265.
There are fifteen lower windows facing the cloister and
six upper ones.

'2 Greenwell, op. cit. 102.

"i^ Rites, 85.

'* Greenwell, writing in 1879, says ' until not many
years ago ' ; op. cit. 102.

"1^ Rites, 86.

"Greenwell, op. cit. 101.

130

CITY OF DURHAM

collection of crosses, grave-slabs and other work
of pre-Conquest date, and the rehcs from St.
Cuthbert's tomb. At the south end of the east
wall a modern doorway opens to the Librarian's
Room, in the position of the Loft, which formed
the dining room of one of the prebendal houses
constructed partly in the south end of the
dorter."

The RERE-DORTER was a ' faire large
house and most decent place adjoining to the
west of the dorter towards the water . . . which
was made with two great pillars of stone that
did bear up the whole floore thereof, and every
seat and partition was of wainscot.''* Each
seat had a window, but these were afterwards
walled up ' to make the house more close,' and
in the west end were three glass windows and
on the south another, above the seats which
gave light to the whole.'* This building, lying
at right angles with the dorter, opposite the
sixth and seventh bays of the sub-vault (from
the north), is shown in part on Carter's plan ;
it appears to have been about 68 ft. long from
west to east internally by about 30 ft. wide,
with a ground floor passage between it and the
dorter. The pit remains, with an outlet west-
ward,*" and the south wall of the structure still
stands as high as the siUs of the little windows,
forming the north wall of the stables built over
the ' lyng house,' which adjoined the rere-
dorter on that side.**

The ' lyng house ' was a strong prison for
great offenders, described in Rites as within
the INFIRMARY underneath the master's
chamber.*- The upper building is shown on
Carter's plan running east and west opposite
the passage through the sub-vault, but it had
been greatly altered after the Dissolution and
converted into stables. It was about 60 ft.
long by 40 ft. wide and the prison was in the
basement. In clearing this during 1890-95 the
floor was found to be 23 ft. below the present
ground level. The chamber is 24 ft. 3 in. long
and had a barrel vault supported by wall
arcades ' made up of older material, some of

" ' Some wall-p.'iper purposely left on some of the
roof timbers shows where the garrets were ' ; Rites,
Fowler's notes, 296.

">» Rites, 85.

'9 Ibid. 85.

** There was no watercourse, and some method of
flushing from the conduit must have been adopted ;
ibid. Fowler's notes, 266.

** Ibid. 266 : ' The stables have a hay-loft over in
wliich the window sills are visible. In an oil painting
of the castle, probably of the i6th or 17th century,
the rere-dorter and a larger building to the south are
shown standing roofed and with windows of late
character as though they had been adapted to later
uses.'

82 ' Within the fermery in ounder ncth the mr. of
ye fermery's chamber ' ; ibid. 89.

the capitals of the shafts being of 12th-cen-
tury, and others of 13th-century date.'*^ The
entrance was by a round-headed doorway**
on the south leading into a vaulted passage
carried along that side of the building to the
west end ' where a newel staircase with a pro-
jecting turret ascends into an upper room on the
level of the stable floor,'*^ no doubt the master
of the infirmary's chamber. This room was
lighted by a round-headed window, now blocked,
in the west gable, but with this exception no
part of the infirmary remains. Its site was
south of the rere-dorter and south-west of the
dorter range. In it was a room know-n as the
Dead Man's chamber*" and adjoining it a chapel
dedicated to St. Andrew.

Excavations in 1890 under the monk's garden
revealed a passage commencing at a depth of
about 30 ft. at the north-west corner of the
stables and rising with a gradual ascent to the
south wall of the Galilee, into which it formerly
had access. This passage has a barrel vault
and is lighted by three narrow sHts with sloped
sills in the west wall, which abuts upon the river
bank ; the east wall is blank.*'

The GUEST HOUSE was within the abbey
garth ' on the west side towards the water,'
south of the infirmary and south-west of the
kitchen.** The hall is described as ' a goodly
brave place, much like unto the body of a
church, with very fair pillers supporting it on
ether syde and in the mydest of the haule a
most large raunge for the fyer.'** The cham-
bers and lodgings were ' swetly keapt and richly
furnyshed,' especially one chamber called the
King's Chamber ' deservinge that name in that

*3 Greenwell, op. cit. loo.

*^ The doorway, which opened outward, was closed
by a wooden bar, the hole for wliich in the jamb
remains ; ibid. loi.

*5 Ibid. loi.

*' The body of a deceased monk was taken first
to the Dead Man's Chamber, where it remained till
night, and was then removed to the chapel where it
lay till 8 o'clock the follov\ing morning, at which hour
the corpse was conveyed to the Chapter House and
from there through the parlour to the cemetery south-
east of the church ; Rites, 51.

*' Greenwell, op. cit. 100.

** ' The house now (1903) occupied by the Professor
of Divinity stands on the site with which it corresponds
very nearly in length and breadth. . . . The entry
by the Dark Passage to the Banks is along its north
side ' ; Rites, Fowler's notes, 272. This was the
third prebend's house. The date of its erection is
unknown, but it was improved by Dr. James Finney
(1694-1726), and rebuilt in its present form by Dr.
Prosser about 1 808 ; ibid. 159. In Bek's general
view of Durham (Bod. Lib.) it is shown as a lofty
mansion \nth a long row of dormer windows ; ibid.
296.

«» Ibid. 90.

131

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

the king himselfe myght verie well have lyne in
yt.' Some walling of 12th-century date remains
in the house built on the site on its north and
west sides and in the interior, but the only
apartment that has survived is a vaulted base-
ment, now used as a kitchen. The vault is
in three bays of two spans, supported by two
pillars with moulded capitals.*"

The PRIOR'S LODGING, now the
DEANERT, was built eastward of and incor-
porating the early dorter at the south end of the
east range. Assuming that the dorter was aban-
doned before or about 1140, it is reasonable to
suppose that this part of the monastic buildings
would then, or soon after, be handed over to
the prior, and that he constructed various
chambers to the east of it. To these a chapel
was attached in the 13th century in the south-
east corner, but in the existing buildings nothing
between the chapel and the old dorter is earher
than the 14th century, the intervening rooms
having presumably been rebuilt at that period,
and they have been altered more than once
since. The many references in the Rolls of the
Convent to work done in the prior's lodging are
tantalisingly vague and Rius has little to
say about this part of the monastery. The
earliest rolls do not begin until 1278, at which
time there was glass in the prior's rooms, and
Graystanes mentions the prior's chamber twenty
years earlier. The checker of the prior's chaplain
was ' over the stairs as you go up to the Dean's
hall . . . and his chamber was next to the
prior's chamber,''^ but neither room can be
identified.*- Of the date of the erection of the
chapel there is no record, and its attribution to
Prior Melsonby (1233-44) i^ conjectural. Fossor
did a great deal of work in the monastery build-
ings, but it is not specifically stated that ' the
two separate chambers, namely, the high cham-
ber and the low one,' were in the prior's lodging,
though probably they were. In Wessington's
time a sum of £^i() was expended ' for con-
struction and repairs of various chambers belong-
ing to the Prior,' but no details of the work done
are given. The Deanery is said to have been
' very much improved ' by Dean Comber
(1691-99) who ' built a new apartment to it,'*^
but this cannot be located, and no adequate
record has been kept even of the 18th-century
reconstructions and alterations.

The detail of the chapel is very simple and in
striking contrast to Melsonby's work in the Nine
Altars ; though apparently early in the pointed
style, it is possible the work may be as late as
the middle of the 13th century. The chapel

•o Boyle, Guide to Durh. 363.

•* Rites, loi. This was in the l6th century.

•^ Kitchin, The Deanery, Durh. 33.

<« Ibid. 73.

was internally about 50 ft. long from west to east
by about 16 ft. wide, over a vaulted basement,
and stands in front of the face of the main
building, which it overlaps at the east end about
20 ft. The upper part, or chapel proper, has
been divided up and turned to domestic uses,
but the sub-vault remains substantially un-
altered. In 1914-15 it was fitted up as a chapel
by Dean Henson and later used by the women
students of St. Mary's College, and the windows
were opened out. It is of four bays, each covered
by a single quadripartite vault, with pointed
wall-ribs and transverse arches, springing from
half-round responds against the side walls, with
moulded capitals and bases. The height of the
vault is about 11 ft. and the ribs are chamfered.
This apartment (' the chamber under the vault ')
was lighted by four narrow windows with wide
internal splays on the south side, one at the
east end of the north wall, and one at the east
end, and the entrance is at the west end from
the garden. The windows were made square-
headed after the Dissolution and so remain.
The west doorway has a pointed continuous
chamfered arch with hood mould, and there is
also a door at the west end of the north wall
from the lower floor of the house. The entrances
to the chapel above were in the same relative
positions, the internal one directly from the
prior's solar {camera superior) and the other
from the outside, the method of access to which
is no longer apparent. It was probably reached
by a wooden stairway, but all traces of this or
any other means of approach have long since
disappeared. The doorway is of two orders with
hood-mould, the outer order moulded on jamb
shafts. Above in the west wall are two tall
lancets, now blocked, and at the east end two
similar windows. The eastern windows are
deeply recessed, with an outer order carried on
jamb shafts with moulded capitals and bases, and
are widely spaced, the wall between being now
rebuilt as a chimney in a way which makes it
difficult to determine whether there was originally
a middle opening. On the south side all the
original windows of the chapel have disappeared,
five large square-headed sash windows having
been inserted on each floor in the i8th century,
but in the overlapping north wall are the
remains of two grouped lancets, placed lower
than those at the east end, which suggest that
originally the windows on the south may have
been in pairs. Externally the chapel has wide
flat clasping buttresses at the angles, and there
have been buttresses on the south side and at
the ends. The conversion of the chapel into
rooms took place in the i8th century, when a
floor was inserted and two sitting-rooms with
a smaller room between were formed on the
lower floor and four smaller rooms on the floor
above. These are all lighted from the south

132

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'33

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

by the sash windows akeady named, and the
lower rooms have fireplaces with carved mantels
in the end walls. The date of these alterations
is not known, but they may have been the work
of Dean Cowper (1746-74). The chapel fabric
now has a straight parapet and flat-pitched leaded
roof ; the original roof has been destroyed and
all traces of the chapel internally have been
obhterated.

The main part of the building between the
chapel and the great hall consisted of the prior's
solar, or camera superior, on the principal floor,
with the camera inferior, 01 servants' hall, under
it. The former was a lofty apartment about
62 ft. long from west to east and 22 ft. in width.
It now forms the drawing-room of the Deanery,
but its east end, which overlaps the chapel some
16 ft., has been partitioned off as a lobby. The
drawing-room is thus 46 ft. long, and in its
present aspect dates from the i8th century and
later, but its walls are ancient. The south or
outer wall is of 14th-century date, probably
Prior Fossor's reconstruction of a former build-
ing erected against the old rere-dorter, the south
wall of which, v\ith its pit, was retained, and still
forms the inner wall of the drawing-room and
hall below. Whatever the original appearance of
the prior's camera, it seems to have been a good
deal altered late in the 15th century, or early in
the 1 6th, when a fine flat-pitched, open-tim-
bered roof of oak was erected and lofty windows
with vertical tracery inserted, some indications of
which stiU remain outside.** This roof is still
in position, but hidden by a later plaster ceiling,
except at the east end, where it is visible over the
lobby. In the south wall, near its east end, is a
vice turret by which direct access was obtained
from the servants' haU to the prior's camera and
thence to the roof. The turret projects externally
as a half octagon and terminates above the para-
pet with a short pyramidal roof. It is of 14th-
century date, and the doorway in the lower room
has a continuous moulded shouldered arch : the
opening in the upper room is now covered by
panelling, but can still be used. The present
four great square-headed sash windows were put
in by Dean Cowper about 1748-49,* but the
coved plaster ceiling appears to be subsequent to
Cowper's time (1746-74), as a panel with his
arms is now above it at the west end of the
room.** The fireplace is modern.

** Kitchin, op. cit. 50.

•^ He is said at this time to have ' pulled down an old
part of the Deanery, next the garden facing the south,'
and to have ' rebuilt the same in a handsome manner,'
but Dean Kitchin points out that this refers to the
staircase leading from the front door to the outer hall ;
op. cit. 71.

•• The panel is figured in Kitchin, op. cit. 52. It
has the arms of Cowper impaling Townshend. Dean
Spencer Cowper married Lady Dorothy Townshend.

The camera inferior has been modernised, and
except for the doorway to the vice is architectu-
rally uninteresting. Partition walls now divide it
into three, and the windows have been enlarged
and made into sashes. It has a flat ceiling. On
this floor the double wall of the old rere-dorter,
enclosing the pit of the latrines, stands clear its
full width from the wall of the old dorter range,
with a passage between ; on the floor above it has
been cut through at the ends, perhaps in the 17th
century, to form a passage-way through the
house. The site of the rere-dorter is now
occupied by rooms which in their present
aspect are of comparatively modern date, but
probably took shape in the 15th century. They
consist of a morning room (28 ft. by 20 ft.), and a
smaller room opening from it at the east end, but
are without architectural interest.*'

Immediately north of the chapel was the minor
camera of the prior,** now the Dean's hbrary,
and to the north of this again, and originally
communicating with it, a room called ' King
James's Room,'** but probably in the first in-
stance the prior's sleeping chamber. Both these
rooms appear to have been originally of 14th-
century date, and their outer walls, including a
buttress on the east side and part of a window on
the north,^ are still largely of that period, but the
outer wall of the library was rebuUt in its present
form, with a bay window, early in the 19th cen-
tury, when an external stone staircase to the
garden was erected.^ The library (28 ft. by
22 ft.) has an oak ceiling of four bays, probably of
late isth-century date, the main beams carried on
stone corbels and shaped wall pieces, each bay
having three panelled compartments with carved
bosses at the intersection of the ribs. The fire-
place is modern.

The celling of King James's Room is of
panelled oak, with a series of carved bosses and
shields at the intersections of the ribs. On one

" These rooms were altered and improved by Dean
Cowper about 1748-9; Kitchin, op. cit. 71. They
may have been part of the work done in Wessington's
time.

•* The chapel was described in 1343 as ' juxta et
prope minorem cameram prioris.' Richard de Bury
(Surtees Soc. ciix), 167, quoted by Kitchin, op. cit. 54.

•* From King James VI of Scotland having slept
there in April 1603 on his way to London.

'^ In the basement story ; it is the top of a pointed
window of two cinquefoiled lights with an elongated
trefoil in the head.

* A drawing of the east front of the Deanery by
Robert Surtees, c. 1810 (reproduced in Kitchin's
Deanery, 55), shows a kind of large entrance porch in
the angle of the chapel and library and a modern
gabled addition immediately north of the buttress.
These were pulled down when the east wall of the
Hbrary was rebuilt. The library is shown in the
sketch as lighted by two four-centred windows with
square labels.

134

CITY OF DURHAM

of the shields is Prior Castell's badge of the
winged heart pierced by a sword, and others have
the arms of the See and of the prior and chapter.
The work is apparently of Castell's time,^ and
may be as late as the second decade of the i6th
century.'' The carved bosses include the sacred
monogram, the Agnus Dei, the cross of thorns,
Tudor rose (repeated), chained hart, fleur-de-
lys, three rabbits nibbling at fruit, and other
subjects. Below the ceiling is an embattled
cornice with deep-cut flowing floral pattern on
the underside. The bedrooms over the Library
and King's Room are without interest, but the
chamfered wall pieces of an old roof, apparently
of early 16th-century date, remain on both sides.
Probably the whole of this floor was originally
one room, but it is divided into four, with a
passage on the west side connecting the rooms
over the chapel with a staircase on the north side
of the house. To the west of this staircase are
three bedrooms opening from one another over
the rooms north of the drawing-room. All the
internal arrangements and the windows on this
floor are 18th-century or later, though the outer
walls are old. The basement story of the block
north of the chapel has been modernised, and
contains a laundry and coal cellar with a passage
between. From this a trap door opens to a
large stone-built chamber, or cesspool, 12 ft.
deep, divided by a semicircular arch into two
bays, with a flanking arch over each. This
chamber, which is 8 ft. 6 in. by 8 ft., has a round-
headed opening, now blocked, on the east side,
and may have been the cesspool connected with
the early buildings on the east side of the cloister,
though it is some 30 ft. east of the old rere-
dorter. It was perhaps used later in connexion
with the prior's privy chamber.

The Great Hall of the prior's lodging, as
already stated, was formed from the old dorter
by lengthening it at the north end up to the
chapter house, so as to include the dorter stairs
and landing. Since the days of the deans the
Great Hall has been divided horizontally by the
insertion of a floor over rather more than half its
length, providing bedrooms in the upper part,
and vertically by the erection of a partition on
the ground floor, and has thus lost all its ancient
characteristics. The side walls belong to the
Norman building, and on the west, overlooking
the cloister, is still a round-headed window, now
blocked, but no other features of this period
survive. The modern doorway on the east side,
which opens on to a lobby between the Great
Hall and the northern apartments, is, however,

* Whether this is its first position has been ques-
tioned. Dean Kitchin says : ' It shows signs of a
juncture across the middle ; it has been suggested
that it was originally the roofing of two rooms trans-
ferred here at some later time ' (Kitchin, op. cit. 62).

* Castell wainscotted the frater in 15 18.

in the same position as the original doorway to
the rere-dorter. Above this is a blocked square-
headed three-light window of I5ih-century date,
and there is another, blocked in its lower part,
on the west side, the upper portion of which
lights one of the bedrooms. The hood mould of
another opening still remains on this side above a
modern sash window. Prior Fossor placed a
window at the south end of the hall, but the
existing window in that position is a restoration
of a four-light square-headed opening wliich
replaced the earlier one in 1476,^ and the other
windows and the oak roof were probably erected
a few years later.^ It is almost certain that the
Great Hall was re-roofed and otherwise altered
about this time, assuming then the aspect it
retained until the Dissolution, but there are no
records of actual work done. As then recon-
structed, the Hall must have been a very noble
apartment, lighted by great windows on either
side at its north end, some 13 ft. above the floor,
and by a large window in the south end. In
length it was about 75 ft. and in width 24 ft.,
with a height of about 40 ft., but the floor was
raised four steps some 10 ft. from the south end
so as to clear the vault of the undercroft. The
15th-century roof still remains over the whole of
this space, but can be seen only from the inner
hall at the south end, the i emainder being hidden
by the flat plaster ceilings of the bedrooms. The
north end of the Great Hall, now the dining hall
of the Deanery (42 ft. by 24 ft.), has a plaster
ceiling imitating oak, and is lighted by three
modern windows on the east side. The south
end, now the Inner Hall, is panelled all round
with two tiers of late 15th or early i6th century
oak traceried panelling, and the partition divid-
ing it from the dining hall has three tiers of
similar panelling with plaster above. Dean
Kitchin was of opinion that aU this panelling
was the wainscot from the monks' frater re-
erected here by Dean Sudbury when he con-
verted the frater into the chapter library,' and if
so it dates from 15 18. The tracery of the
wainscot was from time to time replaced by
sham work in painted putty or plaster, but has
since been restored in oak.* Modern doorways
on the west side of the inner hall open to the
Chapter Library and to the passage to the
kitchen. The Great Hall had a buttery at-
tached to it, but its position cannot be accurately
located ; it may have been to the south-west of
the Hall, approximately where the modern
butler's pantry, built by Dean Waddington over
the passage to the cloister, now stands.

^ Kitchin, op. cit. 61, quoting Durh. Acct. Rolls
(Surtees Soc), iii, 646.

* There were charges for ' divers windows ' in
1482 and 1483 : ibid.

' Kitchin, op. cit. 64-

8 Ibid. 48.

135

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

The GATEHOUSE, on the east side of the
abbey garth, still remains in a very perfect con-
dition, though restored. The gateway proper is
set in the middle of the entrance passage, and
has the usual greater and lesser doorways. The
outer porch, as well as the gate hall, has a vaulted
roof of quadripartite form with ridge ribs and
tiercons, the boss in the porch being carved
with the arms of the See of Durham, borne by
an angel, while that of the inner compartment
has the badge of Prior Castell. Each compart-
ment has a wall arcade of three plain chamfered
arches, and the great arch at each end of the
entrance passage is a pointed one of two con-
tinuous chamfered orders. The upper story is
lighted at each end by a four-centred three-light
window with vertical tracery, and terminates in
a flat-pitched gable. Both windows are modern
restorations, and the upper part of the walling is
much rebuilt. On the east side, facing the Bailey,
are two empty canopied niches — one on each
side of the window.' In the room over the
archway Castell renewed the former chapel of
St. Helen and the sleeping room of its priest.
After the Dissolution the room was used for a
long time as the exchequer of the Dean and
Chapter,** and it is now the treasury. On the
north side of the Gatehouse was a building con-
taining a loft, where the children of the Almery
' had diet ' at the cost of the convent. The loft
had a ' long porche over the stairhead, slated
over, and at either side of the porch or entry
there was a stair to go up to it and a stable under-
neath it.' " After the Dissolution this building
was converted into a dwelling-house for the first
prebendary of the sixth stall, when the stairs were
taken down and the stable made into a kitchen.*-

The CHAMBERLAIN'S EXCHEQUER was
to the north-west of the Gatehouse. It was
rebuilt as the residence of the prebendary of the
first stall, and again in part by Dr. J. Bowles
(1712-21).'' The chamberlain 'kept a tailor
daily at work in a shop underneath the Ex-
chequer,' and at the back was a walled garden
called Paradise. An infirmary for lay folk with its
own chapel stood outside the monastery gate.*^

* Billings' plate (1842) shows a mutilated figure in
the southernmost niche.

MRaine, Durh. Cath. 117.

^'^ Rites, 91. MS. of 1656. The food for the
children was served from a window in the covey near
the kitchen, and carried to the loft by the gatehouse.

1* Rites of Durh. (Hunter's 2nd ed.), 106. The loft
was made into a buttery. The house was partly
rebuilt by Richard Wrench (1660-75), being 'much
ruined in the Rebellion ' ; Fowler's Rites, 159. Early
walling remains in the basement ; ibid. 296.

*' The existing house bears Bishop Egerton's arms
(1771-87), and therefore was rebuilt or repaired in his
time.

^* Rites, 272.

The church of S7. NICHOLAS
CHURCHES stands on the north side of the
market-place, but was entirely
rebuilt in the style of the 14th century in 1857-8.
It consists of a short chancel, nave with north
and south aisles, and tower at the west end of
the south aisle forming the porch, surmounted
by a tall stone spire. A few carved stones from
the old church are preserved in Durham Castle
and a modern ' Norman ' window inserted before
1857 is now at Edmundbyers.

The building pulled down in 1857 consisted
of chancel, nave with north and south aisles,
and a tower in the same position as at present.
Sir Stephen Glynne, who visited the church in
1825, described it as ' a large structure display-
ing some marks of antiquity although the bar-
barous hand of innovation has swept nearly all
before it.' *

The nave arcades consisted of pointed arches,
three on the north side and two of greater span
on the soi^th. The chancel had aisles on cither
side, the arcade on the north being apparently
of 12th-century date, but that on the south
was similar to the arches in the nave. Surtees
states that the north aisle extended ' the whole
length of the nave and chancel. It is divided
from the nave by two low octagonal pillars sup-
porting blunt pointed arches, and from the
chancel by a low round column with a fluted
capital supporting round arches of unequal
height and span. The south aisle is separated
from the chancel by a small pillar and pointed
arch, and from the nave by one slender and
octagonal column supporting wide pointed
arches.'- The chancel arch was wide and blunt,
springing from corbels of human heads.' At
the beginning of the 19th century the south
front of the building was almost entirely con-
cealed by the market-piazza. The tower had
been a good deal altered, and finished with a
straight parapet. The outward northern wall
(was) of great height and strength, supported
by square buttresses and was considered as a
portion of the defensive line of the city on the
north, sweeping exactly in line with the curtain
wall of Nevill's Place and Claypath Gate.*
There were two galleries, one for the children
of the Bluecoat School at the west end, erected
in 1 72 1 by Sir John Eden, bart., and the other
between two of the pillars of the north aisle,
erected in 1729 by the Cordwainers' Company.*
In 1768 the south front of the tower was chiselled
over and a large east window inserted in the
chancel, and in 1803 the interior was restored,

1 Proc. Soc. Antiq. Newcastle (3rd ser.), iii, 283.
* Surtees, Hist, of Dur. iv, 47.
3 Ibid. 47.
« Ibid. 48.
« Ibid. 48.

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CITY OF DURHAM

the north gallery taken down, the wainscot
removed from behind the altar and the pews
and paving renewed." An old stone pulpit
resting on a small stone pillar was removed
about the same time. Another gallery extending
nearly the whole length of the north aisle was
erected in 1826. An organ loft, which had
succeeded the rood loft, had been taken down
in 1684 and replaced by the Ten Commandments
and the Royal Arms which remained till
1806.'

There is a ring of six bells, five of which from
the old church are dated 1687 and bear the
stamp of James Bartlett, of Whitechapel. They
all bear an inscription which, with slight varia-
tions, chiefly in the division of the lines, reads

FVNDATVR DEI GLORIjE REGNO AVGVSTISSIMI
lACOBI SECVNDI NATHANIELE : : EPISE ROBERT
DELAVAL ARM : PRjETORE RALPH TROTTER ROB :

ROBSON cn WARDENS 1687. The treble was cast
by John Warner & Sons, of London, in 1889,
when the other bells were rehung.^

The plate consists of a chalice and cover
paten of 1665 with the maker's initials IR,
inscribed ' Calix Benedictionis S'=' Nicholai
Dunelm 1665'*; a chalice and cover of 1685
with the maker's initials lY, and the arms of
Fenwick impaling Hall, the chalice inscribed
• The gift of Mary Fenwick Widd. of Mr. Wm.
Fenwick of Newton Ganes desceased and the
only daughter and Heir of Alderman John Hall
Vintner ; for the Communion Service of St.
Nicholas Durham '; '" two flagons of 1685 with
the arms of Clark impaling Hall, inscribed ' Given
to y'= Parish of St. Nicholas in the Cittie of
Durham by Mrs. Ann Clark Widdow, Sister to
John Hall Esq. one of y* Aldermen of y^ said
Cittie 1686 ' ; a paten of 1708, with the maker's
mark CH ; and two almsdishes of 1771 Edin-
burgh make, inscribed ' The gift of Thomas
Wilkinson Esq. (of Old Elvet) for the Com-
munion Service of the Parish Church of St.
Nicholas in the City of Durham. Oct. nth,
1841.' There are also two plated cups 'Pre-
sented to St. Nicholas Church Durham by G.W.
1858.'

* Ibid. 48. The wainscot bore the date 1627
and the initials of William Pattison.

' Ibid. 48. Seats for the Mercers' Company were
erected in 1678 (renewed 1 762), and for the Mayor
and Aldermen in 1705.

8 Froc. Soc. Aiitiq. Newcastle, iv, 128. The treble is
inscribed ' This bell is the gift of Thomas and Eleanor
Winter. The other five bells were rehung at the same
time. Rev. H. E. Fox, vicar, George Chapman,
John Robinson, churchwardens, Wilham Boyd, mayor.'

' Ibid, iv, 126-8. In 7 Edw. VI there was ' one
chalice, with a paten double gilt, weighing xvi ounces,
one other chalice with a paten parcel gilt weighing
viii ounces.' Invent, of Ch. Gds. (Surt. Soc), 142.
10 The cover is inscribed ' St. Nicholas Durham.'

137

The register of baptisms and burials begins
in 1540 and that of marriages in 1561. The
first volume, which ends in 1602, is a transcript
made in 1635. ''

The church of ST. MART-LE-BOfV stands
on the east side of the North Bailey, on a very
ancient site, but dates only from the 17th cen-
tury. It consists of chancel with organ chamber
on the north side, aisleless nave and engaged
west tower forming a porch and slightly pro-
jecting in front of the face of the main wall.
It derives its name from the ' bow ' or arch of
the old tower which was thrown across the
street, resting on a pier on the opposite side."
This tower fell down on 29 August 1637, in
its fall destroying a great portion of the west
end of the church. In the following December
the parishioners resolved to take down and re-
build the whole structure,'^ but nothing seems
to have been done immediately, and during the
entire period of the Civil War the church was
abandoned and the churchyard used as a common
way. The building lay in ruins till 1685, when,
after ineffectual attempts by the parishioners to
raise sufficient money for the restoration, the
aid of the bishop (Lord Crewe) and the Dean
and Chapter was sought and the church entirely
rebuilt. The tower was added in 1702, and
the fittings of the chancel date from a few years
later, the altar rails 1705, the screen 1707, and
the wainscoting 1731. The west gallery and
vestry were erected in 1741. The tower was
repaired in 1827, and in 1875 the whole building
was restored and the organ chamber built, oak
benches at the same time taking the place of
the old pews.i'*

The walls are of rubble masonry and the roofs
are leaded and of flat pitch behind embattled
parapets. All the windows are modern, gener-
ally of two or three lights with transoms and
perpendicular tracery. The parapets are all
modern restorations.

The chancel measures internally 34 ft. by
21 ft., and has a five-fight east window with
perpendicular tracery and two similar w-indows
each of two lights on the south side and one on
the north. The west end of the north wall is
open to the organ chamber by a modern arch.
The roof is a boarded one of four bays and the
floor is level with that of the nave. The chancel

11 Surtecs, op. cit. iv, 51. Extracts are given. The
second volume begins in 1603 and ends in 1730.
Extracts from the churchwardens' accounts are given,
p. 52.

12 Ibid, iv, 38, quoting Micklcton MS. " Ibid.
1^ Sir Stephen Glynne visited the church in 1825.

He describes it as a ' structure of no great extent or
beauty. The west front ... in a motley style of
architecture partaking both of the Gothic and Itahan
style.' The windows were ' mostly of Perpendicular
character.' Proc. Soc. Antiq. Newcastle, 3rd ser. iii, 324.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

arch is a lofty flat four-centred one, the full
width of the chancel, dying into the walls at
the springing, and the screen is of dark oak with
three divisions on each side of the middle
opening. The design is of mixed Renaissance
and Gothic character, with cornice and long
top panels and tracery in the heads of the
openings. On the south side of the screen
within the chancel are three stalls with carved
standards of Renaissance type, and on the north
side a pew. The altar rails consist of turned
oak balusters and the wainscoting is of a rather
plain classic type. The upper part of the walls
is plastered. The general effect of the chancel
with its lofty roof, tall Gothic windows, and dark
oak fittings is one of much dignity.

The nave is 56 ft. long by 27 ft. wide and of
the same height as the chancel. It is divided
externally by buttresses into three unequal bays
and has three windows on each side of three and
two lights, similar in character to those in the
chancel. The walls are panelled to the height
of the window siUs with 18th-century oak
wainscot, and the gallery, which is 16 ft. in
depth, has a good panelled oak front. It
is approached by a staircase on the north side
of the tower. The nave roof is a flat boarded
one of six bays, and the walls are plastered
above the panelling. There are diagonal but-
tresses at the angles of both chancel and nave.

The tower measures externally 14 ft. by
13 ft. 6 in. above the roof, but is wider at the
bottom where it forms a west porch, the outer
wall on this side being 5 ft. thick. The west
doorway is round-headed and above, in the
second stage, is a round-headed classic window
enclosed within a pointed hood mould, pos-
sibly part of the older building. The em-
battled parapet of the west wall is carried
along the face of the tower at the second stage,
from which the belfry rises above the roof.
The belfry windows are modern openings of two
lights with tracery in the heads, and the walls
terminate in an embattled parapet. On the
south side is a vice to the roof of the nave at
the south-west corner. The tower arch is a lofty
segmental one of two chamfered orders 16 ft. 6 in.
in width, the belfry stage contracting above.

The font dates from 1875, but has an old
cover probably of early 18th-century date. An
organ was purchased in 1789 from the executors
of the rector of Houghton-le-Spring^^ and for-
merly stood in the west gallery.

The tower contains one bell cast by G. Dalton,
of York, in 1 759."

The plate consists of a chalice of 1 570-1 with

^^ Surtees, op. cit. iv, 40.

1^ Ptoc. Soc. Jntiq. Nfivcastle, iv, 1 25. It is inscribed
' lames Bullock, Thomas Hanby Churchwardens
1759.' Temp. Edw. VI there were three bells in
the steeple.

an interlacing band of leaf ornament ; two plates
of 1688 with the maker's mark FG above a
mullet, probably for Francis Garthorne, both
inscribed ' Ecclesiae Ball' Boreal' Dunelm
E : K : dedit A° 1689'"; a flagon of 1696,
with the arms of Spearman, inscribed ' Deo et
Ecclesiae Stse Marise 1' Bow in BaDivo Boreali
Dunelm. Submissa oblata Ao. Dom. 1703. Ex
dono Johannis Spearman generosi Parochiani
ejusdem Parochiae ' ; another flagon of the same
date, and a covered cup made at Newcastle in
1748, both inscribed ' The Gift of Eliz. daughter
of Wm. Aubone Esq"', and Relict of Wm.
Featherstonhalgh Esq'', to her grandchild Mary
Wilkinson & given to Bow Church by Mary
Wilkinson her Mother Anno Dom. 1734,' ^^^
bearing the arms of Featherstonhalgh.**

The registers begin in 1571.

There is a small burial ground on the north
side of the church, but the original churchyard
no doubt extended to the south and west.''

The church of ST. MART THE LESS stands
in a retired situation on the west side of the
South Bailey, and consists of chancel and nave
under separate roofs, with a bell turret containing
two bells over the west gable. The chancel
measures internally 26 ft. 6 in. by 14 ft. 6 in.,
and the nave 35 ft. by 20 ft. 6 in., the total
internal length being 64 ft. 6 in. The church is
of 12th-century date, but was almost entirely
rebuilt in 1846-7 in the ' Norman ' style, very
few of its ancient architectural features being
preserved, though it follows more or less the
old design. The only original window which
has been preserved is a small round-headed
opening at the west end of the south wall of
the chancel, now in the position of a low side
window, but it was formerly at the west end
of the nave. The modern windows, including
that at the east end, are all large round-headed
openings of ' Norman ' type. The waUing is
of rubble with quoins and ashlar dressings, and
the roofs are covered with slates overhanging
at the eaves. The south doorway is slightly
advanced in front of the main wall, its gable
giving it the appearance of a shallow porch.
The whole of the work on the north side of the
building, being little seen, is of a very plain
description, the jambs and heads of the windows
being of brick, and there is a small brick vestry
on the north side of the chancel. The building
had lost many of its original features some years
prior to the rebuilding, Sir Stephen Glynne, who
visited it in 1825, stating that it had been ' lately

" On one of the plates ' dedit ' is spelt ' didit.'
E. K. was Edward Kirkby : Surtees, op. cit. iv, 42.

1* Proc. Soc. Antiq. Newcastle, iv, 125.

1' Traces of interment have been frequently found
under the pavement of the Bailey and even in digging
the cellars of the houses at the east end of Dun Cow
Lane : Surtees, op. cit. iv, 38.

138

CITY OF DURHAM

modernised and the windows altered from the
original form.' ^^ The chancel arch is 9 ft. wide
and is of two orders to the nave and square to
the chancel. It was originally quite plain, but
the inner order was carved at the rebuilding
wdth the cheveron ornament and the outer with
an indented moulding. Some panelling at the
east end of the chancel may be of late 16th-
century date, but the rest of the fittings, inclu-
ding the chancel screen, are modern. The font
also is modern. A mediaeval grave slab with
cross and sword is built into the south wall of
the chancel and over the vestry doorway in the
north wall is a large stone, formerly at St.
Giles's,-! Qu which, enclosed in a vesica, is
carved in low relief a representation of Our
Lord in judgment. The corners are occupied
by the evangehstic symbols. ' In 1743 there
remained in the large south window a coat in
stained glass, argent on a chief azure three
escallops or.'-- There are some 12th-century
stones with cheveron and star ornament in the
churchyard on the north side of the building.

The plate^' consists of a chalice and paten of
1702 made by Eli Bilton, of Newcastle, both
inscribed ' Ecclesia Sanctae Mariaj BaUivi
Austral Dunelm. Ex dono Cuthberti-* Bowes
Sen. 1702 ' ; a flagon of 171 1 made by Jonathan
French, of Newcastle, with the same inscrip-
tion f^ a paten on three feet v\'ithout marks,
inscribed ' Eccles. B. Mar. in Ball. Austral
Dunelm A.D. M-DCCC-XXIX,' and scratched
on the back ' Pro eleemos coUigend : used the
first time on Whitsunday 7 June 1829'; and
a 17th-century almsdish, probably originally in
use for secular purposes, given by the Rev. E.
Shipperdson, M.A., in 1848 and bearing his
arms.-^ There is also a set of two chalices, two
patens, a flagon and almsdish given in 1889 under
the will of Robert Henry Allan of Blackwell
Hall, Darhngton.

The registers begin in 1559.

The church of ST. NICHO-

ADVOWSONS LAS, a rectory originally in

the gift-' of the Bishop of

Durham, was annexed in 1443 by Bishop Robert

2* Ptoc. Soc. Antiq. Newcastle (3rd ser.), iii, 324. The
old window in the west wall was then the only one
remaining unaltered. Glynne further states that
' the church wears a very neat appearance, especially
the chancel which is fitted up with some elegance.'

^ It was brought to St. Mary's in 1829 when St.
Giles's was undergoing restoration.

2- Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 44. The monumental
inscriptions are given, pp. 44-5.

23 Proc. Soc. Antiq. Netvcasth (new ser.), iii, 256.

2* On the paten the name is spelt ' Cuberti.'

-* The speUing of some of the words is different.

2* The date letter is illegible : the maker's mark is

I.e.

2' The Crown occasionally presented W# faran*?;
cf. Pat. 22 Hen. Ill, m. 2; Cal. Pat. 1 340-1343, p. 377.

Neville^^ to the Hospital of Kepier, and served
from that time to the Dissolution by a stipen-
diary chaplain since there was no endowed
vicarage.-* The impropriate rectory of St.
Nicholas, with other property of Kepier Hos-
pital, was sold^" by the Crown in 1553 to John
Cockburn, lord of Ormeston, who conveyed to
John Heath, Esq. Elizabeth, daughter and heir
of John Heath, married in 1642 John, son of
Sir Thomas Tempest, of the Isle. After this
date the advowson followed the descent of Old
Durham (q.v.), and thus descended to the
Marquess of Londonderry. The church was
served by a titular ' Curate-in-Charge ' with a
very small stipend. His inefficient services were
supplemented by the endowment of a ' Lecture-
ship ' by the Corporation in about 1700, which
was of substantial value, and was held by various
learned persons. In 1854 when Corporations
became disqualified by law from holding such
patronage, the Corporation sold their rights to
the Rev. Edward Davison, the then vicar, and
he in turn to the Rev. G. T. Fox, who at that
time held both curacy and lectureship. The
Rev. G. T. Fox presented it to the living. Sub-
sequently in 1893 Lord Londonderry sold the
patronage of the augmented living to the Rev.
H. E. Fox, nephew of the Rev. G. T. Fox, who
vested the living in five trustees. They in turn
passed it to the Church Pastoral-Aid Society.*^
The original endowments of the rectory of St.
Nicholas were considerable, the glebe lying in
Old Durham. In 1268 Geoffrey de Helme, rec-
tor of St. Nicholas, received licence*- from the
Prior of Durham for an oratory within his court
of Old Durham, and before the appropriation
to Kepier Hospital a manor court^ was held by
the rector for his tenants. In 1522 a messuage*'
and land in SmaUies, in Wolsingham parish, was
vested in trustees to the use of the ' chirchwarke
and ornamentes ' of the parish of St. Nicholas.

The Chantry of Our Lady was founded*^ by
Reginald the merchant before 1250 for one
chaplain and one light at the Altar of the
B.V. Mary, and was further augmented in 1299
by Hugh de Queringdon, who provided for a
second chaplain. The gild hall^ in the market
place belonged to this chantry, and in the
15th century at least was rented to the gild of

23 Roll no. 2, Neville, m. 6.

29 Injunct. and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes (Surtees
Soc), App. xii.

30 Pat. 6 Edw. VI, pt. 7, no. 24.

31 Inf. from Rev. Canon W. Bothamly.

32 Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 91.

33 B.M., Lans. MS. 902, fol. 184.

31 Surtees, op. cit. iv, 49 ; Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 72,
m. 9 d.

35 Surtees, op. cit. iv, 48.

3« This doubtless is the ' Gild Hall ' mentioned
in 1 3 16.

139

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

St. Nicholas." The gross value^ of the Chantry
of Our Lady at the Dissolution was £i^ I4.f., and
the net value less reprises £^ 9/. ^d., and of the
second Chantry of Our Lady £\ \s. id. gross and
£} lis. Sid. less reprises.

The Chantry of the Holy Trinity in the
church of St. Nicholas existed in the 14th
century, if not before, as the ' mansio cantarie
Sancte Trinitatis ' is mentioned ^ in 1400. The
clear annual value ■"• at the Dissolution, less re-
prises, was £j IS. ^d., the gross value ^j p. lod.
The Chantry of St. John the Baptist and St.
John the Evangelist was founded *' in 1348 by
Thomas Kirkeby, rector of Whitburn. At the
Dissolution this chantry was estimated at a
clear annual value,*'- less reprises, of ^^5 12s. lid.,
the gross yearly value ''^ being £6 los. The
Chantry of St. James was founded in 1382 for
the souls of Thomas de Cockside" and Alice
his wife and their son Robert, and at the Dis-
solution its gross value was £^ \is. lod. and its
clear value,''* less reprises, ^^5 12s. 2d. The
almoner of the Priory of Durham was the patron
of each of these chantries.

Besides these chantries in St. Nicholas'
Church there were other chapels in the parish.
Two of these were situated on Elvet Bridge, both
being in the gift of the Prior and Convent of
Durham. Of these the Chapel of St. James was
founded '* by Thomas son of Lewin, a burgess
of Durham, and his wife Emma, in the 13th
century, and endowed with burgages, lands and
rents in Durham and land at Stokeley ; the
other, the Chapel of St. Andrew,*' at the south
end of the bridge, was founded in the pontificate
of Robert de Insula by WiUiam son of Absalom.
Owing to the loss or depreciation of endowments
the chapels were usually held by the same
chaplain from about the middle of the 14th
century, and on 7 April 1344 William Syreston
was presented to the chantries, united '^ ob
eorum exilitatem. At the Dissolution the gross

3' Cf. Rental cited by Surtees.' De fratribus Gildae
S. Nicholai pro libero redditu magni hospicii sive
aulae lapidiae vocatae le Gyld Hall in foro, x_r.'

^8 Injunct. and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes (Surtees Soc),
App. vi, p. Ixi ; cf. Harl. R. D 36.

39 B.M. Lansd. Ch. 620.

*" Injunct. and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes, App. vi,
p. Ixii, and Harl. R. D 36.

*^ Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, p. 48.

*^ Injunct. and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes, App. vi,
p. Ixii.

** Another estimate gives £6 14J. ; cf. Harl. R. D
36.

** Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 32, m. 3, no. 3.

** Injunct. and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes (Surt. Soc),
p. Ixi. Another estimate gives a gross value of
£S 3s. lod. (Harl. R. D 36).

« Hardy, Reg. Pal. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 1 176.

*' Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 56.

*8 Ibid, iv, 56, n. 9.

annual value of the united chapels was ^^4 6s. lod.
and the net value, less reprises, ^^3 iSs. 6d. The
relative size " of these two chapels is indicated
by the lead roofing, estimated at 36 sq. yds. in
the case of St. James, and 88 sq. yds. in that of
St. Andrew's. At one time, after the Reforma-
tion, a charity school was carried on in the
chancel of St. Andrew's, the remainder of the
building being used as a blacksmith's shop.^"
Another still older chapel in the parish was that
of St. Thomas the Martyr, Claypath, which is
mentioned in 13th-century deeds.*' Its ceme-
tery was used for burials as late as the plague
year of 1597, as shown by entries in the parish
registers of St. Nicholas.

There were at least three gilds or fraternities
associated with the Church of St. Nicholas,
those of Our Lady,^'^ St. Nicholas and Corpus
Christi. Of these the gild of Our Lady may have
been connected with the chantry of that name.
The gild of St. Nicholas certainly existed in the
first quarter of the 15th century, and as early
as 1432, if not before, the brethren were occupy-
ing the great hall of stone known as the Gild
Hall *^ in the market place, renting it from the
Chantry of Our Lady. At the Dissolution the
gross annual value of its property had evidently
largely declined ** and the clear value, after
deducting reprises, was only 23/. Any early
importance possessed by this gild, and certainly
strongly suggested by its occupation of the
Gild Hall in the market place, had been eclipsed
in the 15th century by the rise of the gild of
Corpus Christi, to which were affiliated the
various craft gilds of the city."

The gild of Corpus Christi was founded,
or rather reorganised,*® in 1437, and its hall
was situated in Walkergate." Its chief occu-
pation was the ordering of the festivities of
Corpus Christi Day, when a great procession
of the crafts with banners and lights escorted
the Corpus Christi Shrine, finely gilt, having
' on the height thereof ... a four-square
box of chrystal, wherein was inclosed the
Holy Sacrament of the Altar ' from St. Nicholas'
Church to the Cathedral and back again. This
famous shrine** was saved by the parishioners
of St. Nicholas till 1546, when Dr. Harvey, one

■*' Injunct. and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes (Surt. Soc),
App. vi, p. Ixi.

*" Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 56.

*i Ibid. 55.

*2 Ibid. 49.

*3 See above.

** Injunct. and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes (Surt. Soc),
App. vi, p. Ixi.

** Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 44, mm. 10, 11, no. 46,
m. 23 d., no. 50, m. 6 d.

*8 Ibid.

" Dur. Halmote Book, no. 16, m. 55 d. ; cf. Pat.
7 Jas. I,pt. 7.

** Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 49.

140

CITY OF DURHAM

of the Commissioners ' for defacing all such
ornaments in the parish churches of Durham as
were left undefaced at the former Visitation,
did call for the said shrine ; and when it was
brought before him, he did tread upon it with
his feet and broke it into pieces.' At the dis-
solution of the gild the yearly value of its
endowments, less reprises, was returned at
;^5 los. Jid., the gross value at £6 3/.^'

A number of other benefactions for obits and
anniversaries also existed in the Church of St.
Nicholas at the Dissolution, and at a much
earlier date in 1366 John de Luceby died seised
of a messuage held by paying annually 4 lb. of
wax for the support of lights before the cross
there.*"

An evening lectureship at St. Nicholas in the
patronage of the Mayor and Corporation was
founded in the late 17th century ,** the principal
endowment being derived from a farm at
Easington.

The church of ST. MART THE VIRGIN
in the North Bailey, or ST. MART-LE-BOW,
belonged before the Reformation to the Prior
and Convent of Durham. The advowson of the
church then passed to the Archdeacon of
Northumberland. It was afterwards conveyed
to the Dean and Chapter of Durham. The
livings of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Mary
the Less were united by Order in Council of
14 May 191 2, the Dean and Chapter presenting
twice to one presentation of the Lord Chancel-
lor.'^* For several years after the Dissolution
no rector was regularly instituted,*- the incum-
bent being styled curate or minister. Between
1637 and 1685 the church lay in ruin, though
burials still took place in the churchyard. After
the death of Richard WakeHn, minister, in 1655
there was no incumbent until Anthony Kirbon
was instituted to the rectory in 1687 after the
building of the new church, some provision for
the endowment being gradually made from
Queen Anne's Bounty and from other sources.
The early possessions of the church, which had
then long been lost, appear to have included a
parsonage house, for we hear in 1313 that the
messuage*^ of Sir William, parson of the church
of ' Nort Bailly,' and other buildings near the
North Gate were to be cleared for the building
of a barbican there. An early charter of un-
certain date mentions the grant of certain land
in the North Bailey by William, son of Thomas
the chaplain, to Piers Goldsmith. It was held
of Ranulf de Fisseburn, and charged with the

*• Injunct. and Eccl. Proc. of Bp. Barnes (Surt.
Soc), App. vi, p. Ixi ; cf. Harl. R. D 36.
"O Surtecs, Hut. Dur. iv, 49.
« Ibid. 50.

«» Inf. from Mr. K. C. Bayley, Chapter Clerk.
•2 Surtecs, Hist. Dur. iv, 41.
«3 Reg. Pat. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), i, 338.

provision of a lamp in the church at the morrow
mass** (missam matutinam) and at other times.
In 1416 John Belasis"^ desired in his last will
to be buried in the church of ' St. Mary
within the Castle ' before St. Katherine's Altar,
and left lands within the bishopric of Durham
to his wife Sybil, and after her death for the
foundation of a chantry at the same altar. This
was carried out under licence from Bishop
Langley, 4 messuages and 4 acres held of the
bishop, and 17 messuages, 9 acres of meadow
and 39/. ^d. rent held of other lords forming
the endowment.** At the Suppression the
yearly revenue*' of this chantry, less reprises,
was £^ ijs. 9^.

There was at least one other chantry in this
church in the 15th century, that of St. Helen,
since in 1480 Thomas Hedlam,** a Durham
merchant, granted to William Smethirst a waste
burgage, between John Kelynghall's burgage on
one side and a lane leading to St. Helen's Well
{Jontem Sancte Elene), in South Street, on the
other, charged with an annual rent of is. 6d.,
payable to the chaplain of St. Helen's Chantry
in the North Bailey church.

The church of ST. MART THE LESS, in
the South Bailey, was in the patronage*' of the
Nevills of Raby, afterwards Earls of Westmor-
land, till the attainder of 1569. Since then the
advowson has belonged to the Crown, the patron-
age being in the hands of the Lord Chancellor.
The living was united to that of St. Mary the
Virgin (q.v.). According to Surtees,'" there was
after the year 1572 no institution to the rectory,
which was held by sequestration till 1742, 'or
rather the profits were so small that whoever
had the key of the church left him by his pre-
decessor became minister without let or hin-
drance.' A 13th-century deed mentions a
' place ' in the Bailey held by the chaplain" of
this church. In 1388 the endowment'- in-
cluded a rent of 40/. paid by Lord Nevill from
land in Crook in Brancepeth parish, and another
parcel named Aldhenland, as well as rents charged
on tenements in the Bailey. A parsonage house
existed, but apparently at this time was not
occupied by the rector, who also had the right
on three days of the week to eat at the Prior's

118.

App

xliv,
Ch.

70
71
72

Surtees, op. cit. iv, 43 n.

Hist. MSS. Com. Rep., Far. Coll. ii, 17.

Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 43 ; Dep. K. Rep. xxdii,

Injunct. and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes (Surtees Soc),
. vi, p. Ixii.

Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 55, m. 4 d.
Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 44 et seq. Dep. K. Rep.
529. 532. 533. 534. 535 ; xlv, 280, 281; Dur.
Inq. p.m. Ser. ii, v, 167.
Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 45.
Feod. Prior. Dun. (Sun. Soc), 197 n.
Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 162.

141

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

table. This in 1434, if not before, had been
commuted for a pension of one mark and a sable
suit at Christmas. In 1535 the rectory was
valued'3 at £4 13/. ^.d.

The Johnston Technical
CHARITIES^ School (see V.C.H. Durham, i,
p. 401). By a scheme of the
Charity Commissioners, 20 February 1903,
one-sixth of the net income of Henry Smith's
charity (see post) was made applicable in
scholarships tenable at this school. In 191 1
nine scholarships of £z 2s. each, and sixteen
scholarships of j^i los. each, were so applied.
In pursuance of a scheme, 7 May 1901, for
Lord Crewe's charity (see post) nine exhibitions
of j^4 each, and six at £2 each, were awarded to
this school.

Thomas Craddock's charity for Elementary
Schools (see V.C.H. Durhajn, i, p. 403).

In 1848 James Barry, by will proved at Dur-
ham, bequeathed j^i,ooo consols, now repre-
sented by ^^241 i6s. Sd. 4 per cent. Funding
Stock, ^^158 gs. ^d. 5 per cent. War Stock,
;^ioo 5 per cent. National War Bonds, £^2^
London Midland and Scottish Railway 4 per
cent. Guaranteed Stock, with the official
trustees. The charity is regulated by a scheme
of the Charity Commissioners, 7 February
1893, whereby the annual dividends, amounting
to j^55 15/. 2d., are applicable in the main-
tenance of one or more scholarships, tenable for
one year, in the University of Durham, by
Divinity Students or Licentiates in Theology.

In 1598 Henry Smith by his will devised
certain coal mines and bequeathed his residuary
personal estate to the City of Durham for the
setting out of youth to work, and for the relief
of those past work. The endowments consisted
of part of a carpet factory in the parish of
St. Nicholas, the Town Hall and buildings, a
farm known as Widehope Farm, a farm known
as Hagar Leazes Farm, including a wayleave
thereon, an allotment near West Auckland, a
residence known as Glake Hall, producing an
income of ;^400 a year, a ground rent of £1^
on 14 houses in Gilesgate, belonging to Kirby
and Messenger's Charities, mentioned in the
parhamentary returns of 1786, and X2>83S 7s.
consols. The Town Hall, Hagar Leazes Farm,
Glake Hall and seven of the houses in Giles-
gate were sold in 1925 and the proceeds in-
vested in £482 London and North Eastern Rail-
way 4 per cent. First Preference Stock and ;^482
Second Guaranteed Stock of the same railway,
;^5,8io 9/. lod. 3-J per cent. Conversion Stock,
;^i,592 11/. yd. 5 per cent. War Stock, producing

'3 Falor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 314.

^ For the Educational Institutions for the County
and City of Durham, see the General Article on
Durham Schools, I'.C.H. Durham, i, p. 365 et seq.

^392 8^. lod. The official trustees also hold stocks
for the purpose of recoupment as the houses in
Gilesgate were sold below their proper value.

The charity is regulated by a scheme of
the Charity Commissioners, 20 February 1903,
whereby one-sixth of the net income is made
applicable in scholarships tenable at the Johnston
Technical School (see Educational Charities,
ante), and the residue of the income in pensions.
Bishop Cosin's Almshouses, regulated by a
scheme of the Charity Commissioners of 24 Feb-
ruary 1914, were founded and endowed by Bishop
Cosin, as mentioned in his charter bearing date
31 August 1668. In pursuance of an Order
in Council, 19 July 1837, the present alms-
houses were erected by the University of
Durham, on a site in Queen Street, in lieu
of the old almshouses situate on the east
side of the Palace Green. Bishop Cosin en-
dowed the almshouses with a yearly payment of
£jo, issuing out of lands at Chilton, County
Durham (see V.C.H. Durham, \, p. 381). The
yearly sum of j^i6 is also received from the
Trustees of Lord Crewe's charity, in pursuance
of the will, dated 1 720, of Nathaniel, Lord Crewe,
Bishop of Durham, and the yearly sum of ^^24
from the trustees of Bishop Barrington's
Charity, who, by deed 22 February 1822,
directed that £1 yearly should be paid to each
of the inmates. The official trustees hold ;^250
5 per cent. War Stock, producing ^^12 10s.
yearly. The almshouses are occupied by four
men and four women, who are appointed
by the Bishop, six from Durham and two from
Brancepeth. Each inmate also receives a yearly
bounty of £1 12s. 6d. and £2 os. lod. each
quarter. The sum of £6 is expended yearly
on coal, the nurse receives 2s. 6d. weekly and
£1 13/. id. quarterly, and 13/. ,^J. is paid yearly
to the receiver for ' glove money.'

Bishop Cosin's Library, founded by charter
20 September 1669, is regulated by a scheme of
the Charity Commissioners of 2 December 1913.
The property consists of the perpetual right of
access to the library hall. Palace Green, for the
purpose of safe custody of the books and other
effects belonging to the library. It is endowed
with an annuity of ;£20, payable out of the rev-
enues of the see of Durham, and a sum of
;^229 6s. Sd. 2-J per cent, consols, with the official
receivers, producing ^^5 14J. Sd. yearly.

In 1720 Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, by
will directed that ^^loo a year should be applied
for putting out apprentices in the city and
suburbs. The annuity, together with the divi-
dends on ^870 11/. 4J(f. War Stock, and on
;^i,i 18 London and North Eastern Railway 3 per
cent, debenture stock, are apphed in pursuance
of a scheme of the Charity Commissioners,
7 May 1901, in apprenticeship premiums, in
clothing, in binding apprentices and in exhibi-

142

CITY OF DURHAM

tions at the Johnston Technical School (see
under Educational Charities).

In 1724 William Hartwell, D.D., by his will
devised his landed estate at Fishburn, now
known as the Elderberry Farm, containing
222 acres, for certain charitable purposes. The
farm is let at £160 a year. In 1926 the official
receivers held ;^246 Bombay, Baroda and Central
India Railway 3i per cent, debenture stock;
^^724 1 8/. id. 4 per cent. Funding Stock, and
^^2,966 ly. 2d. 5 per cent. War Stock, producing
altogether ^^185 iSs. lod. In 1926 the net
income was applied as follows : — j^30 between
two poor tradesmen commencing business ;
j^20 in scholarships; two annuities of £10 each
to two women, and ^^20 to Discharged Prisoners'
Aid Society ; ^^8 for the Hartwell Lectureship
Charity for Stanhope (see V.C.H. Durham, i,
p. 411).

Unknown Donor's Charity, known locally as
' The Mayor's Shilling Charity,' is endowed
with ;^4i8 \js. gd. consols, arising from the
redemption, in 1884, of an annual payment of
£ii{. lis. ^d. received from the Land Revenue
Office, the origin of which was unknown. The
annual dividends, now amounting to j^io 9/. 4^/.,
are divided by the Mayor among the ministers
of all denominations for distribution among the
poor, in sums of is. to each recipient.

In or about the year 1681 John Kirby, by his
will, bequeathed ^30 to the Merchants' Com-
pany of Durham towards the rehef of decayed
members of the company and their widows. A
sum of 30J. a year is paid to a widow of a deceased
member of the company in respect of this
charity.

The Prison Charities : — The income of the
following charities is paid to the treasurer of
the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society — namely,
John Frankelyn's Charity, will 1572, being an
annual payment of £2 12s. made by the Corpora-
tion of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

WiUiam Wall's Charity, will 1679, an annuity
of 15/. issuing out of lands and tenements in
Bondgate and Escombe, which was redeemed in
1924 by transfer of ^30 2i per cent, consols to
the official trustees.

Bishop Wood's Charity, founded in 1690, by
will of Thomas Wood, Bishop of Lichfield and
Coventry, proved in the P.C.C., endowed with
an annuity of ^^20 issuing out of lands in
Egglescliff, and ;(^8io 2s. Sd. 5 per cent. War
Stock in the names of the official trustees and
;^i65 IS. lod. 5 per cent. War Stock in the names
of Capt. N. W. Apperley and two others, pro-
ducing together ^^48 15J. 2d. yearly. The official
trustees also hold /51 ijs. id. 2f per cent,
consols, representing accumulations of income
of John Frankelyn's charity.

Dr. Hartwell' s Charity (see ante), being a
yearly payment of £20.

The present County Hospital or Infirmary,
originally founded by public subscription in
1792, is comprised in an indenture, 22 May
1848, and was opened in 1853. Convalescent
wards were added in 1867 as a memorial to the
late Dean Waddington, who was a large bene-
factor to the institution. Additional wards and
an operating theatre were subsequently erected
from funds contributed by John Eden. The
institution is supported mainly by voluntary
subscriptions and donations.

The official trustees, however, hold in trust
for the hospital a sum of ^^350 8/. gd. 5 per cent.
War Stock, derived under the will of Henry
Ferdinand William Bolckow, proved at York
27 July 1878, and a sum of ;^36o 15^. iid. 5 per
cent. War Stock bequeathed by the will of Richard
Welch Hollon, proved at York 18 September
1890, producing together ^35 11/. .\.d. yearly.
The official receivers also hold ^1,999 London
and North Eastern Railway 3 per cent, deben-
ture stock; ;^400 4 per cent. First Guaranteed
Stock; ;^3,094 4 per cent. Second Guaranteed
Stock ; and ;^3,094 4 per cent. First Preference
Stock in the same railway; ;^3,7Si London
Midland and Scottish Railway 4 per cent.
Preference Stock ; ^1,100 Great Western Railway
5 per cent. Consolidated Preference Stock ;
£i6,jj8 I2S. id. 5 per cent. War Stock and
^1,481 9/. %d. of the same stock. The total
receipts for 1925 were j^9,88i 5^. 9^.

The Durham County Penitentiary, comprised
in an indenture dated 20 September 1851, is
supported entirely by voluntary contributions.
In 1840 Mrs. Ann Lampson, by her will
proved with a codicil in the P.C.C. 23 January,
bequeathed ;^250, the interest to be applied
annually for the ministers of the chapels of
Claypath and Framwellgate, in moieties. The
same testatrix likewise gave ;^25o for the use of
the said chapel. These legacies arc now
represented by ;^500 consols in the names of
the trustees ; the annual dividends, amounting
to j^l2 lOJ'., are now appHed towards the salary
of the minister of Claypath Chapel, with which
the Framwellgate Chapel was amalgamated on
the sale of the latter in 1842. The several sums
of stock above mentioned are, except where
otherwise stated, held by the official trustees.

The Lying Charity, founded in or about 1806,
is regulated by a scheme of the Charity Commis-
sioners dated 26 March 191 5. The charity was
wound up owing to the Insurance Act and re-
started by scheme. The endowment consists of
^^275 2i per cent, consols, with the official
receivers, producing £6 i~s. \d. yearly. The
trustees are the committee of the Durham City
Charity Organisation Society, and the income is
applicable in giving help at the time of confine-
ment to poor women.

The Mayoress of Durham Fund, founded by

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

declaration of trust 21 December 1918, consists
of a sum of /^loo 5 per cent. National War Bonds,
1928, with the official trustees. The income is
distributed among the poor of the city by the
mayoress.

The parish of ST. NICHOLAS is possessed
of endowments known as Church Estates —
namely, 3 acres at Witton Gilbert, derived
under an Inclosure Award 12 May 1809, i a.
2 r. known as Whitesmocks and two tenement
houses in Durham, producing together in 1926
j^35 10s. lod. The official trustees also hold
a sum of j^i,630 4J. jd. consols, arising from the
sale in 1901 of four houses in Claypath, and from
sales of other lands, ;^20i India 3 per cent, stock
and fyji 15. lod. India 3i per cent, stock. The
income, amounting to j^8o 15/. yearly, is applied
for general church purposes. The charity is
regulated by a scheme of the Charity Commis-
sioners dated 9 May 1902.

In 1572 John Frankelyn, by his will, gave
Js. ^d. yearly, to be paid by the Corporation of
Newcastle for the benefit of the poor of this
parish.

In 161 7 Robert Surtees, by his will, gave out
of his house in the market place 6s. ^d. yearly
to the poor, which is received from the National
Provincial Bank, the present owners of the
premises charged.

In 1675 Francis Callaghan charged his pro-
perty in the market place with the following
annuities : — 20.f. for distribution to the poor ;
£1 to the vicar ; £^ to the lecturer or preaching
minister, for a sermon on the anniversary of
testator's burial, and 5/. to the bellringers for
ringing the bells on that day. The yearly sum

of £6 5/. is now received out of premises in Sadler
Street, Durham, and duly apphed.

In 1702 Thomas Cooper, by his will, gave an
annuity of £^ 4/. to be distributed in bread, 2s.
every Sunday, among the poor attending divine
service. The annuity is paid out of lands at
Fishburn and distributed in bread.

The parish of ST. MART-LE-BOW is
possessed of two houses and a garden, situate
in Sadler Street, Durham, and an allotment of
I a. 2 r. in Witton Lane, Sniperley, the income
of which, amounting to ^^73 yearly, is applied
in the insurance and repair of the fabric of the
parish church.

In 1703 John Spearman, by his will, devised
3 a. situate at East or North Bow, Sheraton, to
the rector and his successors for ever, upon
trust that the rector should perform divine
service and administer the Sacrament to prisoners
in Durham Gaol, which then stood upon a site
adjoining the parish. The rector receives the
rents of the land so devised, a salaried chaplain
being attached to the gaol.

The Church Estate in the parish of ST.
MART THE LESS originally consisted of
ancient burgage tenements, held from time
immemorial. The endowments now consist of
allotments in Framwcllgate Moor, containing
3 a. r. 3 1 p., producing ^^34 a year; £$6^ London
and North Eastern Railway 3 percent, debenture
stock, and ^60 consols, with the official trustees,
arising respectively from a sale in 191 1 of a
house in South Bailey, and of a stable in 1884,
producing in yearly dividends /18 8/. 6d. The
net income is applied in aid of general church
expenses.

ST. OSWALD'S

The ancient parish of St. Oswald* lay
around three sides of the city of Durham and
occupied all the right bank of the Wear, the
boundary following the course of the river from
Blackdene Burn southwards as far as Pelaw Wood
Beck, from the top of which it mounted the
moor, skirted Shirburn House and then, after
making a great loop eastwards, regained the
Wear. It thus included the modern districts of
Finchale, Framwcllgate and Framwellgate Moor,
Broom, Neville's Cross, Crossgate, Old and New
Elvet, Old Durham, Shinchfle, Croxdale and
Sunderland Bridge. At an early date part of
the parish was assigned to the chapelry of St.
Margaret, which obtained parochial rights in
the 15th century. From this time St. Oswald's
included the settlements^ of Old Durham,
Houghall, Burn Hall, Relley, Broom, Shinchffe,

* For St. Oswald and his place in the history of
Durham, see V.C.H. Dur. ii, 2.

* Some of these are represented now by farms or
country houses only.

Butterby, Croxdale and Sunderland Bridge, while
St. Margaret's served Crossgate, Neville's Cross,
the Bellasis, Framwellgate, Sidgate and Crook-
haU, Aykley Heads, Framwellgate Moor, Dry-
burn, Windy Hills, Hag House, Cater House,
Newton by Durham, Frankland and Harber
House. With the growth of population,' how-
ever, the arrangement has undergone considerable
change.''

The civil parishes have experienced some
modification under the provisions of the Local
Government Act of 1894.* Neville's Cross was
then formed from Crossgate and Framwellgate
from the portion of Framwellgate within the
borough of Durham. In 1895 a part of the
civil parish of Bearpark was attached to the
parish of St. Oswald, while ten years later the
boundary of the borough was extended to in-

3 See V.C.H. Dur. ii, 261, 273.
* For the ancient boundaries see Lans. MS. 902,
fols. 72-3.

5 Stat. 56 and 57 Vict. cap. 73.

144

CITY OF DURHAM

elude part of the civil parish of Framwellgate
Moor. As constituted in 1898 the civil parish
of Framwellgate contained 148 acres, Framwell-
gate Moor 3,801 acres, Neville's Cross 429 acres,
Crossgate 74 acres, Elvet 256 acres, Shinclifle
1,377 acres, Sunderland Bridge 1,438 acres,
Broom 1,076 acres and St. Oswald itself 2,227
acres.

The Priory of Durham in the 14th century had
a house at Elvet-hall or Hallgarth, from which
Hallgarth Street takes its name,* where distin-
guished guests were sometimes entertained.'
In the hall in 1371 there were hangings one show-
ing armed men and another of green with a blue
leopard, while in the chamber were costly beds
with covers adorned with lilies, roses, butter-
flies, leopards and eagles.' There is some
reason for thinking that the Hallgarth was kept
in the actual possession of the Priory until the
Dissolution, but from this time onwards it
became merely two farm houses usually occupied
by foremen or ' hinds.' ^

Just south of Maiden Castle Wood is the
Shincliffe road, its junction with Hallgarth Street
being marked by Philipson's Cross, of unknown
origin. The conical hill called Mountjoy has at
least a legendary history, for it was from this
point that the weary monks first beheld the
resting place they sought for the body of St.
Cuthbert. The Great High Wood on the hill
to the south and east of Mountjoy is perhaps
the ' East Wood or St. Cuthbert's Place ' >" men-
tioned in 1442, the Little High Wood being per-
haps the West Wood mentioned at the same
date. Charlay's Cross,^^ at the junction of the
Bishop Auckland road, Church Street and Quar-
ryheads Lane, is connected with the close called
Charlay in 1442,'- when mention is also made
of Fourudhclose or Welleshead, Dedrygh,
Dedryghbanks, Swallowhopp, AUers, le Peth and
the ditch called Langmardyke. Palmer's close,"
between Charlay's Cross and the river, was called
' Palman closse ' in 1541, when mention is also
made of Kirkecroft and of the Smithyhaughs"
which have been used as a racecourse since

1733-''
In spite of modern building developments,

• Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, passim.
' Ibid, i, 117; ii, 523.

8 Ibid, i, 129.

* Exch. Bills and Ans. Dur., Eliz. no. 22.
1* Lans. IMS. 902, fol. 223 d.

11 It is shown on Christopher Schwytzer's map
Dunelm. (1595). Only the base of this remains. For
drawings of it and of Philipson's Cross, see B.M.,
Kaye Coll. ii, no. 227, 228.

12 Ibid.

1* There was a Palmer Close in St. Giles' parish
also; see Mem. of St. Giles (Surt. Soc), iii, 153.
I'' Rentals and Surv. (Gen. Ser.), R. 987.
15 Sunees, Dur. iv (2), 88.

St. Oswald's church still stands on the outskirts
of Elvet. St. Oswald's Well" lies between the
river ' Bank ' and the east end of the church, and
a pathway leads through the churchyard to
Elvet Bank and its picturesque slope to the
river below. Much of the land between the Wear
and the road has been cut up for allotment gar-
dens.

The Prebend's Bridge" gives access to this
district from the Promontory of Durham, and it
was thus possible to build the Grammar School
here when it was moved from its old site near
Palace Green in 1842.*® The modern school lies
on a part of the ground called Bellasis, the house
of that name being arranged for the use of the
headmaster. "^^ The name of Bellasis is still
appHed to certain closes,-" on one of which the
Observatory of the University of Durham was
built in 1841.

Another part of the school buildings seems to lie
on the site of ' the little tenement or grange '
of the Almoner's Barns'-^ or ' Ambling Barns '
as they were styled in 1754.^" Perhaps some-
where here was ' Bowes close ' sold in 1628 by
Robert Hutton to Richard Wilkinson,-' the
owner, in January 1635-6.-^ The property de-
scended in the family of Wilkinson and was held
by Mr. Thomas Wilkinson shortly before 1857.-''
Close to Ambling Barns was the Grove, where
Stephen George Kemble, the actor, and brother
of Mrs. Siddons, died in 1822.26

North of the Grove, houses become frequent
and South Street, parallel to the river, leads to
Framwellgate Bridge.'-'

Leland, writing of Durham in the first half of
the 1 6th century, describes how ' the suburbe
over Framagatebridg hath 3. partes, the Southe
streate on the left hand, the crosse streate on the
midle toward Akeland, and the 3. on the right
hand, bering the name of Framagate, and leding

18 It is marked on Forster's Map of Dur. (1754).

1' See above.

18 V.C.H. Dur. i, 384.

i!" It is said that the vendor's son, Sir William
Fothergill Cooke (1806-79), inventor of the electric
telegraph, made some of his early experiments here
{Diet. Nat. Biog. ; V.C.H. Dur. i, 384 n.).

20 There was an orchard in Bellasis in 1430 {Feod.
Prior. Dun. (Surt. Soc.), 78).

21 It was part of the endowment of the 9th Prebend
(Rec. of D. and C. of Dur. C. iv, 33, fol. 148). See
also Aug. Office Misc. Bks., vol. 213, fol. 53. It had
a garden of I r. and a close lying ne.xt to Bellasis.

-'- Forster, Map of Dur. (1754).

23 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 7, fol. 118 ; no. 108, m. 6.

2-« Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 135.

25 Fordyce, Dur. i, 384.

26 Diet. Nat. Biog. ,■ Allan, Hist, and Desc. Vino of
Dur. (1824), 130.

2' In South Street, by a tenement belonging to the
chantry of St. Mary in St. Margaret's Chapel (Pat. 11
Chas. I, pt. l).

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

to Chester and to New-Castelle.'^* The chapel of
St. Margaret stands in the angle formed by the
junction of South Street with Crossgate. A map
of 1754 shows houses aU along the south side of
Crossgate and the north side of its branch
Allergate, but only one block of houses on the
intervening space where the workhouse now
stands.

From the end of Crossgate the road leads
across the Browney to Brancepeth. The land
between the river and end of Margery Lane
is dotted with modern \allas, and suburban
roads now cross the site of the battle of Neville's
Cross. Both Scots and English were drawn up
in line on Bearpark"* Moor, between the city and
the manor-house. Much of the fighting centred
on the Red HiUs, enclosed land belonging to the
Priory*" and now cut through by the railway
line. The Prior and some of his monks took
their stand ' a litle distant from a pece of ground
called ye flashe above a close lying hard by north
Chilton poole and on ye north side of ye hedge
where ye maydes bower had wont to be.''' Here
they displayed St. Cuthbert's corporax case
and prayed for an English victory.^ The Scots
were routed by Ralph Lord NeviU and his fellows,
King David was badly wounded in the face, and
according to tradition he fled down to the Browney
and hid under a narrow stone bridge near Aldin
Grange, but was there betrayed by his shadow
on the water.'' However this may be, the King
was taken captive by John de Copeland, a
Northumberland esquire and husband of one of
the heirs of Crook Hall.** In commemoration of
his victory Lord NeviU set up the cross whence
the district takes its name.'^ This monument
was broken down one night in 1589^* by ' some
lewde and contemptuous wicked persons,' but
the stump remained in its old position until
1903, when it was moved to a new mound a few
yards distant.

Milburngate, at right angles to Crossgate,
was of great importance in the middle ages" as
being an urban portion of the road to Newcastle
and the North. The road, though paved as

^ Iti7i. (ed. L. Toulmin Smith), i, 73.

29 Hist. Dunelm. Script. Ires (Surt. See), App.
no. cccxxxvii.

30 Cf. Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 16, fol. 39 d.
'1 Rites of Dur. (Surt. Soc.), 28-9.

3^ According to Gough the Prior signalled the result
of the battle to the monks watching on the Priory
tower, and in 1789 the custom of singing ' Te Deum '
from the tower on the anniversary of the battle was
still observed (Camden, Brit, iii, 121). Hist. Dunelm.
Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), App. no. cccmvii.

" Mackenzie and Ross, Dur. ii, 438 and n.

** See below.

3* Rites of Dur. (Surt. Soc), 27.

3* Ibid. 28, 217.

'' There were 87 burgage tenements in MUburngate
in 1540 (Mins. Accts. Dur. Hen. VIII, no. 708).

early as 141 3,'* was narrow and inconvenient,
and in or about 18473* the present North Road
was opened, with the result that an entirely new
settlement came into being in this direction.*"
Piper's close and White's close have all been
built over, but Shaw Wood under Western Hill
still lies as it was when granted by the Bishop
to the burgesses of Durham in the 1 7th century.''^
Just east of Shaw Wood is the County Hospital,
opened in 1853, and a little to the west a ditch
forms the parish boundary, and is all that is left
of the Mill Burn which divided the Prior's
borough of Crossgate from Framwellgate, the
bishop's borough.*-

Framwellgate, though on the main road to the
north, struck a 19th-century observer as squalid
and mean.'" In the mid-i8th century the land
between the road and the Wear was laid out in
gardens and closes, one of which must have been
that Bishops Mead let to the tenants of Fram-
wellgate as a garden in the 15th century. In
1754" ^^^ Castle Chare was a country lane, and
the North Eastern Railway station, opened in
1856, stands on what was then market gardens.**
The ground west of the station was given to the
city as a pubUc park by Mr. W. Lloyd Wharton
about i86o'" and bears his name.

Framwellgate runs northwards for about half
a mile and then abruptly branches north-east
and north-west. The north-western road is the
main highway to the north and until the inclo-
sure of Framwellgate Moor in 1800" was an
open track, as Leland described it, ' partely by a
litle corne ground, but mostly by mountainiouse
pasture and sum mores and firres.'*' On the
western side of this road and at some little dis-
tance from the city once stood the hospital of
St. Leonard on the ground called Spittleflat.**
Little is known of this leper hospital, but it was
probably that at which St. Godric's sister died
in the late 12th century and it was certainly in
existence in 1292.^ Though an entry made in
January 1404-5 seems to imply that the plot

38 Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, 224.

'9 Illus. Guide to Dur. (1907).

** See Lans. MS. 902, fol. 73.

" Dur. Rec. cl. 4, no. 2, fol. 340 d.

*2 Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surt. Soc), 192 n. As early
as 1754 the latter part of its course ran underground
(Forster, Map oj Dur. 1754).

^3 Though the borough of Framwellgate belonged to
the Bishop, the Priory had 16 burgage tenements here
in 1540 (Mins. Accts. Dur. Hen. VIII, no. 708).

** Cf. Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 14, fol. 11, 35 ; no. 15,
fol. 188.

** Forster, op. cit.

" Brief Sketch of Dur. (1863).

■" Priv. Act, 41 Geo. Ill, cap. xii.

*8 Leland, Itin. (ed. L. Toulmin Smith), i, 74.

*9 Marked on Christopher Schwytzer's map Dunelm.
engraved in 1595.

so V.C.H. Dur. ii, 123.

146

CITY OF DURHAM

occupied by the patients had not been long
vacant,^^ there is reason to suppose that the
14 acres*- known as Spittleflat were granted out
by the bishop at a much earlier date. Land in
the neighbourhood of Framwellgate was devised
by John Bille to Maud his daughter in 1346'^ and
she inherited the rest of his land on his death in
or about January 1356-7." Maud married as
her first husband one of the Yorkshiie family of
Thwing and had by him a son John on whom
she settled lands in Durham and Whitton Gil-
bert in 1374.^ ^^^ second husband, William
Jalker, had died in the previous year^ and Maud's
settlement provided for the contingent remainder
of her lands to William and John Jalker, her
younger sons." John de Thwing died in pos-
session of the 14 acres called Spittalflat in or
about 1394** and William Jalker succeeded him.
The land passed by marriage to Agnes wife of
William Billingham and was acquired by Robert
Jackson before 1437.*' He then conveyed Spittle-
flat to trustees, and there is no evidence that it
descended to his kinsman and heir John Rassh.**"
In 1563 Christina Rawlinge died in possession,
her heirs being her daughters, Alice wife of
Robert Farters and Ehzabeth wiie of William
Heighington.^i Its history in the 17th and i8th
centuries is obscure, but in 1840 it was the
property of Mr. Francis Johnson.*'-

Just south of Spittleflat is Chapelflat, where
the church of St. Cuthbert now stands.*^
Here once stood the chapel of St. Leonard, its
position, long conjectural, being established by
the map of 1595** and by the fact that the close

" Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 13, fol. 454.

'^ In 1563 it was said to contain only 10 acres
(ibid. no. 6, fol. 7 d.) in one place, but 14 acres in
another (ibid. fol. 28). In 1840 it contained only
2 acres (Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 137 n.).

*3 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 11, no. 78.

^ Ibid. no. 2, fol. 55.

^* Ibid. no. II, no. 50.

** Ibid. no. 2, fol. 90 d.

" Ibid. no. II, no. 50.

'* Ibid. no. 2, fol. 120. Spittalflat was said to con-
tain 16 acres in Hatfield's Surv. (Surt. Soc), 85.

^* Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 2, fol. 304 d.

«> Ibid.

*i Ibid. no. 6, fol. 7 d. See Dryburn, below.

^ Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 137.

*' Reg. of St. Margaret's, Dur. (Dur. and North.
Par. Reg. Soc), p. v. In 1597 Edward Hudspethe
of Durham left ' Chaple Close ' and the little close
called Paradise to his wife Alice for life, with remainder
to his sons Thomas, Christopher, and John. {Dur.
Wills and Invent. [Surt. Soc], iii, 163).

*^ Christopher Schwytzer, Dunelm. (1595). St.
Leonards is the name given to the whole enclosure
and includes both hospital and chapel. The free
chapel of St. Leonard in St. Margaret's p.irish was
granted in 1572 to Percival Gunston of Aske
together with the ch.ipel of St. Bartholomew in the
same parish (Pat. 14 Eliz. pt. i, m 13). In 1628 a

was long used as a burial place for the criminals
executed at Gibbet-Knowle hard by.**

Gibbet- Knowle, so called in 1397,'" was copy-
hold land and was held in 15 15 by John, Lord
Lumley.*' Gallowsflat was probably also in
this neighbourhood ; it was exchequer land and
was held with three acres called Sourmilkden.**
Dryburn is immediately north of Gibbet-Knowle,
and in the i6th century executions are usually
said to have been carried out there. It was
not only the ordinary criminal who suffered
here, for in May 1590 four men — Duke, HyU,
Hogge and Holyday — were hanged and quar-
tered here as ' semynaryes, Papysts, Tretors
and rebels to hyr Magestye.'*'

The name Dryburn is now confined to the
residence of Mrs. Charles Waring Darwin. On
the east side of the main road and almost opposite
Dryburn is Aykley Heads, the property of Capt.
C. F. Dixon-Johnson.™ The estate once formed
part of the manor of Crook Hall,'i within its
bounds being the spring whence the city ob-
tained its first water supply by grant of Thomas
Billingham in 1450.'- The meadow whence it
sprang was called the Framwell meadowes or
Conduit heads until at least 1676," when water-
courses in the meadows belonged to the two
ancient water corn-mills at Crook Hall.'*

Crook Hall itself is reached by following the
more easterly road'* that branches from the top
of Framwellgate. The Rev. James Raine, anti-
quary and topographer, lived here, and here he
died in 1858."" The old quarry to the west of the
house was being worked in the late 17th cen-
tury" and in 1748 mention is made of the Crow
Orchard, Dovecoat Flats, Dog Close and
Marlin's Field. '^ The shafts of the Durham
Main Colliery have now been sunk in the fields
north of the house, but a tract of woodland
still remains, and by its name of Hopper's Wood
commemorates an 18th-century owner.

From the road by Crook Hall footpaths lead
across the fields to Frankland, where the Bishops

chapel in decay, lying near Framwellgate, probably
that of St. Leonard, was granted to Ralph Wise and
Henry Harryman (Pat. 4 Chas. I, pt. xxv, no. 2).

** Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 137.

*' Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 13, fol. 257b.

«' Ibid. no. 21, fol. 188 d.

^ Ibid. no. 13, fol. 491 ; 14, fol. 786 d., 863.

*' Mackenzie and Ross, Dur. ii, 400 n.

'" Surtees, Dur. i; (2), 141.

'* See below.

'- Mackenzie and Ross, op. cit. ii, 438. In 1834
the original masonry of the fountain was still in
existence.

'* Dur. Rec. cl. 4, no. 3, fol. 408.

'■• For these see fVills and Invent. (Surt. Soc), ii,
277; Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 121, m. 43.

'* ? Sidgate. '« Diet. Nat. Biog.

" Dur. Rec. cl. 4, no. 3, fol. 408.

'* Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 121, m. 43.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

of Durham had their park. Long before 1840
the land was inclosed and farmholds created,'*
but as late as 1848 an appointment was made to
the sinecure office of parker or keeper of the park
of Frankland near Durham with Middlewood and
Ryton.8o

The North Eastern Railway line separates
Frankland Park from Newton Hall. There was
a capital messuage here in 1465." Newton Hall,
which was pulled down in 1926, stood on high
ground about a mile and a half to the north of
Durham, and was a dignified Georgian house of
two stories and an attic, built of brick with stone
dressings. The date 1751 which occurred on
the spout heads apparently indicated the year
of its erection. The front faced west and was
about 90 ft. in length, the middle part being
emphasised by four Ionic pilasters supporting
an entablature above the second story, the
swelled frieze of which was richly carved. The
windows had all stone architraves and keystones
and retained their barred sashes. The house
was L shaped on plan, the shorter wing facing
south on to a large garden inclosed by brick
walls. The stables and outbuildings were on
the north side ranged round a courtyard. The
house fell into a state of semi-dilapidation ; it
was used fo barracks during the Great War and
afterwards demolished.

Between Newton Hall*- and the main north
road is the Framwellgate Colliery, in connexion
with which modern hamlets have sprung into
being at Framwellgate Moor just north of Dry-
burn and at Pity Me further along the road.
Pity Me, the more northerly of these hamlets,
is said to take its name from the mediaeval ' Petit
Mere,' and there is still a large pond and a
marshy tract south of the settlement. Framwell-
gate Moor is of more importance and boasts the
church of St. Cuthbert, opened in 1862, and
chapels of the Wesleyan, United and Primitive
Methodist bodies, the last two opened respec-
tively in 1869 and 1870, as well as a public ele-
mentary school. The land on which this colony
has sprung was originally part of the Cater House
estate, the farm known by that name lying
immediately north-west of the village. Cater
House was described in 1857 as * an ancient
single tenement shaded by a row of tall syca-
mores '^ and an extent of 1597 makes mention

" Surtees, Dur. iv (z), 147.

^ Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 134, no. 13, cf. 132, no.
45. In the 19th century the parker was a clerk in
Holy Orders.

*^ Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 4, fol. 22.

*2 There was a vill of Newton here in the 12th
century, and a story is told of how a shepherdess of
Newton heard supernatural music one day when
setting out with her sheep {Libellus de Vita et
Miraculis S. Godrici [Surt. Soc], 244, 33 1, cf. 254).

88 Fordyce, Dur. i, 386.

of a kitchen and cowhouse and closes called
Benterstills, Maggfield and Well close.** In the
16th century the land north of Cater House was
largely uninclosed moor and Cater House itself
was only a part of the holding of Hag House,
north-east of Pity Me. ^

North-east of Hag House are the Finchale
and Redhouse Woods, running down to the
Wear. Beyond the woods the river makes a bend
from north-west to south-east, and in the corner
thus created stand the ruins of Finchale Priory.
In the 1 2th century all P'ramwellgate Moor
was a hunting ground for the Bishops of Durham
and Finchale was little more than a thicket of
undergrowth. The banks of the Wear are still
heavily wooded on either side.

Few traces of the Benedictine priory of
Finchale remain. It was founded in 1 196 on the
site of the hermitage of St. Godric, who, after a
chequered career, settled about 1 1 10 in the valley
of the Wear a mile above Finchale.** Some five
years later the Saint moved to the site of
the present ruins, where in his hermitage he
died in 11 70.*' Here he built the little chapel
of St. Mary, of timber and brushwood, and
adjoining it the house in which he lived.**
As his sanctity became known a larger chapel
of stone, dedicated to the honour of St. John
Baptist, was built by the faithful for his use,
the two chapels being connected by a covered
way of branches and thatch. On the south
side of St. John's Chapel were two wooden huts
for his food and other possessions.*' After
Godric's death his hermitage was acquired by
the priory of Durham, and in 1196 Bishop
Pudsey established there a small priory as a cell
of Durham, which was later increased in size.

All that remains of St. Godric's hermitage
are the foundations of the chapel of St. John
Baptist, which were recently found within
the presbytery of the 13th-century church.
The chapel was a small rectangular building,

** Dur. Rec. cl. 3, file 192, no. 41 ; cf. file 188,
no. 38.

** See below.

** Priory of FinchaU (Surtees Soc), pref. xiii.

*' I'.C.H. Dur. i, 103.

** \ wooden building, described as the house
of the Blessed Godric, was newly made by the monks
in 1490-1, but its site is now unknown {Priory of
FinchaU [Surt. Soc], pp. cccxc, cccxd).

** Arch. Aeliana (ser. iv), vol. iv, p. 193 et seq.
Paper by C. R. Peers from which by kind permission of
the author and the Soc of Antiq. of Newcastle much
of this account of Finchale Priory has been taken.
The plan was prepared for that paper and is repro-
duced here by permission of Mr. Peers and the
Society. The details of the life of St. Godric and
the buildings forming his hermitage are taken from
Libellus de Vita S. Godrici (Surt. Soc), passim (see
index under ' Finchale ').

148

BAklLMOUSEL

AND
iBetWHOUSL

H-ts/,-OrFiCE_ OF WOK-ldS
ANCILKiT MONUMENTS DLPT.

LATE 12"^^ CENTURY

I3TH

LATE 13^'^

FINCHALE PRIORY
DURHAM

JBAVCLMOUSEL

AND
JBEtWHOUSL

GR.OUND PLAN

FEET lO 5 O lO 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 tOO FEET

HN/.-OfFICE. Of WOK-klS
ANCltNT MONUMENTS DLPT.

CITY OF DURHAM

15 ft. 6 in. wide by 33 ft. 6 in. long internally.
Its east wall was some 20 ft. west of the east
wall of the presbytery, and its south wall lay
partly under the south wall of the presbytery
and quire. The north wall, which at its east
end contains the base of an aumbry showing
12th-century tooling, is well within the pres-
bytery and quire, while the west wall was
apparently destroyed when the new quire stalls
were set up here, but the core of the foundations
remains. From its position it would appear
that the chapel was left standing until the
eastern part of the new church round it was
completed. St. Godric was carried to this chapel

who supervised the work of clearing the ruins,
states that they exhibit ' the plan of a normal
domestic house of the better class with a
hall (about 40 ft. by 25 ft.), having at its north
end a two-story building which on the analogy
of other houses of this type has consisted of a
solar over a cellar. The hall shows remains
of its hearth and stone bases on either side
on which stood wooden posts carrying the
superstructure ; part of the west door into the
screens remains at the lower end of the hall,
but the rest, including the domestic offices
which normally occupy such a position, was
destroyed at the building of the north-east

FiNCHALE Priory : ExrtRioR

when he was dying, and in it he w.is buried.
A grave has been found in the position described
by Reginald of Durham, which there can be little
doubt was that in which the body of the Saint
lay. The sides of the grave were lined with
rough masonry, and within it was a stone coffin
rounded at the head and square at the foot,
shaped within for the body of a man 5 ft. 2 in.
in height and 16 in. in width at the shoulders,
tapering to 7 in. at the foot ; proportions which
would fit the descriptions of the Saint, who was
of small stature. The lid of the coffin has gone,
but the places for the iron cramps securing
it remain. The coflnn, when found, contained
only rubbish and a piece of highly polished
Frosterley marble, which probably formed a part
of the slab covering the ' tumba.' The relics
of the Saint, it would seem, disappeared at the
suppression of the monastery.*"

When Finchale was converted from a her-
mitage into a monastery, about 1196, accom-
modation had to be found for the monks who
were sent there from Durham, and this, it is
suggested by Mr. Peers, was provided by some
buildings recently cleared to the east of the
church.

These buildings, in which three slightly
different dates can be discerned, were probably
pulled down in monastic times. Mr. Peers,

*" Anh. Jdiana, loc. cit.

wing of the prior's quarters. To this simple
rectangular building has been added a large
room to the north (46 ft. by 20 ft.), with
a fireplace in its east wall, and along its
south side a corridor lighted from the south
by small splayed windows, leading to a large
garde-robe pit at the east. Against the south
side of the garde-robe building there is built a
rectangular room entered from the north-west,
showing remains of similar windows, and having
along its west side a covered walk, which may
be of later date. Both the garde-robe and the
room south of it have been enlarged eastwards,
and though no evidence of a stair remains, it
seems probable that these buildings had an
upper story. Southward from here there exists
a short length of foundation which seems to be
of the same period, and suggests the former
existence of another room.'

This group of buildings seems to have been
built as a temporary expedient to give enough
accommodation for the monks until more ample
buildings were ready. It may be supposed,
Mr. Peers suggests, that the upper story
of the eastern block next to the garde-robe
supplied the place of the dorter, the hall served
for meals, and the large north room for the
daily labor et lectio. The ground floor of the
eastern block probably served as the chapter
house, and the chapel of St. John Baptist as
the monastic church.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

About 1237*' the monastic church and build-
ings, of which the ruins still survive, were begun
on artificially levelled ground near the river,
and were completed about 1277. The original
cruciform church'^ consisted of a quire (87 ft.
by 23 ft. 3 in.), with north and south aisles,
a low central tower surmounted by a spire
at the crossing, north and south transepts
(each 34 ft. by 22 ft. 6 in.), with a chapel
projecting eastward from the north transept
(27 ft. by 14 ft.), and nave (75 ft. 6 in. by 23 ft.),
with north and south aisles of four bays.
This church was possibly found to be unneces-
sarily large for the number of inmates, and the
cost of maintenance burdensome, or perhaps
it may have been damaged during one of the
Scottish raids ; in either event it was reduced
in size about 1364-7.*' This reduction was
effected by the removal of the chapel on the
eastern side of the north transept and of the
aisles of the quire and nave, the arcades being
walled up and windows inserted in the walling.
The south aisle of the nave, however, was trans-
formed into the north walk of the cloister,
while the original north walk was added to the
cloister garth. No further structural alteration
of importance seems to have been made before
the suppression of the house in 1536, when the
buildings were dismantled and allowed to fall
into ruin. The central tower, which terminated
just above the roof line of the church, and the
spire were standing in 1655, but had disappeared
by 1728. Much of the masonry, including the
eastern arch of the tower and the three east
lancets of the quire, have fallen since 1728.**

The presbytery projected by one bay beyond
the east ends of the original aisles, and was
originally lighted from the east by three tall
lancets and by single lancets in the north and
south walls. The jamb shafts of these windows
have gone, but the stifl-leaved capitals, except
those of the south window, still remain. A two-
story building, which was erected in the 14th
century against the eastern part of the north
waU of the presbytery, blocked the lancet window
here. To compensate for the loss of light so
caused, the lancet in the south wall was replaced
by a 14th-century three-light window, now
without a head. In order to make room for this
window, two of the four sedilia which were

*' The dates assigned to the different parts of the
buildings are largely based on a series of indulgences
which are printed in Priory of Finch ale, p. 169 et seq.,
and deductions drawn from them by Mr. Peers in
Arch. Adiana, loc. cit.

^ The total length of the church internally is
194 ft. 4 in., and the width across the transepts 99 ft.

*' Arch. Aeliana, loc. cit. ; see entries in Priory of
FinchaU, pp. bdii-bncvii.

** Cf. drawing in Dugdale, Mon. Angl. (ed. 1655),
vol. i, pt. i, p. 512, with drawing by S. and N. Buck.

originally in the south wall were built up.
The two remaining retain their moulded arches
and stifl-leaved capitals. To the east of the
sedilia is a double piscina with moulded arches
and stiff-leaved capitals. Both the piscina
and sedilia seem unduly high, owing to the
present ground level being 2 ft. below the
original floor. On the north side is a square
aumbry with a groove for a shelf and a rebate
for doors. Apparently it is not in its original
position. The 13th-century blocked arcades
formerly opening into the aisles have moulded
arches and round pillars and half-round responds
with bell-shaped capitals, those of the eastern
responds and of the first pillar on the north
side being carved with foliage and fruit. The
arches of the north arcade are fairly complete,
but the two eastern arches on the south side
have disappeared, while the western is broken
at the crown. The infilling wall has, for-
tunately, protected the carved capitals and
other details. The geometrical ornament painted
in red, yellow and black is well preserved on
the west respond and west pillar on this side,
and gives evidence of a wall between the pillars
as a back to the quire stalls. Above the arcades
the walling has fallen. In each of the blocked
arches windows were inserted in 1364-7.
The western window on the north side is com-
plete with three trefoiled lights and reticulated
tracery. The tracery of the other windows
has disappeared. It is evident that when the
14th-century alterations were being made the
north wall was showing signs of weakness,
and was then strengthened by three deep
buttresses, only the western of which is now
perfect.

Recent excavations show that the quire stalls
extended 26 ft. east of the crossing, and the
lectern stood 28 ft. eastward of the stalls. The
presbytery, which was 2 ft. 6 in. above the
quire, was reached by five steps, the top step
being 31 ft. from the east wall. The high altar,
dedicated in honour of St. John Baptist, stood
against a wooden screen 12 ft. 6 in. from the
east wall.

The central tower was supported by four
great circular piers (8 ft. in diameter). The
north-west, which contains a newel stair to
the upper part of the tower, is broken away
at the top, but the others are complete with their
moulded capitals and bases, the bases of the west
piers being of slightly later date than those in
the east. The vault over the crossing and the
four crossing arches have fallen. The western
piers were originally intended to stand free,
but as the work progressed the responds of the
eastern arches of the nave arcade were set some
12 ft. westward of the tower piers and the inter-
vening space was filled by a solid wall. There
is no evidence of .n stone pulpitum, but chases

150

,); Vf.Mi /j//..'/\M-

/. "

/,'/. J_,''/r.yu</

Durham : Finciiale Priorv. The West \'ie\v in 1728
(From an engraving by S. and N. Buck)

Dlriiam : I'iNciiALE Priory. The West Doorway

Durham : Finciiale Priorv. East View

Durham : Finchale Priory. Undercroft

CITY OF DURHAM

in the base of the eastern piers of the crossing
point to a wooden screen here. There was
probably another wooden screen with a central
doorway across the western tower arch. From
the evidence of a piscina in the eastern respond
wall of the south arcade of the nave, this screen
and the altar, possibly the Rood altar, on the
south side of its central doorway, which the
piscina served, stood on a platform 2 ft. above
the nave floor.

The north transept was lighted by three
lancets in the north wall and two in the west,
but the north wall has now fallen. At the south
end of the east wall is a pointed arch, blocked
in the 14th century, which led into the north
aisle of the quire. It is of two chamfered
orders springing on the north side from a
semicircular respond with moulded capital,
and on the south from a moulded capital formed
on the circumference of the great north-west
pier. In the blocking of this arch was a two-
light window, under which was an altar, prob-
ably that of St. Cuthbert. To the north of
this window is a wider and lower pointed arch
of slightly later date, also blocked, which
opened into the rectangular chapel destroyed
in the 14th century. This, according to the
arguments of Mr. Peers, was the chapel of St.
Godric. Its foundations, recently exposed,
show that it e.^isted before the monastic church
was planned, with which it is out of line. Mr.
Peers suggests that it represents the wooden
chapel of St. Mary built by St. Godric, which,
in that case, must have been rebuilt in stone
between the date of St. Godric's death and the
building of the monastic church. The chapel
was lengthened westward in the 13th century
to join the north transept, into which it opened
by the blocked arch above referred to. If this
theory is correct, the altar of St. Mary was
probably moved for a time to the presbytery
and later to the south transept, while the altar
of St. Godric was set up in the chapel.'* When
the chapel was destroyed in the 14th century the
altar of St. Godric was placed beneath the two-
light window in the wall blocking the arch
opening into the chapel, where evidence of it may
still be seen. Between the two altars was a
doorway leading to the monks' cemetery.

The south transept, which seems to have
formed the Lady Chapel, was lighted from the
east by a large five-light window of about
1300, the lower part of which only survives.
Below it are the remains of an altar, which may
be identified as that of St. Mary, and beside

•* Jrch. Aeliana, 4th ser. vol. iv, pp. 206-8.
The roof weatherings on the east wall of the transept
are set centrally over the arch opening into the
chapel, showing they were intended for a narrower
chapel with a south wall independent of the wall of
the quire aisle.

it on the south is a 14th-century piscina. The
block of masonry in which the piscina is set
carried the night stair to the dorter,** the door-
way to which was originally at the south-east
of the transept, but was at some time blocked
and a new doorway made in the middle of the
south wall. This latter doorway apparently
gave access to a wooden gallery at the south
end of the transept. The square-headed door-
way inserted in the south-west corner leads
to the cloister. The day stair was apparently
disused before the dissolution of the monastery,
and possibly the night stair took its place. A
14th-century window was inserted in the wall
blocking the arch from the transept to the south
aisle of the quire, the lower part of which only
remains. Below this window, from the evidence
of a trefoiled piscina, now without a bowl,
and an image bracket, there was an altar, the
dedication of which is unknown. A 14th-century
pointed doorway has been inserted in the blocked
arch leading into the south aisle of the nave,
and south of it another pointed doorway to
the cloister, over which, above the level of the
cloister roof, are the remains of a lancet window.

The nave arcades, of four bays, are of similar
detail to those of the quire. The walls blocking
the arches on the north side have three-light
traceried windows of the 14th century in the
three easternmost bays, and a doorway in the
western bay, over which is a 14th-century two-
light window. In the west wall is a pointed
doorway of three moulded orders, the two outer
of which were supported by detached shafts
with bell capitals, while the inner order is
composed of a large roll interrupted only by a
capital of similar character. An external string-
course is carried across the wall above the door-
way ; over the string-course are the remains of
three lancets.

The cloister was originally a square of 75 ft.
with arcades towards the garth, but its
length from north to south was extended when,
as already stated, the south aisle of the nave
became the north cloister walk. The eastern
part of the old aisle wall still survives, and at
the east end of it is a doorway with a two-centred
drop arch of two chamfered orders dying
into plain jambs. Opposite the first bay of the
nave arcade is a segmental-headed window
of the 14th century with fragments of tracery,
and a moulded jamb farther west probably
indicates the remains of a similar window. A
keel moulded respond facing the eastern pier
of the nave arcade doubtless received the ribs
of the aisle vaulting. The western part of this
wall is destroyed. Some of the bases of the
cloister arcade remain in the south walk, but in

*• The masonry of the stair blocked two lockers
here.

151

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

the east and probably the west walks the arcades
were replaced bybuttressedwalls having traceried
windows in each bay. Work on these windows
was apparently being carried out in 1495-6, at
which date the roofs seem to have been covered
with slates."

The chapter house is a rectangular building
(21 ft. by 23 ft.) of the latter part of the 13th
century, and immediately adjoins the south
transept. It is now in a ruinous condition.
In the west wall is a plain doorway from the

was occupied by the monastic dorter, some
80 ft. long. In the south gable was a window,
and in the west wall a blocked doorway leading
to the day stair, which, as already stated, was
abandoned. A doorway to the south of the
east wall led to the rerc dorter (30 ft. by 18 ft.),
which lay to the south-east of the dorter.
It apparently had no system of flushing.

The frater range, rebuilt about 1320, occu-
pies the south side of the cloister, with a narrow
passage on its east side between it and the

FiNCHALE Priory : Chapter House

cloister, of two moulded orders with foliated
capitals. On either side of the doorway is a
window of two chamfered orders, much decayed.
There were originally three lancet windows
in the east wall, but in the 15th century the
middle light behind the prior's seat was blocked
and two-light windows substituted for the
others. The stone seats remain against the
north, south and east walls, and the prior's seat
in the middle of the east wall has stone arms on
each side.

The dorter range, which occupies the re-
mainder of the eastern side of the cloister,
consists on the ground floor of three barrel-
vaulted apartments, with a passage to the in-
firmary or prior's lodging. The upper story

*' Priory oj FinchaU (Surt. Soc), p. ccciciv.

dorter range. The undercroft, which was prob-
ably used as a cellar, is entered from the north-
east, and is lighted from the south. Its vault
is divided into twelve quadripartite compart-
ments, supported in the middle by a row of
five octagonal pillars with plain chamfered
bases, but no capitals. The frater (40 ft.
by 23 ft.) is approached by a flight of steps
from the cloister, to which entrance is obtained
through a pointed doorway with richly moulded
jambs and head, at the west end of the north
wall. It was originally lighted by five lancets
each in the north and south walls, those on the
north side being placed high in order to clear
the cloister roof. In the 14th century the north-
west lancet was replaced by a trefoiled light
with flowing tracery. Down the middle of the
frater was a line of wooden posts supporting

152

CITY OF DURHAM

an upper floor, which was probably an addition.
At the south-west angle is a room in which are
the remains of a fireplace, the chimney of which
blocks a three-light window in the west gable.
The low upper story had on both sides small
square-headed windows of two lights, some of
which, now without mullions, still remain.
This upper room may have corresponded to the
* loft ' at the west of the frater at Durham
where the monks ordinarily had their meals.
There is now no western range of claustral
buildings except at the north end, where there
is a building with a vaulted undercroft, which
may have been the guest house or perhaps the
cellarer's quarters. The vaulting of the under-
croft, now broken through, is supported by
plain heavy ribs which spring from an octagonal
pier in the centre of the room. An original
pointed doorway on the east, now blocked,
led to the cloister, and there was another square-
headed doorway in the north wall, apparently
of later date. The upper story was reached
by a stair at the south-east, and was lighted
by a 14th-century square-headed window of
two lights on the north and by three single-
light windows, all now more or less destroyed.
There is evidence of other buildings on this
side of the cloister which have now gone.

The prior's lodging forms a group of buildings
east of the dorter range and south of the church,
in a position ordinarily occupied by the monastic
infirmary. These buildings are of two stories,
the lower or basement being storerooms,
and the upper the living rooms of the prior
and his household. The principal range, in-
cluding the hall and the prior's camera, with
its chapel at the south-east, are of the latter
part of the 13th century, while the buildings
at the west end are 15th-century and those
on the north-east are 14th-century additions.

The walls of the prior's hall (44 ft. by 20 ft.)'^
have largely fallen, but still retain on the south
the remains of a range of three two-light tran-
somed windows inserted in 1459-60, and a
pointed doorway at the west end of this wall.
At the eastern part of the north wall are the
remains of a wide fireplace, the masonry of which
forms a considerable external projection. This
fireplace was apparently made in 1459-60,
when a bay window was built on the east side
of it, two buttresses added, and new hangings
were provided." Further alterations were made
in 1464.1'" The entrances at the lower end of the
hall opening to the screens had formerly been
approached by external steps, but at this date

°* The whole range is 100 ft. by 27 ft. The use of
the different parts of the building is taken from the
inventories printed in Priory of Finchale (Surt. Soc),
pp. cxvii, civ.

** Ibid. p. cclxxv.

l** Ibid. p. ccxc^-i.

the north-west doorway was blocked and replaced
by another in the west wall which led to a pas-
sage running westward to the cloister. On
the west side of the prior's hall were the pantry,
buttery and kitchen, with a lobby and serving
hatch and remains of several fireplaces and
ovens. The larder and poultry were probably
below the dorter. On the east of the hall was
the prior's camera or great chamber (48 ft.
by 20 ft.), the principal entrance to which
was through the prior's hall, but in the 15th
century a stair from the undercroft was added
in the north-east corner. In the south wall
was a fireplace, which was built up in the
15th century, when a new fireplace was made
in the north wall. Three two-light windows
were at the same period inserted on the south
side, and a bay window thrown out on the west
end of the north wall''^ and some panelling,
probably for a canopied seat by the fire, erected
on the east side of it. The east window at the
same time received new tracery.

The prior's chapel (26 ft. by 10 ft.) is entered
from the prior's chamber on the north by a
15th-century doorway, replacing an earlier
doorway farther to the east. A ruined door-
way in the south wall led to a chamber, now
destroyed, which apparently, according to a
15th-century inventory, contained six beds.
The chapel is lighted by a 15th-century square-
headed window of three cinquef oiled lights
in the east wall, at the cast end of both the
north and south walls is a 14th-century square-
headed window of two trefoiled lights, and in
the west wall are the remains of another window.
At the west end was a gallery, reached by a stair
in the north-west angle.

On the north of the great chamber is a two-
storied building, which can perhaps be identi-
fied with theDouglasTower mentioned in 1460-1
and 1467-8.1*- The ground story, possibly
the prior's lower study, has a barrel vault,
and is separated from the main building by a
passage, through which it is entered. The
upper story was the prior's study, which was
entered from the great chamber by a door
in the south wall. It was lighted from the east
by two small windows, apparently later inser-
tions, and from the north by a fine 15th-century
oriel window and what appears to be a small
window, now blocked, placed lower in the wall.
In the north-east corner is a garde-robe, and
in the west wall is a fireplace. A stair in the
south-west corner led to the roof, and against
the north wall of the great chamber are the
remains of an external stair which, before the
previously mentioned stair was made, gave
access to the study.

153

1«1 Ihid. p. cclxx\-.

'"^ Ibid. pp. cclxiix, cccvi.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

The 15th-century buildings to the east of the
prior's lodging were probably the bakehouse
and brewhouse. In the vicinity of the prior's
chamber, but in a position not exactly known,
was the camera ludencium, or ' le player
chambre,'"" apparently a recreation room for the
monks from Durham, who stayed on leave at
Finchale according to regulations made in
1408. There is reference also to the camera
hospitii^'^ or guest house chamber, probably
near the prior's lodging, but its exact position
is also unknown.

To the west of the priory buildings are vestiges
of the west gate mentioned in 1490^"^ and
other outlying structures, and the farmhouse
on the north of the church incorporates part
of the priory mill.

The priory was made accessible from the left
bank of the Wear by a ford which Bishop Skirlaw,
according to tradition, replaced by a bridge.^
Leland describes it as ' of 2 Arches, or rather
one Arche withe a Pillor in the middle of it,'
and says that it fell down some two or three
years before his visit ' for lake of Reparations
in tyme.'^

North of Finchale the Wear makes yet another
sudden turn, and a tongue of land lies low
between the river on the south and east and the
Black Dene Burn on the north. Harbourhouse
Park occupies most of the neck of this peninsula.
Harbour House itself lying beyond a field to
the north. Its secluded position, surrounded
by streams and woods on every side, made it an
admirable centre for the Jesuit priests, who car-
ried on their mission in the i6th and early
17th centuries. The Forcers, its owners,
were Roman Catholic recusants, and at one time
a regular college was established. Father Ralph
Corby being among those who lived there.^
The tolerance of the neighbourhood, remarked
on by Defoe in 1723,* made it possible for
various members of the Forcer family to be
buried in the chapel attached to the house.^

West of Harbour House and beyond the
railway line the land rises to the moor, in-
closed and yet bare, with its bleak colliery vil-
lages new or half deserted. Much of this country
lay within the Prior's hunting ground of Bear
Park. Most of the park is within the parish of
Witton Gilbert, but a detached portion of the

103 Priory of Finchale, pp. civ, ccxcv, ccxcviii.

IM Ibid. p. ccci.

*** Ibid. p. ccclxixvi.

1 Leland, Itin. (ed. L. Toulmin Smith). The
Prior of Finchale had a garden by the ford {Feod. Prior.
Dunelm. [Surt. Soc] 20).

" Leland, loc. cit.

' Foley, Rec. 0/ the Engl. Prov. of the Soc. of Jesus,
iii, 127.

* Defoe, Tour, description of Dur.

6 Cf. Headlam, Par. Reg. of St. Oswald's, Dur. 193.

modern civil parish is in St. Oswald's, and con-
tains the hamlet of Relley, once a grange of
Durham Priory.* A quarter of a mile to the
east the River Browney winds gradually south-
ward, and is joined at Langley Bridge by the
River Deerness. On the Browney the monks
of Durham had a water mill used for fulling
in the 15th and early i6th centuries.'' Nothing
is known of the origin of the name Spyttller-
haugh, given to a field near Relley bridge in
1536,* but traces of earthworks were still visible
here in 1840, and it has been conjectured that
the close was the site of the early Brunspittle.*

The hamlet of Baxter Wood,** a little north
of Relley, is in Broom, and so outside the Priory
lands. It takes its name from the Bacstane
Ford, near which Pudsey founded the house of
Austin Canons at New Place, so soon crushed
by the Benedictines of Durham. No trace of
this house remains, but a hamlet" was in exist-
ence here in the 17th century, and Peter Smart,
prebendary of the 6th stall and vehement Puri-
tan, is said to have died here in or about 1625.*^

Aldin Grange, some distance north-west of
Baxter Wood, has been associated with owners of
a very different political complexion, for it was
the house of the nonjuring family of Bedford.*'
The property is leasehold, under the Dean
and Chapter, as successors of Durham Priory,
and great alterations were made both to the
house and grounds early in the 19th century.*''
To the west of the house and beyond the rail-
way line Aldin Grange Terrace and the church
of St. Edmund have sprung into being as a
result of the neighbouring colliery of Bearpark,
so that Aldin Grange is still connected with
that coal getting that made it a valuable pos-
session to Durham Priory in the 15th century.*^

Tracks and rough roads lead across the moor
to Broom,** with its rows of colliery houses,
its chapel, and mission church of St. Katherine.
Broom Hall lies in the fields at some distance
north-west of the village. There was a capital
messuage here in 1358, when the house was

« Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, 47, 50, 67, 72, 85,
iii, 683.

' Ibid, iii, 216, 222, 252.

8 Ibid, iii, 683.

• Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 105.

*" Bacstamforthwode in 1 362 {Chartul. of Finchale
[Surt. Soc], p. Ix).

" See V.C.H. Dur. ii, 103, 109 ; Surtees, Dur. iv (2),
105.

12 Diet. Nat. Biog.

*' Mackenzie and Ross, Dur. ii, 438.

W Ibid.

*6 Hist. Dunelm. Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), p. ccci;
Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), iii, 712.

1* In the spring of 1 343-4 Adam de Relley, clerk, was
fined 20^. for having obstructed a way from Broom
to Aldin Grange (Dur. Rec. cl. 13, no. 221, m. 3).

154

CITY OF DURHAM

divided between the coheirs, Alan de Marton
and Margaret, his wife, having the chamber
on the east of the great hall, while that on the
west was assigned to Richard and Emma de
Aldwood."

South of Broom Hall the land falls towards
the River Deerness, which divides St. Oswald's
from the parish of Brancepeth. From the ford
at Langley Bridge southward the River Browney
forms the parish boundary, with a few unim-
portant deviations, until that stream joins
the Wear. The Browney winds considerably,
its last and largest bend enclosing Burn Hall
on all but its eastern side. The present house
was the residence of the late Mr. Henry Salvin,
and was sold in 1926, two years after his death,
to St. Joseph's Society for Foreign Missions,
who have established a boys' school there. It was
built in 1825I* on higher ground about 300 yds.
from the older house where Elizabeth Barrett
Browning was born in 1809.'* It is not certain
whether this house was identical with the
house having a great chamber hung with red and
green, owned by William Claxton at his death in
c. 1566.^" South-east of Burn Hall and just
without the limits of the park is Herd's House,
mentioned as ' Hurdhous ' in 1589.^1 Low
Burnhall lies close to the Wear ; it is now occu-
pied as a farm. In 1430 there was a hermitage
at Burn,^'^ near the quarry of the lord of the
manor, but its exact position has now been lost.

The north road skirts the park of Burn Hall
on the east and, after crossing Browney Bridge
and some low-lying land, reaches Sunderland
Bridge over the Wear. This bridge is men-
tioned in 1346, a skirmish being fought here
in the morning of 17 October before the battle
was joined at Neville's Cross.-^ Leland rode
by ' Sunderland Bridges ' when he came to
Durham in or about 1536. 'There,' he says,
* Wear is divided into two arms and after shortly
meeting maketh an isle ; the first bridge as I came
over was but of one arch, the other of three.' -*
In 1578 it was said that the Wear had changed
its course, and that unless something was done
it would ' leave the saide brydge upon drye
land upon the southe syde of the said water.' -*
The bridge was partly rebuilt in 1769.^*

The villages of Sunderland Bridge and of

" Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 30, m. 12 d.

1' Allan, Hist, and Desc. View of the City of Dur.
(1824), 103-4; Hutchinson, Dur. ii, 331.

" Diet. Nat. Biog.

^'^ Wills and Invent. (Surt. Soc), i, 254.

^^ Dur. Rec. cl. 3, file 192, no. 140.

22 Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Sun. Soc), App.
p. ccxix.

^ Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 123.

'^^ Leland, Itin. (ed. cit.).

2* Exch. Spec. Com., Dur., no. 754.

"* Mackenzie and Ross, Dur. ii, 438.

Croxdale form practically one settlement,"
though the name Croxdale is now confined
to the railway station and to the hamlet south
of the London and North Eastern main line.
The colliery led to the opening of a Primitive
Methodist chapel here in 1877, and of a
Wesleyan chapel (1897) and a reading room.
The village of Sunderland Bridge lies on the
ridge of a steep hiU above the Wear and is
built along a short lane at right angles to the
highway, the church of St. Bartholomew lying
at the corner. In less than a quarter of a mile
the village street turns abruptly south, to
Hctt, its eastern course being stopped by the
deep and wooded heugh which encloses the
South Park of Croxdale Hall, the main approach
to which is through a strip of park lying between
the village and the Wear. Croxdale Hall ha s been
in the possession of the Salvins since the 15th
century, and is now the residence of Lieut. -Col.
Herman C. J. Salvin. Lady Oxford in 1745
thought it ' a very pretty place by the Wear
side, with good gardens,' and added that these
were ' remarkable for early fruit.'-' Neither the
house nor its chapel of St. Herbert is of any
great antiquity, but close by is the ancient
parochial chapel. This chapel is retained by
the Salvins, who gave in exchange the land on
which the present church of St. Bartholomew
is built. North of Croxdale Hall and beyond
a further stretch of park is Croxdale Wood,
on the edge of which is Croxdale Wood House,
the residence of Mr. Lewis Ingham. The
high ground about the house slopes rapidly
down to the Wear, and to a tract of low-lying
ground within a loop of the stream. The old
manor-house of Butterby lies close to the river
side. There is no church at Butterby,-' hence
in the local slang a man is said ' to go to church
at Butterby ' when he neglects to attend church.
Despite the isolated position of Butterby,
shut in by river and hj wood, it was much
frequented in the i8th century by patients
who came to drink of the ' vitrioline spaw.'
These medical waters were described by Dr.
Wilson in 1675,'" but the spring has now been
lost in consequence of mining operations in the
neighbourhood.

A ford across the Wear gives access to a bridle
road which leads across the old Highfield,'^
now the golf links, to Houghall and thence to
Durham.

" According to Surtees the vill of Sunderland
Bridge had its separate common fields which were
inclosed in 1669 {Dur. iv (2), 122).

28 Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), vi, 185.

29 The fact that Butterby is tithe free led Hutchin-
son to consider it the site of St. Leonards {Dur. ii,
J 1 6), but for this see above.

^ Spadacrene Dunelmensis.

" Cf. Dur. Rec. cl. 2, bdle. 95.

155

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

The ancient manor-house of Houghall is said
to have been built by Prior Hoton (i 290-1 308),
but according to the account rolls of Durham
Priory, a new house was built here in 1373.^'
In the i6th century it was occupied by the
family of Booth, lessees of the Dean and
Chapter,^^ and in the Commonwealth it is
said to have been occupied by the family of
Marshall and Sir Arthur Hazelrigg,^ though no
evidence of the latter occupation has been
found.

The house stands in a low situation about
half a mile from the left bank of the Wear
' guarded by a fosse supplied by a small runner
which falls from the hill ' — the ground rising
close to the building on the west and south-
west. The present house, which probably
stands on the site of one of older date, belongs
apparently to the first half of the 17th century,
and has been approached by an avenue of trees
from High Houghall on the south side, part of
which remains. The building itself has been
very much modernised, and is now a farm-
house. It faces south, and has a wing at the
east end running north, in which are two four-
light mulhoned and transomed windows and
a smaller mullioned opening of three lights
in the north gable. The house is of two stories,
with basement and attics, and the roofs are
covered with modern blue slates. On the south
front all the windows, with one exception,
are modern, and over the doorway is a shield
with the arms of Marshall of Selaby (a cheveron
between three crescents), who occupied the
house during the Commonwealth period.*''
The interior is without interest, except for
the staircase, which is built round a small
central square well, and has thick turned
balusters and square newels with balls. The
building has been extended on the west side,
the old part being, perhaps, only a fragment.

The modern settlement of Houghall lies
north of the old house, and owes its existence
to the coalmine that was once sunk here, but
is now disused. A hospital for infectious
diseases'* has been built among the fields here,
and was opened in 1893. The name of
Hollinside Wood, west of Houghall, must be
connected with the close called Holensfeld in
1551,^'' and Hollingside itself is mentioned in

32 Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), iii, 578.

33 See below.

3* Hutchinson, Dur. ii, 325 ; Mackenzie and Ross,
DuT. ii, 435. According to tradition Oliver Crom-
well lived here for some time.

3* Surtees, Dur. iv, 94.

3* In 1597 patients suffering from the plague were
sent ' to a lodge built without the . . . citie ' (Dur.
Rec. cl. 2, no. l).

S' Rec. of the D. and C. of Dur. Reg. A. (no. 1),
fol. 201 d.

1 65 1, together with lands called Award Flatt,
the Pooles and Weather Haugh.33

West of Houghall is Elvet Moor,3» inclosed
in 1772.'"' Oswald House, as Mount St. Oswald
was then called, was built on part of the moor
by the family of Wilkinson.''* The house was
rebuilt shortly before 1834, when the name
was changed ;*- it is now the residence
of Mrs. Rogerson, widow of John Edwin
Rogerson, M.F.H.

Shincliffe is on the left bank of the Wear,
and on the ridge between the river and the
Whitwell Beck ; it is reached by the road
leading south-east from Philipson's Cross. The
old village is built along a wide lane running
down towards the river, the main road to Sedge-
field making a sharp angle to pass down the
village street. In 1824 it was said that a garden
lay nearly all round the village,''3 but this has
now disappeared. The church of St. Mary
lies a little back from the road, and near it is
the Wesleyan chapel, built in 1874. Wesley
himself preached at Shincliffe in May 1780, when
stopping at Mr. Parker's."-* The congregation
being far too large to get into the house, Wesley
stood near the door, and it ' seemed as if the
whole village was ready to receive the truth.'"''
There is also a United Methodist chapel,
built in 1875, at the colliery settlement on
Bank Top. This colliery is now closed down,
and many of the houses are deserted, though a
certain number are utilised as Aged Miners'
Homes. The grange of Durham Priory lay
at the top of the hill, and to the south are the
race course, opened in 1895,** and Shincliffe
station, on the Newcastle, Leamside and Ferry-
hill branch of the North Eastern Railway.
This station was opened in 1844, and took the
place of an earlier station opened in 1839
on the Durham and Sunderland Railway."'
All the land to the north of the old village lay
in the park of the Priory of Durham ; which is
first mentioned in the 13th century,"* and was
inclosed in 1355-6."' The park ran down to
the river and bordered the main road near
Shincliffe Bridge, for when Prior Richard

38 Close R. 1 65 1, pt. Ixi, no. 39.

3* For the boundary between Elvet and Houghall
see Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surt. Soc), 203 n.

"« Rec. of the D. and C. of Dur. Reg. L.L. no. 52.

"1 See Grange, Gen. I'iew of the Agric. of Co. Dur.
(Bd. of Agric. 794), 44.

42 View of the City of Dur. (i 81 3), 67 ; Allan, op. cit.
103.

"3 Allan, op. cit. 107.

*» Wesley, ^oMrn. 31 May 1 780.

"6 Ibid.

"8 V.C.H. Dur. ii, 420.

"' Inform, supplied by the L. and N.E.R.

"8 Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 57.

"» Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), 122.

156

CITY OF DURHAM

escaped from the hands of the Bishop's servants
on the bridge in 1300, the guards fled, thinking
that armed men were concealed in the park.
The bridge is first mentioned in the 13th
century, when land in Upper Elvet was given
for its support.'" It was repaired by the Priory
in 1 361-2,''' and John Ogle left 100 silver
shillings for its maintenance in March 1372-3.''^
After inquiry into its condition and revenues'"^
it was entirely rebuilt by Bishop Skirlaw
(1388-1405).'^ A flood in February 1753 swept
two of its arches away, but these were repaired,*'
and it was not until 1824 that the bridge was
condemned as narrow and beyond repair. The
present bridge was then begun, and opened in
September i826.'« Shincliffe Mill, on Old
Durham Beck, lay within the Prior's fee and
is first mentioned in 1303." The dam was made
in 1367-8,'* and in 1458-9 the mill was entirely
rebuilt.'* Richard Marshall held it on lease
from the Dean and Chapter when he died in
1580.'" The policy of leasing the mill has been
followed to the present day, and Miss Johnson
is the present occupier.

North of Old Durham Beck and east of the
Wear the land slopes gradually upward to
Gilesgate Moor. A single stone is all that
remains of the 17th-century manor-house
of Old Durham, the successor of the capital
messuage that the Rector of St. Nicholas had
here in 1268.*' The inventory of the goods
of Robert Booth, who died here in 1586, speaks
of the chapel chamber, the parlour with its
pair of virginalls, the ' chambers in the
courtyne,' the lower chamber and the little
and great chambers."- In the 17th century
the Heaths and, later, the Tempests lived here.
Both families were Royalist in sympathy. John
Tempest (1710-76) left Old Durham for
Wynyard, and little was done to the property
until 1849, when the Marquess of Londonderry
sank a coal pit a little south-east of the house.
The house was then dismantled,** and the
gardens, attached to a neighbouring inn, became
a favourite public resort for summer afternoons.

*" Surtees, Dut. iv (2), 108 n.

'1 Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, 126.

'2 Dur. Wills and Invent. (Surt. Soc), i, 34.

'3 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 30, m. 3 d. ; 32, m. 8.

'■* Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 144.

" A'. Co. Diaries (Surt. Soc), 193.

" Surtees, op. cit. 109.

" Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, 113.

'8 Ibid. 128.

'* Ibid, i, 152.

«o Dur. Wills and Invent. (Surt. Soc), ii, 26.

" Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 91.

*2 Dur. Wills and Invent. (Surt. Soc), ii, 207.

«3 Fordyce, Dur. i, 389. A sculptured stone, sole
remnant of the house, is built into the wall on the
river bank.

The history of ALDIN GRANGE
MANORS (Aldingrige, Aldingrig xi-xiv
cent., Aldyngrigge, Aldyngrange
xvi cent., Aldingrange xvii cent.) is closely
connected with that of the neighbouring vill
of Broom. It was in the hands of the Bishops
of Durham until the second half of the 12th
century, when Hugh de Pudsey granted 6 score
acres of waste on the west bank of the River
Browney, and the wood which stretched to
the cultivated land of Aldin Grange, to his
kinsman Henry de Pudsey." Henry gave this
land to the canons of Baxter Wood^ as the
endowment of his foundation there, and to this
he added the vill of Aldin Grange," which
he had obtained under a mortgage from Bertram
de Hetton in 1187.*' On the suppression of the
Baxter Wood house these lands passed to the
Priory of Finchale.** Somewhat later the manor
of Aldin Grange, ' with the service of Broom
and Relley,' was quitclaimed by the Priory
to Bertram de Hetton in exchange.** There may,
however, have been a later conveyance, for in
the 15th century the manor was held by the
Priory of Durham," which paid a ' fee rent '
for it to Finchale.'' The manor, with Aumener-
halgh and Bear Park Moor, was let at farm
in 1438-9,'^ but in 1446 all these were in the
hands of the Bursar.'* The priory lands here
were granted by the Crown to Durham Cathedral
in 1541,''' and probably formed with Relley
and Amner Barns part of the endowment of the
9th stall."

Aldin Grange has long been the subject
of leases. According to Surtees it was held
in 1609'* by Sampson Lever, and followed the
descent of their property at Scout's House,
in the parish of Brancepeth, until 17 16, when it
was sold by the sons of Robert Lever to the
family of Bedford." John Bedford, M.D.,
lived here until his death in 1776, and on the
death of his son, Hilkiah Bedford, in 1779,
Aldin Grange passed with Old Burn Hall (q.v.)
to Alice, wife of John Hall.'* She sold it in

*•' Charters of Endotvment, etc., of Finchale (Surt.
Soc), 8.

«* Ibid. 9. 66 Ibid. 54.

6' Surtees, Dur. i, 213.

6* Charters of Finchale (Surt. Soc), 20.

68 Surtees, Dur. i, 213.

'" Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surt. Soc), 191.

'1 Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), iii, 705. Many small
parcels of land here were acquired by Durham
Priory in the 14th century (Surtees, Dur. iv (2),
105 n.).

'2 Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, 66.

'3 Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), p. ccci.

'•> L. and P. Hen. Fill, .xviii, g. 878 (33).

" Rec of the D. and C. of Dur. C. iv, 33, fol. 148.

'6 Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 105.

" Ibid. '* Ibid.

157

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

1781 to Thomas Gibbon, whose granddaughter
conveyed it before 1824™ to Mr. Francis
Taylor, the tenant in 1840.

The property was afterwards acquired by a
member of the Cochrane family.

According to Surtees ATKLET HEADS
originally formed part of Crookhall, and was
granted as a quarter of that manor by Thomas
Bellingham to Richard Harrison in 1651.^
Harrison was acting as trustee for Clement
Reade, of Butter Crambe, Yorks, and he devised
it to Richard Reade, his son.'* Clement, son
of Richard Reade, conveyed it to George Dixon
in 1706, Dixon being trustee for Ralph Bain-
bridge.*- By his will of February 1724-5,
Ralph devised the estate to his widow, and she
sold it to Thomas Westgarth in 1729.** Later
in the i8th century it came into the possession
of George Dixon, who was succeeded by John
Dixon, his son and heir.** John died without
issue, and Aykley Heads was inherited by
Francis, son of his sister Tabitha, by her husband
Christopher Johnson.** Francis, who was living
at Aykley Heads in 1804,** died in 1838, his
heir being his son, Mr. Francis Dixon Johnson.*'
Mr. Johnson was called to the Bar in 1833 ;
he survived his eldest son, and on his death
in 1893 Aykley Heads passed to his second son,
Cuthbert Greenwood Dixon Johnson. He died
six years later, his heir being his son, Capt.
Cuthbert Francis Dixon Johnson, the present
owner.

At the southern end of South Street lies the
ground known as THE BELLASIS (Belasis
xiii cent., Bellasis, Bellasyse
XV cent., Bellaces xvi
cent.). It takes its name
from German de Bellasis,
the 13th-century tenant,
whose daughters Agnes and
Sybil granted it to the
Prior and Convent of Dur-
ham.** An orchard in Bel-
lasis, formerly held by
Isabel Payntour, was held
by Sir William Bowes of
the Prior in 1430,*' and land here remained in
the hands of the Bowes family until the i6th

'9 Allan, Hist, and Descr. View of the City of Dur.
119; Surtees, loc. cit.

** Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 141.

*i Ibid. 82 Ibid. *» Ibid.

** Burke, Landed Gentry.

*5 Ibid.

** An Acct. of DuT. (1804), p. 41 ; of. Allan, op. cit.
131 ; Mackenzie and Ross, Dur. ii, 438.

*' Burke, op. cit.

** Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 135 n. German's widow
Julian quitclaimed her right to the Priory in return
for a yearly payment of corn and wood.

«» Feod. Prior. Dun. (Surt. Soc), 78.

Bellasis. Argent a
cbeveron guUi between
three fieurs de lis azure.

century.*" In the early 19th century the land
was in the possession of Dr. Cooke, professor of
anatomy at the University of Durham, but he
sold his interest in 1842 to the governors of the
grammar school,'' which now stands on part of
the site.

Much obscurity has gathered round the early
history of BROOM (The Brome, Broum xiv
cent.), which in 1362 was divided into Over
Broom, held of the Priory, and Nether Broom,
held of the Bishop but rendering rent to the
Prior.»2

Constance del Broom was holding a messuage
and 30 acres of land here of the Bishop at her
death about 1336,'^ when she was succeeded by
Thomas her son. Thomas was a party to
various recognizances** and is last mentioned in
1348.** It seems possible that this land was
that inherited by Margaret wife of Alan de
Marton and her sister Emma who married
Richard de Aldwood, the manor of Broomhall
being divided between them in February
1357-8.** At this date a rent of 5 marks yearly
from the manor was payable to Richard and
Emma de Aldwood, and in 1375 a similar sum
was still being paid by Thomas de Hexham.*'
Thomas was succeeded by his son Hugh, then
a minor,** but no further history of this holding
is known unless it be identified with the land
obtained by the Prior and Convent.**

In 1464 the Priory held a waste and 8 acres of
land with 5/. free rent here,* and in 1580 rent
was paid for free farm here by Thomas Bate-
manson.^

'Thomas Batemanson, gentleman, a man godlie,
good to the mentenance of the poore and aspecial
a verie honest man a monge his nighbors, beinge
of the aige of Ixxx yeares,' died in 1615.^ By his
will he left his leases from the Dean and Chapter
to Christopher his son and heir.* Both Christo-
pher and Eleanor his wife were Roman Catholics

*o Dur. Rec. cl. 3, ptfl. 166, no. 26 ; no. 4, fol. 54 ;
no. 3, fol. 12 ; ptfl. 173, no. 37; cf. Dur. Acct. R.
(Surt. Soc), iii, 705 ; Dur. Halmote R. (Surt. Soc), i,
192 ; Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 134.

»i V.C.H. Dur. i, 384.

»2 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 2, fol. 65 d.

*3 Ibid. no. 2, fol. 10.

*•" Ibid. no. 29, m. 19 d., 30, m. 4.

*5 Ibid. no. 30, m. 4.

** Ibid. m. 12 d. Alan and Margaret paid Richard
and Emma an additional 10 marks yearly.

*' Ibid. no. 2, fol. 92 d.

»* Ibid.

** Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surt. Soc), 178 n. The
instruments connected with the transfer are to be
found 2''* 6"" Spec, (in the Treasury), but are not
of sufficient interest to merit being printed.

1 Ibid. 178.

2 HalmoU R. (Surt. Soc), i, 205.

3 Headlam, St. OswaWs Par. Reg. 55.
* Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 104 n.

158

CITY OF DURHAM

and both chose Broomhall as their abode.*
Christopher died in 1625' after having by will
divided his leases between his nephew Nicholas,
son of Nicholas Briggs, and Edward and Thomas,
the sons of William Hall of Newcastle.'

Certain lands in Broom were held by Richard
de Hoton, whose name is found in 1334.* In
1339 Richard, son of WiUiam de Hoton, acknow-
ledged that he owed ^^20 to Richard de Whyte-
powys, who received a similar recognizance for
a like amount from Richard, son of John de
Aldwood.' The significance of these transac-
tions is not clear, but in 1345 Richard de Hoton
' of Aton,' was dealing with the manor of
Broom as in his own hands.^" though it had
formerly been held of him by Richard de Whyte-
powys," the Bishop's forester in Weardale.

In 1345 Richard de Hoton conveyed his
manor of Broom to Richard FitzHugh chaplain,
who in the following year enfeoffed Richard de
Hoton and Cecily his wife and their issue.^-
Alice, daughter and heir of Richard de Hoton,
married Richard Dawtry as his second wife and
had by him a son John Dawtry the younger.^'
In 1431 this John Dawtry delivered various
evidences relating to the manor of Broom to his
nephew John Dawtry, the son of John Dawtry
the eldest son of Richard by his first wife."
This transfer seems to have been made at the
sale of the manor to Richard Cowhird, possibly
a trustee.''

John Forcer died in possession of the manor
in 1432''' and Broom followed the descent of
Kelloe (q.v.) until 1577," when John Forcer of
Harbour House conveyed all his lands here to
Mark Greenwell, with whose possessions in
Ushawe Broom possibly descended.

The manor of BURN HALL (Great Brume,
Great Burne ; Burn xiv cent.) was held of
the Nevills, lords of Brancepeth by service of
f knight's fee.'*

Its earliest known tenants were members of
the family of Brackenbury. At the end of the
13th century Robert de Neville released suit at
the court of the manor of Brancepeth to

^ Headlam, op. cit. 44, 58. Eleanor died in 1635
and ' being excommunicate and convicted of recu-
sancy ' was given a clandestine burial in St. Oswald's
Church {Acts of the High Com. [Surt. Soc], 142 j
Headlam, op. cit. 88).

6 Ibid. 71.

' Surtees, loc. cit.

* Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 29, m. I, 3 d.

» See above. Ibid. m. 10. Thomas del Broom
had owed Richard ^6 in 1 343 (Ibid. m. 19 d.).

1* Ibid. no. 36, m. 3.

'1 Ibid. no. 29, m. 13 d.

^ Ibid. no. 36, m. 3.

13 Ibid. " Ibid. 15 Ibid.

" Ibid. no. 2, fol. 266 ; 37, m. 6.

" Surtees, loc. cit.

" Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 2, fol. 81 d., 104 d.

Brackenbury.
ginl/retly sahU.

Isabella de Brakenbury for a moiety of the
vill of Little Burne as Nicholas de Ture formerly
held it. Isabella seems to have married Peter
de Neville and a like release was granted to
them for a moiety of Little Burne by Ralph
son of Robert de Neville." Maud, widow of
William de Brackenbury,
claimed dower in the
manors of Great Burn,
Shipley and Crook, against
Robert de Brackenbury.
Robert declared that Wil-
liam de Brackenbury had
conveyed the tenements to
him, and in warranty he
called Peter, son and heir
of WiUiam.2o Maud failed
to establish her claim and
Robert held this manor until his death in or
about 1369, when it descended to Gilbert his son
and heir.-' Gilbert was succeeded by Alice his
daughter, but she died unmarried in 1379^ soon
after her father, her heir being her sister Maud,
born some time after November 1379.''^ Maud
grew up and married Sir John Claxton, Kt.,
but the marriage was unhappy and they seem
to have separated in 141 0, when arrangements
were made for Maud's maintenance.-' Maud
survived her husband and died in January
1422-3, leaving a son John Claxton, a young man
of 22.25 Before 1448 John _
had been succeeded by his
son William Claxton.-^ He
was twice married ;" Wil-
liam his eldest son and
successor died childless in
1481, his heir being his
sister Beatrice, who had
married Richard Feather-
stonehalgh.2* The manor of
Great Burn and other lands
were claimed, however, by
Richard Claxton, stepbrother of William,-' and
the succession seems to have been disputed
vehemently.*" Richard and Beatrice Feather-

" Lans. MS. 902, fol. 295. Among the witnesses
are Thomas, Robert, and WiUiam de Brakenbury.
^o Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 70, m. 28-9.

21 Ibid. no. 2, fol. 81 d.

22 Ibid. fol. 102 d.

23 Ibid. 13.

2* Ibid. no. 34, m. 6 d. ; cf. 35, m. 16 d., 20 d. ; no. 38,
m. I.

2* Ibid. no. 2, fol. 219. He obtained livery in
April. Ibid. no. 38, m. 9.

2« Ibid. no. 46, m. 16 d.

2' In 145 1 he and Agnes his wife leased a waste
messuage in Owengate to Richard Raket. (Ibid,
no. 47, m. 22 d.).

2» Ibid. ptfl. 178, no. 29.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid. no. 56, m. 2 ; no. 62, m. 3.

Claxton- Gulei a
Jesse betzceen three
hedgehogs argent.

159

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

stonehalgh, ' in some hope of loyalty and
justice,' conveyed these lands in March 1487-8
to trustees, among the chief of whom were
Ralph Earl of Westmorland and the powerful
Sir John Conyers, kt., as well as William Claxton
of Brancepeth.'i Beatrice died before February
1 500-1 when Richard obtained a retrospective
pardon to them both for intrusion on the manor
of Great Burn and an episcopal mandate secur-
ing them from molestation.^ Later Richard
seems to have taken Holy Orders,'' but before
doing so he conveyed his life interest in the
manor to Eleanor wife of Robert Layburn**
in return for a yearly rent of ;^io.'* Eleanor
died in 1507, leaving an infant daughter Joan
but 35 weeks old ; '* Robert Layburn continued
in possession by the courtesy of England. In
151 1 the elder branch of the family of Bracken-
bury, as represented by Ralph and Anthony
Brackenbury, made a determined effort to get
possession of the manor and actually obtained
a judgment in their favour."

In spite of this action the Brackenburys
could not make good their claim. Anthony
Brackenbury and others entered into recogniz-
ances to keep the peace towards Robert Claxton
of Framwellgate in 15 12,'* and in 15 18 Robert
acknowledged a debt of ;^ioo to Anthony giving
as security the manor of Burn with all lands,
etc., ' which were in the possession of William
Claxton of Burn.' ^ Robert was succeeded by
William his son, who died in 1540, leaving a son
William, a minor, whose wardship was claimed
two years later by Ralph Earl of Westmorland.'"'
The younger William Claxton died in December

'1 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, ptfl. 178, no. 56, m. 5 d.

^ Ibid. no. 61, m. 14.

^ Ibid. no. 62, m. 8.

** Ibid. cl. 13, no. 233.

'5 Ibid. no. 66, m. 2d. In 1511 Richard Feather-
stonehalgh, chaplain, sued Anthony Brackenbury and
another for their forcible breaking of his houses, etc.
(ibid. 13, 233).

3* Ibid. ptfl. 178, no. 29.

" Ibid. no. 70, m. 9; cl. 13, no. 233. Anthony
alleged that Piers Brackenbury was enfeoffed by cer-
tain trustees for life with remainder in tail male to
Gilbert Brackenbury and contingent remainder to
Nicholas Brackenbury in tail male. He further said
that Piers Brackenbury died at Great Burn and that
the manor descended to Thomas, son and heir of
Nicholas Brackenbury, and to his heirs. No docu-
mentary evidence for any of these statements has been
found. Layburn objected to the panel as first formed
on the ground that it had been made by Sir William
Buhner, then sheriff, and cousin of Anthony Bracken-
bury 's wife.

3« Ibid. cl. 8, no. 78, fol. 78. 39 Ibid. fol. 115.

40 Ibid. cl. 3, ptfl. 177 ; no. 58, 178 ; no. 6, 29; cf.
no. 78, m. 13 d., ptfl. 177, no. 51. Ann, his widow,
married Richard Thade (ibid. ptfl. 177, no. 49;
no. 78, m. 15 d.).

1560 when Robert his son was a boy of 13."
Robert made a settlement of the manor on him-
self, Eleanor his wife and their children in 1 569."
He seems, however, to have got into great
financial difficulties and sold Burnhall to George
Lawson of Little Usworth, who bought Strother
house and Strotherfield in Bowden parish from
him in 1574.*' Lawson seems to have behaved
with the greatest consideration towards the
Claxtons," providing in his will that Robert
should recover the property on the payment of
j^2,ooo within a twelvemonth of the testator's
death,''^ but Robert was unable to fulfil this
condition.''* Thomas Lawson, son and heir of
George, conveyed the manor to James Lisle,'"
and together they and Dorothy wife of James
made a further conveyance to Sir Ralph Lawson
in 1592.** Sir Ralph sold it before 1617" to
Henry Manfield of Amerden, Bucks ;''* an
interest in it also belonged to Dorothy Fitz-
William, widow, and Henry son and heir of John
Barker of Hurst, Berks."

All these persons joined in conveying the
manor in 1621 to Christopher Peacock of Rich-
mond, mercer, and to Simon his son and heir.**
Simon died in his father's life-time,"' but Simon
his son inherited the manor,** which formed the
marriage settlement of Simon his son in 1683.**
The younger Simon Peacock was living at
Burnhall in 1689*" and died in January 1707-8."
Simon his son sold Old Burnhall or the eastern
portion of the estate to Posthumous Smith,
LL.D., and his father-in-law Sir George Wheler
in 1 71 5,** while two years later New Burnhall
was purchased by George Smith, his nephew.*'

George Smith was a non-juror* and titular

" Ibid, no. 6, fol. 56 ; Wills and Invent. (Surt. Soc),
i, 252-4.

■»2 Dur. Rec. cl. 12, no. I, m. 2.

'" Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 95 n. ; Dur. Rec. cl. 3,
no. 88, m. 3 d.

*• The settlement of 1 569 may help to explain
Lawson's bequest to Eleanor of ;^I0, to be paid with-
out her husband's knowledge.

« Wills and Invent. (Surt. Soc), ii, 322. '«« Ibid.

4' Surtees, op. cit. iv (2), 95.

•** Dur. Rec. cl. 12, no. I, m. 3.

*^ Cal. S. P. Dom. 1611-18, p. 476.

so See V.C.H. Bucks, iii, 243.

*i Close, 19 Jas. I, pt. xiii, no. 21.

52 Ibid.

*' Surtees, op. cit. iv (2), 99.

**Cf. Recov. R. Mich. 1650, 122.

** Surtees, op. cit. 96.

** Headlam, op. cit. 167.

*' Ibid. 209. His father had died in 1702 (Surtees,
op. cit. 99).

** Surtees, op. cit. 96 ; Thoresby, Ducatus Leod-
<'n/!j(ed. 1816), 24. *9 Ibid.

^ Hutchinson, Dur. ii, 331. He married Christian
daughter of the well-known non-juror Hilkiah Bed-
ford, father of Dr. John Bedford (see below). Surtees,
Dur. iv (2), 99.

160

CITY OF DURHAM

bishop of Durham ; he was, moreover, a dis-
tinguished scholar and edited an edition of
Bede that held the field for many years. He
died in 1756,''' having survived his eldest son
John, that ' young phisition ' mentioned in one
of the local diaries."^ George Smith, son of
John, was living at (New) Burnhall in 1787, but
before 1813"^ he sold it to Bryan John Salvin,
younger son of William Salvin of Croxdale/''
Mr. Salvin died in 1842 and Burn Hall then
passed to his nephew, Marmaduke Charles
Salvin.*^ In 1885 the property was inherited
by his eldest son, Mr. Bryan John Francis
Salvin, on whose death in 1902 it came to his
brother and heir, Mr. Marmaduke Henry Salvin.
Mr. M. H. Salvin died in 1924, and in 1926 Burn
Hall was sold to St. Joseph's Society for Foreign
Missions, which has established a boys' school
there.

Posthumous Smith, registrar of the Dean
and Chapter,"^ was succeeded at OLD BURN
HALL by John his son. John died without
issue in 1744,*^ his co-heirs being his sisters
Grace, Mary and Elizabeth. EHzabeth, the
second daughter, married Dr. John Bedford
and died in childbirth in 1750,'* leaving a son
and heir Hilkiah Bedford."* Hilkiah Bedford,
while thus inheriting a third of Burnhall from his
mother, also obtained one-sixth from his aunt
Grace Middleton in 1771.'° Mary, the third
sister, married Braema Wheler and in the same
year received one-sixth of the manor from her
sister Grace.'^ By her will dated in that
year Mary devised this sixth to her husband's
kinsman Charles Granville Wheler, her own
third descending to Hilkiah Bedford. Hilkiah
died unmarried in 1779," ^'^ ^^'i' being his
sister Alice, wife of John Hall, who purchased
the share of Charles Granville Wheler in 1801.
Five years later she sold the property to William
Thomas Salvin," and it has since followed the
descent of his manor of Croxdale (q.v.).

Very little is known of the early history of
BUTTERBT (Beautrove xiii — xv cent., Beau-
treby, Butterbey xvi cent.), but it appears to
have been originally among the lands of the
Priory of Durham.'*

«i M.I. in St. Oswald's.

62Musgrave, Obit. (Harl. Soc.) ; A'. Co. Diaries
(Surt. Soc), 179.

63 l^ieta of the City of Dur. (181 3), 67 ; Surtees,
op. cit. 96.

^ Burke, Landed Gentry (1906).

'^ Younger son of William Thomas Salvin of
Croxdale (ibid.).

** Chapter Act. Bks. vol. iv (1690-1729), fol. 91.

" Surtees, op. cit. iv (2), 96.

«8 iV. Co. Diaries (Surt. Soc), i, 181.

°° Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 99.

'0 Ibid. '1 Ibid.

»2 Ibid. 99. '3 Ibid. 96. '■» Ibid. 109 n.

3 161

Its earliest known lords were members of the
family of Andri. Roger de Andri held 2 knights'
fees of the Bishop of Durham in 1166" and in
1 1 89 paid a mark for having a mill pond on the
demesne land of the neighbouring vill of Sunder-
land Bridge." He was probably the predecessor
of the Sir Roger de Andri, kt., who with Walter
his brother gave evidence in the action brought
by Bishop Richard le Poor against the Prior
and Convent in 1228." It is also probable that
it was this Sir Roger who built at Butterby a
chapel for which he obtained the privileges of
a chantry.'* Walter de Andri was holding the
family fee shortly after 1228," but no further
connexion of the family with this place has been
found.

Before 1381 the manor had passed into the
hands of the family of Lumley of Lumley
Castle'" (q.v.), with which it descended until
1566, when John, Lord Lumley, sold it to Chris-
topher Chaytor." The new owner was the
son of John Chaytor, a Newcastle merchant,'^
and filled various responsible posts under the
Crown and Bishopric, being Registrar in 1577
and 1581.*'

He married Elizabeth Clervaux, and in view
of their eldest son's inheritance of the Clervaux
estate in Croft, Yorkshire,** he settled Butterby
on Thomas, their younger son, in or about
1589.®-' Christopher Chaytor, 'one of hyr
maiestes Justeces of Peace of thage of Ixxxvij
years' died in 1592,'^ and Thomas held the
property until his death in 1618." Henry
Chaytor his son and heir died in 1629 ** while
still a minor and was succeeded by his brother

'5 Red Bk. of the Exch. (Surt. Soc), i, 416. His
name frequently appears among those of witnesses
to Pudsey's charters.

'« Boldon Bk. (Surt. Soc), 35.

" Feod. Prior. Dun. (Surt. Soc), 230.

'* Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 109 n.

'9 Ibid, i, 503.

*" Dep. Keeper's Rep. xlv, 229, xliv, 451, 453, 454 ;
Chan. Inq. p.m. I Hen. IV (pt. ii), no. 2b ; ibid,
(ser. 2), clxxiii, 44. Lands here and at Stranton were
assigned by Henry IV to Eleanor, widow of Ralph
de Lumley, for the sustenance of herself and her
twelve children {Cal. Pat. 1 399-1401, p. 219, 281).

*i Dur. Rec. cl. 12 (1-2) ; Surtees, op. cit. no.

8- Harl. MS. 1540, fol. 31 d. ; Foster, Dur. Pedigrees,
69.

*3 Injunctions . . . of Bp. Barnes (Surt. Soc),
II, 64, 65-6, 102, 108.

^ Elizabeth died in 1 584 (Headlam, St. OstvaWs
Par. Reg. 29).

*5 Surtees, loc cit.; Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 86, m. 16;
Foster, loc. cit.

*' Headlam, op. cit. 36; cf. Hutchinson, Dur.u,
328, where his age is given as 98.

*' Headlam, op. cit. 60 ; Dur. Rec. cl. 3, ptfl. 189,
no. I.

88 Ibid.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

Chaytor. Patty

bettd'.L'ise dancetty argent
and azure Jour quatre-
fotU counter-coloured.

Nicholas,*' on whom his cousin Henry Chaytor
settled Croft and the family lands in Yorkshire.'"
Nicholas himself made a settlement of Butterby
in 1630" and died in February 1 665-6,''- leaving
as his heir a son William.'^ William was created
a baronet in i67i,''' but he got into serious
financial difficulties before
1695, when he obtained an
Act of Parliament enabling
him to sell his lands in
Yorkshire and Durham for
the payment of his debts
and for providing for his
younger children.'^ Under
this Act, Butterby was sold
in or about 1697'" to
Thomas and Humphrey
Doubleday as joint pur-
chasers. Thomas made his
home at Jarrow," but Humphrey settled at
Butterby, and here his children were born.'*
Martin, eldest surviving son of Humphrey, died
unmarried" and by his will proved in 1775
devised Butterby and his other lands to his
mother.^ She directed that the manor should
be sold after her death, and before 1787 it had
been bought by — Ward of Sedgefield.-

Before 1834 Butterby was bought by Mr.
W'illiam Thomas Salvin of Croxdale' and from
that date it has followed the descent of the chief
Salvin estate.

The origin of the modern CROOK HALL
must be sought in the early manor of STDGJTE
(Suuedegate xiv cent.), of which it seems to
have formed a part.

Gilbert de Aikes granted his land of Sydegate
to Aimery son of Aimery the Archdeacon of
Durham at some date before 121 j.* Richard
and Aimery, sons of Aimery de Sydgate, seem to
have conveyed a carucate of land here to Mar-
maduke son of Geoffrey later in the same cen-

*' Dur. Rcc. cl. 3, ptfl. 186, no. 33 ; 103, no. 33 ;
Headlam, op. cit. 78.

'o F.C.H. Torks, N.R. i, 165.

'1 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 7, fol. 103.

'- Dugdalc, Fisit. of Torks (Surt. See), 302.

" G.E.C. Baronetage, iv, 49.

»* Ibid.

»5 Private Act, 6 and 7 Will. Ill, cap. 18.

" Surtees, op. cit. 112 ; Dur. Rec. cl. 2, bdle. 95.

" Ibid.

'* Headlam, op. cit. 206, 207.

" Ibid. ; Surtees, loc. cit.
1 Ibid. ; Hutchinson, Dur. ii, 327.
- Hutchinson, loc. cit.
3 Mackenzie and Ross, Dur. ii, 440.
* Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 137, quoting Spearman's
Abstract of the Early Endences of Crook HaD, pre-
served in the Bishop's library. Aimery de Talboys,
nephew of Bishop Philip de Poitou, was archdeacon
in 1198 and 1214 (Hutchinson, Dur. ii, 280).

tury,* but nothing more is known of the history
of the holding until the 14th century. A
settlement of the manor was made by Peter
del Crokc and Alice his wife ;" Peter seems to
have died before 1343, when Alice del Croke
and Richard her son entered into recognizances
for debts due to the Bishop and to Roger de
Blakiston,' whom Richard had wronged in some
way.* Richard was hving in September 1346,'
but died within the next three years leaving
daughters and co-heirs.^" One moiety of the
manor of Sydgate was granted to Gilbert de
Elwick by William de Kirkby and Isabel his
wife, all right therein being quitclaimed by
Alice, daughter and one of the heirs of Richard.^
Agnes, another daughter, married William de
Coxhoe,*- and it seems probable that Joan, wife
of the valiant squire John de Copeland, was
yet a fourth daughter.

William de Kirkby conveyed one moiety of
the manor to Sir Thomas Gray, kt., and in 1360
Gray enfeoffed John de Copeland.*^ Copeland
had received a handsome royal pension and
other rewards for his service in capturing the
King of Scots at the Battle of Neville's Cross and
was apparently in the royal service, being after-
wards constable of Roxburgh Castle.^* Possibly
in view of his recent appointment as Keeper
of Berwick'^ and of the fact that he and his wife
were childless^^ John de Copeland in 1360
conveyed this moiety of the manor of Sydgate
to William de Coxhoe in return for a rent
charge."

William de Coxhoe was succeeded by John his
son, who in 1372 granted his moiety of the manor
to Alan de Billingham and Agnes his wife.*'
Alan was living in January 1 390-1,*' but he
died before 1397.^" William de Billingham his

5 Ibid. 6 Ibid.

' Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 29, m. 13 d., 19.

* R(g. Palat. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 420.

' Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 30, m. 2.

10 Ibid. m. 5 d. " Ibid.

^ Ibid. no. 1 2, fol. 43 d.

*' Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 137; cf. Dep. Keeper's
Rep. xxxii, 279.

" Froissart's Chron. (ed. Johnes), i, 344. Cal. Pat.
1340-50, p. 487; 1350-4, p. 212; 1354-8, p. 222;
1 361-4, p. 417, 427, 437; see also 1364-7, p. 200, 217 ;
Feet of F. North. Mich. 39 Edw. Ill ; Exch. Accts.
bdle. 28, no. 4 ; Exch. Accts. Various, bdle. 482,
no. 27; New Hist, of Northbd. ii, 243 n.; Chan. Inq.
p. ra. 49 Edw. Ill (ist nos.), no. 29; Anct. Pet.
file 41, no. 2016.

15 Exch. Accts. bdle 28, no. 4; Cal. Pat. 1361-4,
p. 160. He was murdered on 20 Dec. 1363.

1* Chan. Inq. p. m. 49 Edw. Ill (ist nos.), no. 29 ;
De Banco R. 51 Edw. Ill, m. i8 ; New Hist, of
Northbd. iii, 243.

1' Surtees, loc. cit. ** Ibid.

" Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 13, fol. 21.

20 Ibid. fol. 226b.

162

CITY OF DURHAM

;f^

BiLLIN'CHAM. Argent
three bars and a quarter
gules Kith a leopard
argent in the quarter.

son'* is mentioned in 1401-2^2 and in December
1416,^ but was dead by November 141 7 when
Agnes his widow made fine for certain lands at
the Bishop's halmote.^* Thomas Billingham
of Durham, his successor, was an esquire of the
Bishop and was described in 1425-* as of Crook
Hall. He quarrelled so
violently with William
Rakwood that in January
1428-92* Robert Jakson
of Sunderland and other
friends became bail for his
keeping the peace.-' No
mention of Thomas's name
has been found after 1442^*
and in February 1449-50
Richard BiUingham is
described as of Crook
Hall.2' Richard, who had
free warren here,'" seems to have died shortly
before February 1463-4,^^ while Cuthbert his
son and heir was still a minor and in the custody
of the Prior of Durham.^' Cuthbert must have
attained his majority by 1484,'^ and in March
1508-9 he and Ellen his wife obtained letters of
confraternity from Durham Priory,** while at
the same time he made preparations for a pil-
grimage beyond the seas in company with
Robert Lumley, the hermit.

John Billingham was owner of Crook Hall in
1556,^^ though the house was occupied by Eleanor
his mother and by her second husband Edward
Tedforth.'* On his death, John Billingham
entered" and died in possession shortly before
January 1577-8.^* Ralph Billingham, his son

^^ Surtees, Dur. iii, 148.

2- Dep. Keeper's Rep. xxxiii, 82 ; of. Dur. Rec.
cl. 3, no. 14, fol. 200, 527, 604b, 680.
23 Ibid. fol. 821.
•* Ibid. fol. 873b ; cf. 926b, 1015, 1041, 1084, 1169.

25 Ibid. no. 35, m. 13 d.

26 Ibid. no. 38, m. 12 d.

2' Ibid. no. 38, m. 20 d. ; cf. no. 37, m. I d.

28 Ibid. no. 46, m. 8 d. He was certainly dead by
1452, when Agnes, his widow, received Papal dis-
pensation for her marriage to William Raket though
spiritually related to him in that Agnes and William
had previously acted as godfather and godmother to
one another's children {Cal. Papal Reg. 1447-55,
p. 609). WiUiam Raket was holding land here in
1471 (Dai. Rec. cl. 19 (i-i), m. 4).

2* Ibid. cl. 3, no. 47, ra. 15 d. ; no. 50, m. 4.

30 Ibid. cl. 19 (l-l), m. 4.

31 Ibid. cl. 3, no. 48, m. 15.

32 Surtees {Dur. iv (2), 138 n.) says that in 1498
his wardship was granted by the Priory to Sir Hum-
phrey Neville. The date is evidently a mistake.

33 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 56, m. I d.

3* Obit. R. of William Ebchester (Surt. Soc), 115 ;
Hist. Dun. Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), p. ccccxi.
35 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 78, m. 27.
36Ibid. cl. 7, no. I. 37 Ibid.

3* Dur. Wills and Invent. (Surt. Soc), i, 417.

and heir,3' married Elizabeth Forcer in 1582**
and died in 1597, leaving a son and heir Francis,
a boy of 12." Francis obtained livery of his
father's lands in i6o7''2 and in February 1613-14
he settled them on himself for life with remainder
to Cuthbert Billingham his eldest son, and con-
tingent remainder to his second son John.*3
Francis died in 1615" and Cuthbert attained his
majority in 1630, obtaining livery in the fol-
lowing year.** Cuthbert quarrelled with his
mother,** with his only sister*' and with the
citizens of Durham, who complained that he
had ' violently cutt downe the pipes ' of the
conduit from Framwell meadow and ' stepped
the course of the said water and cleene taken it
away.'**

Thomas Billingham was lord of the manor in
1655,*' but the property was already mortgaged
and in 1667 he was compelled to sell it to
Christopher Alickleton,^ an attorney of
Clifford's Inn. Christopher seems to have
settled Crook Hall on James, his eldest son by
his first wife, and on Frances his wife in i668,5i
but James 'very much disoblidged his said father'
after his marriage, and when Christopher died in
August 166952 he left all his unsettled property to
his children by his second marriage.53 James
Mickleton, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the
compiler of the well-known topographical col-
lections, died in 1 7 1 85* and Crook Hall descended,
through Michael his son, to his son John Mickle-

39 Dur. Rec cl. 7, no. I.

*" Reg. of St. Margaret's, Durham (Dur. and North.
Par. Reg. Soc), 3. For a family arrangement made by
him, see Dur. Rec. cl. 2, no. 7.

*i Ibid. cl. 3, file 192, nos. 80, 114 ; no. 92, m. 25 d.;
Dur. Wills and Invent. (Surt. Soc), ii, 277.

*2 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 94, m. 16.

*3 Ibid, file 183, no. 78 ; cf. no. 94, m. 48. John
died intestate beyond seas (Chan. Proc. [Ser. 2], bdle.
441, no. 4a).

** Ibid, file 183, no. 78.

*5 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 7, fol. 106.

*" Ibid. cl. 4, no. I, fol. 377.

*' Chan. Proc (Ser. 2), bdle. 441, no. 49. She was
Elizabeth, wife of Ralph Dowthwayte. William, the
third son of Francis, died childless.

** Dur. Rec. cl. 4, no. i, fol. 323. The court ordered
Cuthbert to repair the pipes and to be imprisoned
until he entered into a bond to perform the order.
See also fol. 368, 369.

*9 Ibid. no. 2, fol. 398 d.

5" Ibid. Thomas Bilhngham died in 1688 and was
buried at St. Oswald's (Headlam, Reg. of St. Oswald's,
Durham, 166).

51 Dur. Rec. cl. 4, no. 2, fol. 403 d. ; no. 3, fol. 808.

52 Musgrave, Obit. (Harl. Soc), iv, 192. His
widow and executrix Anne, daughter of John Dodshon
married Robert Smith before 6 August 1670 (Dur.
Rec. cl. 4, no. 2, fol. 466 d. ; no. 3, fol. 808).

53 Ibid. no. 3, fol. 808.

s* Musgrave, Obit. (Harl. Soc), iv, 192.

163

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

ton.** John Micklcton in his will dated 1720
directed that Crook Hall should be sold for the
payment of debts.** The manor was bought
by the Hoppers of Shincliffe and in February
1736-7,*' and again in 1748, it was the subject of
conveyances in favour of Henry Hopper, the
entail being cut in the later year.** Elizabeth
widow of Henry Hopper died in 1793 when the
manor descended to her husband's nephew
Robert Hopper, William's son, who died in
1835.*' Crook Hall was usually let to tenants, of
whom the most distinguished was the Rev.
James Raine, the antiquary,*" who was living here
in 1857 when the owner was the Rev. Robert
Hopper.*^ The estate was afterwards bought by
the late Arthur Pattison, Alderman of Durham.
The earHest known lord of CROXDALE
(Crokysdale xvi cent.) was the Robert de
Whalton who in 1362 was made steward of
Barnard Castle.*^ Ten years later Robert had
licence to grant the manor of Croxdale to trustees
who should regrant it to himself and his wife
Joan and their issue, a further conveyance of the
manor being made in 1383.*^ Croxdale came at
a later date into the possession of Joan, wife of
William de Risby, and in March 1393-4 they
had licence to grant the manor to trustees,**
who in 1395-6 had regranted it to Joan, then a
widow.** On her death in or about 1402 Joan
held the manor of the bishop by the service of
rendering suit at the three principal courts of
Durham ; ** she left a daughter and heir Agnes.*'
Agnes married Gerard, son of Gerard Salvin of
Harswell, one of the most important squires of

** He was associated with his father and mother
in a settlement of the manor in 1686 (Feet of F.
Dur. Trin. 3 Jas. II).

** Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 138.

*' Ibid.

*8 Feet of F. Dur. East. 10 Geo. I ; Dur. Rec. cl. 3,
no. 121, m. 43.

*' Surtees, loc. cit. ; Burke, Landed, Gentry (1914).
He married Ann, daughter of Dr. William WiUiamson,
and assumed the additional name of Williamson by
royal licence in 1829.

*" Diet. Nat. Biog. For other tenants see An Acct.
of Dur. (1804), 41 ; Allan, Hist, and Descr. View of . . .
Dur. (1824), 130.

*i Fordyce, Dur. i, 385.

*- Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 116. He obtained land in
Northallerton from Sir Robert de Hastynges in
1363 and from Thomas son of Joscelin Dayvill in
Deighton, in 1370 (ibid. 121 n.). Both these places
are within the Bishop of Durham's Yorkshire soke
of Northallerton.

*3 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 31, m. 4; Surtees, loc. cit.

*■• Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 33, m. 14 d. Piers de Buckton,
one of these trustees, resigned his interest in 1 395.
Surtees, loc. cit. 121.

*5 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 2, fol. 140.

** Ibid. 33, m. 15.

*' Ibid.

St?

Salvin of Croxdale.
Argent a chief sable wilh
two moleti or therein.

the East Riding, and he in her right had livery
of the manor in 1402 ; ** Agnes married secondly
John Mauleverer, and she died in March
1449-50 seised of Croxdale Manor. Her heir
was her grandson Gerard, son of Gerard Salvin.*'
At his death in March 1473-4 he was succeeded
by his son Gerard,'" a young man of 21, and
probably that Gerard Salvin who in 1498 had
enfeoffed his son Gerard
and the latter's wife of his
land." A Gerard Salvin
' the elder ' in 1533 settled
the manor of Croxdale on
himself for life with
remainder of one half to
his wife Joan for life and
of the other half to
Gerard Salvin his son and
heir. This son is the Gerard
who died in 1563, when
Gerard his son and heir was
forty-three years of age.'- The latter died in
February 1 570-1 and left a son and heir Gerard j'^
Gerard was ' a gentleman of greate welthe and
verie much frended in the . . . countrye by
reason of his allyance there,' his wife being
Joan daughter of Richard Conyers of Norton
Conyers, an important North Riding gentleman,
while his eldest son was married to Ann daughter
of Humphrey Blakiston of Blakiston.'*^ He
died in 1587,''' and his son and heir Gerard died
in 1602.'* This last Gerard was succeeded by
his son Gerard, a boy of 12, who had livery in
1 61 2 of his father's lands.'* His brother Ralph,
at his entry to the English College in Rome in
1620, gave the following account of himself:"

I was not born at my father's house called Croxdale
. . . but in a less noted place called Chillox, because
(as I have been informed) the plague was raging
near my father's house ; after the pestilence had
subsided, I was carried home, and there brought up
both in the Catholic faith and in such learning as is
usual to boys of my class. I made my humanity
course of studies at Durham, in the greatest peace and

** Ibid. m. 27.

*' Ibid. pifl. 164, no. 104 ; no. 50, m. 18.

"> Ibid. no. 4, fol. 28 d.

'1 Ibid. ptfl. 169, no. 54.

'■- Ibid. no. 6, fol. 13.

'^ Ibid. ptfl. 191, no. 24. Gerard is described as
' agid ' in St. Oswald's Par. Reg. (ed. Headlam), 19.

"a Dur. Rec. cl. 3, ptfl. 193, no. 16 ; Chan. Proc.
(Ser. 2), bdle. 173, no. 38 ; Foster, Visit, of Dur. 275.

'■* Dur. Rec. cl. 3, ptfl. 193, no. 16.

'* Ibid. no. 22.

'* Dep. Keeper's Rep. xl, 511.

" Gerard's brother Ralph entered the Society of
Jesus (Foley, Rec. S.J. i, 298, 300). Another brother
Francis was a colonel and was killed at the battle of
Marston Moor in 1644. The Salvin estates were
sequestrated by the Commonwealth {Cal. of Com. for
Compounding, 513, 2895).

164

CITY OF DURHAM

liberty of conscience for three years, until being
frequently insulted [by two schoolfellows] with the
opprobrious name of Papist, a violent quarrel arose
between us, in which I knocked one of them down,
and on that account I was expelled. [He then went to
St. Omers and Rome, desiring to embrace the ecclesi-
astical state and returned as a priest to England.]
I have two brothers, of whom one, who is my senior
and enjoys the paternal inheritance, nearly five years
ago married the daughter of Mr. Robert Hodgson,
a gentleman of family, he professes, defends, and
cherishes the Catholic faith ... I have three sisters,
one married, the others unmarried, all of whom,
except the married one, together with my younger
brother, were Catholically and poUtely brought up
in the house of my mother called Butterwick. The
majority of my friends, uncles, and paternal aunts are
Catholics.

Ralph was ordained priest in 1624 and entered
the Society of Jesus the following year, but died
of consumption in 1627, while still a novice.

The Salvins were both Roman Catholic
Recusants and Royalists and Gerard, eldest son
of the lord of Croxdale by his first wife, while
serving the King as lieutenant-colonel in Sir
John Tempest's regiment of foot, was slain at
Northallerton in 1644. Bryan, the eldest son
of the second wife, having also died in his father's
lifetime, the heir was Bryan's son Gerard, still
a child at his grandfather's death in 1663-4.'*

Gerard son of Bryan Salvin registered his
estate as a 'Papist' in 1717,'* but before this
date he had settled the family lands at Wolviston
on Bryan his son and heir.** Gerard died in
February 1722-3 ;** Bryan, who had similarly
registered his life estate of ^400,*^ died in 1751,
when he was succeeded by William his son.*^
William made conveyances of the manor in 1752
and in 1758** and died in 1800 having sur-
vived Gerard his eldest son.^ His son and
heir William Thomas married Anna Maria
daughter of John Webbe Weston and died in
1842. His son Mr. Gerard Salvin inherited the
Weston family seat of Sutton Place near Guild-
ford and died in 1870, when Croxdale passed to
his son Mr. Henry Thomas Thornton Salvin.
He at his death in 1897 was succeeded by his
son Mr. Gerard Thornton Salvin, on whose
death in 1921 his brother Lieut. -Col. H. C. J.
Salvin became lord of the manor.

'8 5^. Oswald's Par. Reg. (ed. Headlam), 124;
Hutchinson, Dur. ii, 329 : Foster, Visit, of Dur.
275.

'* Estcourt and Payne, Engl. Cath. Nonjurors, 54.

8" Ibid. 43, 46 ; Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 119.

" St. Oswald's Par. Reg. (ed. Headlam), 244.

8- Estcourt and Payne, op. cit. 43.

8' Com. Pleas Recov. R. Hil. 25 Geo. II, m. 52.

8* Feet of F. Dur. Mich. 32 Geo. II ; cf. Com.
Pleas Recov. R. Hil. 25 Geo. II, m. 52.

^ Foster, Visit, of Dur. 2J^ ; Surtees, op. cit. iv
(2), 117-20; h\it\i.e, Landed Gentry (1904).

The known history of DRTBURN (Dri-
burgh houses, Driburnhouse xiv cent.) begins in
January 1352-3, when the free land next Durham
with the messuages called Dryburn houses was
granted by the bishop to Isabel daughter of
Robert de Leicester.'* Before 1383 it came into
the hands of John de Bamborough, who then
held it by rent and foreign service.*' It seems
possible that John died without leaving an heir,
for some five years later ' the whole tenement
called Driburn hous,' lately of John de Bam-
borough, was granted to Peter Dryng,** and from
this time the tenure appears to have been lease-
hold. Peter Dryng died in 1404 without issue
male*' and in 141 1 the holding was granted to
William Chancellor.'* It afterwards passed into
the hands of William Bolat, and in 1448 it was
granted by the lord to Robert Foster and John
and William his sons for a term of years." In
the following year the Fosters surrendered their
lease to Geoffrey Bukley, chaplain,*''^ who was
perhaps acting as trustee for Thomas Claxton
of Durham, as he obtained a lease for 9 years in
1453.'^ In 1470 the tenement was held by
William Plumer'^and in 1491 the bishop granted
it for 21 years to John Raket of Durham.'*

Though nothing definite is known concerning
the history of Dryburn until 1571, it must have
been inherited by Alice and EHzabeth daughters
of Christina Rawlings on her death in 1563,**
for in 1 571" Alice and her husband Robert
Farrow'* settled one half of 100 acres of land
and other tenements in ' Drawden '" on
Robert their son and heir. Robert Farrow and
Matthew Fareles, representative of Elizabeth's
interest,^ sold the whole messuage to Richard
Hutchinson of Durham, tanner, before 1596
when he received pardon for having completed
the transaction without licence.^ Richard, who
also had two burgages in FramweUgate,' died

** Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 12, fol. 79 d. Robert's
name occurs in recognizances of 1335, 1336 and 1339
(Ibid. no. 29, m. 2, 3 d., 7 d.).

*' Hatfield's Sur-i'. (Surt. Soc), 85.

** Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 13, fol. 9.

*' Ibid. fol. 415b, 420b ; no. 15, fol. 34.

'0 Ibid. no. 14, fol. 397.

'1 Ibid. no. 15, fol. 425.

»2 Ibid. fol. 467.

«3 Ibid. fol. 659.

'* Ibid. no. 16, fol. 216.

'^ Ibid. no. 10, fol. 11.

'« Ibid. no. 6, fol. 7 d.

"Ibid. cl. 12(1-2).

98 Ibid.

" EUzabeth Danby (see Shincliffe) died in possession
of I acre in Framwellgate called Drawedon in March
1473-4 (ibid. ptfl. 166, no. 14).

* She had married William Heighington (Inq. p.m.
on Christina).

* Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 92, m. 9.
3 Ibid. m. 23 d.

[65

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

in or about 1604, and was succeeded by
Christopher his son.*

In 1 607 Christopher Hutchinson and Elizabeth
his wife conveyed Dryburn, in the parish of St.
Margaret, to Oswald Baker and Mary his wife,
and that Mary married as her second husband
William Smith,^ with whom she conveyed
Dryburn to Nicholas Hutchinson in 1612.'
In 1621 Nicholas settled his lands in Bitchburn
on Hugh Hutchinson his eldest son and in the
following year he demised his Plawsworth lands
to his second son Nicholas, while Dryburn fell
to the lot of his third son Cuthbert Hutchinson.'
Cuthbert Hutchinson died in 1647* and was
succeeded by his son of the same name,* who in
1 701 sold Dryburn to his kinsman John
Hutchinson.^" John died two years later,^^
his heir being his son John Hutchinson, Mayor of
Durham in 17 14, the year before his death.
His son and successor created some scandal by
his reconciliation with the Church of Rome,
though as the local diarist expressed it ' little
was got or lost by changing sides. '^* In 1749
he died and was ' buried in Crosgate church
about 12 a clock at night ' without any bearers
or ceremony performed at the grave." His son
the fourth John Hutchinson was in possession of
this property in 1 760, but it afterwards came into
the hands of the family of Wharton.^* In 1840
it was the property of Sarah widow of the Rev.
Robert Wharton, Chancellor of Lincoln Cathe-
dral and Archdeacon of Stow.*^ Her son
William Lloyd Wharton^* succeeded to the
property" and lived here until his death in
1871.^* His son and successor the Rt. Hon.
John Lloyd Wharton, P.C., represented Durham
in Parliament 1871-4 and was M.P. for Ripon
1886-96. He died in 1912, when the property
descended to his only child Mary Dorothea,
widow of Colonel Charles Waring Darwin, the
present owner.

* Dur. Rec. cl. 3, ptfl. 182, no. 6.
' Ibid. cl. 12, no. 2, m. 2 ; Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 143.
« Dur. Rec. cl. 3, R. 96, no. 88 ; cl. 12 (2-3).
Surtees gives the date as 1610.
' Ibid. ptfl. 186, no. 48 ; Surtees, op. cit. 143,

155-

^ Surtees, op. cit. 155.

» Ibid.

" Ibid. 143, 155.

" N. Co. Diaries (Surt. See), ii, 167. John was J. P.
and attorney at law.

12 Ibid, i, 173. 13 Ibid.

" Surtees, op. cit. 143.

1* Surtees, loc. cit.

1" Ricliard son of Alderman Wharton married in
1750 Miss Lloyd, granddaughter of Bishop Lloyd
of Worcester, ' a lady of ;£s,ooo fortune ' {N. Co.
Diaries [Surt. Soc], i, 182).

1' Fordyce, Dur. i, 385.

1' Burke, Landed Gejitry (1906). He was living
here in 1 834 (Mackenzie and Ross, Dur. ii, 437).

The origin of the name of OLD DURHAM
(Vctvii Dunelm xiii cent., Olduresme xv cent.,
Aldurham xvi cent., Owd Durm xviii cent.) is
unknown, but that there was a settlement here
at an early date seems probable, as traces have
been found of a neighbouring ford across the
Wear. In the 14th century Old Durham was
part of the glebe of St. Nicholas, Durham.**
Bishop Robert Neville impropriated the rectory
to the Hospital of Kepier^" and in 1479^* Ralph
Booth, master of the hospital, leased Old
Durham for 99 years to Richard his brother.^^

The Hospital of St. Giles was dissolved in
January 1545-6^' ^.nd. Old Durham followed the
descent of its site^ until the latter was sold in
1629 to Ralph Cole. Old Durham remained
in the hands of the Heath family and in January
1629-30 was settled on John son of Thomas
Heath and Margaret his wife for their lives with
remainder to John Heath of Gray's Inn.^^ John
Heath the elder was still, however, in possession
and in February 1630-1 he made a settlement
of this manor on himself for life."* He died in
January 1639-40 and John Heath his nephew
succeeded him." Elizabeth, John's only child,'^
married John, son of Sir Thomas Tempest of
The Isle, in 1642 when a settlement of the manor
was executed.-' Old Durham does not appear
among the estates for which John Heath com-
pounded as a delinquent in 1647,^' nor yet among
those of his son-in-law when he compounded
for his delinquency in the second war in 1649 f-
both men were among the most notorious
delinquents in the county.^- John Heath,

I'Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 2, fol. 139, 177 d., 241. Court
rolls of the manor for 1376 are transcribed in Lans.
MS. 902.

20 Mem. of St. Giles (Surt. Soc), App. A.I, p. 208.

21 Cf. Dur. Rec. cl. 3, ptfl. 177, no. 70.

22A/m. of St. Giles (Surt. Soc), App. D, 260.
Robert Booth of Old Durham, grandson of the
original lessee (Foster, Fisil. Ped. 31), bought a house
in Elvet for his wife and left it to her for life or
widowhood with remainder to his sons (Dur. Wills
and Invent. [Surt. Soc], ii, 207). For another member
of the family see Dur. Rec. cl. 3, ptfl. 184, no. 104 (i).

^^ F.C.H.Dur.n, 113.

2* See St. Giles. The Crown leased it to John
Frankelayne in 1546 {L. and P. Hen. Fill, xxi [ii],
p. 439). See settlements between Ingram Taylor
and John Franklin and John Heath in 1600 (Dur.
Rec. cl. 12, no. 2, m. l) and by John Heath, senior,
and Thomas Heath in 1619 (ibid. no. 3, m. 2).

25 Ibid. cl. 3, no. 109, m. z.

28 Ibid. no. 106, m. 12 d.

2' Surtees, loc. cit. 28 JbJJ.

29 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 109, m. 30, 37 ; cl. 12, no.
5, m. 2 ; Feet of F. Dur. Trin. l8 Chas. I.

30 Cal. of Com. for Compounding, ii, 1558 ; Royalist
Camp. P. (Surt. Soc), 236.

31 Royalist Comp. P. (Surt. Soc), 354.

32 Ibid. 18.

166

CITY OF DURHAM

who died in March 1664-5, was living at Old
Durham in 1652.'^ His son-in-law John
Tempest was one of the representatives of the
county in Parliament in 1675-8.^ He died in
1697 ; William Tempest his son and successor,
member of Parliament for the City of Durham
in 1678, 1680 and 1689, died in March 1699-
1700.^^ John, son of William Tempest, main-
tained the political tradition of the family and
was M.P. for the county in 1705.^* He married
Jane daughter of Richard Wharton of Durham
and died in January 1737-8." John Tempest,
his son and successor, deserted Old Durham for
Sherburn and subsequently Wynyard, while his
son John Tempest, who succeeded him in 1776,
made his home at Brancepeth Castle. John
Wharton Tempest, John Tempest's only child,
predeceased him in 1793 and Old Durham
descended on John's death in 1794 ^° ^'^
nephew Sir Henry Vane Tempest.^^ He died
in 1813 leaving an only child Frances Anne
Emily. In 18 19 she married, as his second
wife, Charles William, third Marquess of
Londonderry,^^ who developed the coal at Old
Durham and constructed Seaham Harbour.
Lady Londonderry died in 1865^" and was
succeeded by her son George Henry Robert
Charles William, who became the fifth Marquess
on the death of his half-brother in 1872.*^
He died in 1884 and was succeeded by his son
Charles Stewart, 6th Marquess of London-
derry,*^ who died in 191 5, when the manor passed
to his eldest son Charles Stewart Vane Tempest-
Stewart, 7th Marquess, who sold it to Mr.
William Hopps.

Certain lands here were held of the Master
of Kepier Hospital by Ralph son of William
Claxton of Old Park, being settled on him and
Elizabeth his wife in 1535.*' A messuage and
4 acres of the same fee were in the hands of
Sir Thomas Danby and in 1599 descended to his
kinsman Christopher son of Christopher Danby,
of Farnley.^ Christopher Danby sold the
property to John Hedworth in 1609 ;** Hedworth

33 Ibid. 68 ; Mem. of St. Gila (Surt. Soc), 136.

3* Sharpe, List of Knights and Burgesses who have
represented the City and County of Dur. 14, 15.

^ Ibid. 33, 34 ; Surtees, op. cit. 93.

3* Sharpe, op. cit. 19 ; see settlement in 1717 (Dur.
Rec. cl. 12, no. 20, m. 2).

3' Surtees, op. cit. 93.

38 Son of John's sister Frances, who married Sir
Henry Vane in 1768 {Par. Reg. of St. Mary in the
S. Bailey, Dur. [Northbd. and Dur. Par. Reg. Soc], 41).

3* G.E.C. Complete Peerage, v, 132-3.

«Ibid. 133.

*1 Ibid.

*2Ibid. 134.

*3 Dur. Rcc. cl. 3, ptfl. 177, no. 70.

** Ibid. ptfl. 192, no. 95, m. 31 d.

^ Ibid. no. 95, m. 31 d. ; Chan. Proc. (Ser. 2),
bdle. 319, no. 13.

conveyed it to George Martin in 161 2 and ten
years later litigation ensued between Martin
and Danby.''* In 1622 the premises were in
the occupation of John Heath, but no further
history of them has been found.'"

According to the tradition of Durham Priory,
Bishop William of St. Calais gave to the
Priory all the land between the Browney and
the Wear lying south of the brook known as the
Milburn. The north-eastern corner of this
tract was occupied by the Prior's borough of
Crossgate, the ' Old Borough ' of the charters.''*
The land lying within the loop of the Wear
east of the Cathedral was ELVET (Elvete
xi cent.).

Elvet, with its wood, church and chapels of
Croxdale and Wyton Gilbert, was confirmed
to the Priory by Richard I in February 1 194-5 ;""
at the same time confirmation was also obtained
of the Prior's ' new borough ' in ELVETHALL
(Elvetehale xi cent.) or Elvethalghe as it is
termed in a 1 5th cent, document.^" The mention
of the church in connexion with the first holding
makes evident its identity with what is now
called New Elvet, the ' newborough ' of the
charter being part of the Old Elvet of the
present day." The burghal area was not large^^
and the greater part of the district lay within
the Prior's manorial jurisdiction and formed his
manors of Old and New Elvet, both together
forming his Barony of Elvet.^^

The manor or grange of Elvet called Eket-
Hall^ stood on the site of the present Hall-
garth.^^ The manor was attached to the office
of the Hostillar'* and until the dissolution of the
Priory, and by the arrangement of March
1554-5, it was divided between the prebends of
the first and second stalls." In accordance
with an arrangement usually followed by the
Chapter the manor was the subject of numerous

"•* Chan. Proc. (Ser. 2), bdle. 319, no. 13.

« Ibid.

'•* See Feod. Prior. Dun. (Surt. Soc), 192 n. et seq.

■" Cal. Chart. 1327-41, p. 323.

^ Feod. Prior. Dun. (Surt. Soc), 194 n.

" In 1538-9 repairs were done to tenements in
Old Elvet and the Borough {Dur. Acct. R. [Surt. Soc],
i, 163).

S2 Lans. MS. 902, fol. 223 d. This dispute as to
common in 1442 shows how Uttle the boundaries
were understood even in the 15 th century.

^3 Close R. 1650, pt. xxxix, no. 8. The barony was
regarded as a definite place and in 1540 contained 82
burgages and a toft (Mins. Accts. Hen. VIII, no.
708) ; cf. Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, 145, 283 ; ii,

367. 472-

M Rentals and Surv. (Gen. Ser.), R. 987.

^5 This name was applied to tlie two great farms of
the two prebendaries in 1582 (Eich. Bills and Answers,
Dur. Eliz. no. 22).

s* Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, passim.

" MS. of the D. and C. of Dur. c iv, 33, fol. 148.

167

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

leases, these generally being to a son or other
relative of the prebendary in possession.'*

Before St. Godric built his hermitage here
early in the 12th century FINCHALE (Fin-
chale xii cent., Fynchall, Fynkaloo, Fynchallaye
xvi cent., Fencalley xvii cent.) was part of the
Bishop's hunting field. The development of
the hermitage into a cell of Durham Priory and
its absorption of the endowments of the Austin
Canonry of Baxterwood have been traced
elsewhere.^' Durham Priory made its surrender
to the Crown in 1540,^ and in the following
March the manor of Finchale, with its demesne
lands and water mill, was leased to Avery
Burnett, a member of the Royal Household."
In May it, like other lands of the Priory, was
assigned to the Dean and Chapter of the
Cathedral Church,'- and by Queen Mary it was
made the corpus of the 7th stall in March
1554-5.** Except for the time when it was in
the hands of the Parliamentary trustees** and
their assigns it has remained in the possession
of the Dean and Chapter to the present day.

In 1 31 1 HARBOURHOUSE (Harbaroes,
Harbarus, Harbarowes xiv cent., Harbarhous
XV cent.) was part of the waste on the
bishop's fee, and as such it was then given by
Bishop Richard Kellaw to Patrick his brother.**
A settlement of the land was made in 13 13 on
Patrick and Cecily his wife** and two years later
Patrick made a conveyance of ' The manor ' to
John de Carlisle, chaplain.*' In 1381 it was
settled with part of Kelloe by William de Kellaw,
Patrick's great-nephew,** and it then descended
with his lands in Kelloe to the family of Forcer,**

^* These leases will be found in the Act Books of
the D. and C.

w V.C.H. DuT. ii, 103, 109 ; cf. The Charters of
Endo'jjment . . . of Finchale Priory (Surt. Sec), xi ;
Cal. Chart. 1327-41, p. 323.

^ r.C.H.Dur.'u, lol.

*i L. and P. Hen. Fill, xvi, p. 726. Burnett was
still in possession when the Dean and Chapter leased
it to Robert Dalton and Percival Lambton in 1 55 1
(Reg. A. of the D. and C. fol. 201).

«2 L. and P. Hen. Fill, xvi, g. 878 (33).

** Rec. of the D. and C. of Durham, c. iv, 33,
fol. 148.

** It was sold by them to Adam Shipperdson in
1650 (Close R. 1650, pt. xxxii, no. 17).

** Lans. MS. 902, fol. 369.

** Kelloe Deeds {penes Rev. Canon Greenwell), Bk.
D, no. 38.

*' Ibid. no. 39. ** Ibid. no. 59.

69 Hatfield's Surv. (Surt. Soc.), 77; Dur. Rec. cl. 3,
no. 2, fol. 180 d., 266 ; no. 47, m. 22 d. ; ptfl. 166, no.
13,31; no. 4, fol. 30; no. 1 1, fol. 2d. ; ptfl. 169, no. 52,
no. 6, m. 35 ; no. 78, m. 2 ; ptfl. 177, no. 7 ; no. 78,
m. 2 ; ptfl. 191, no. 153 ; ptfl. 189, no. 33, 59, 168 ;
no. no, m. 2, no. 7, 23, 25, 105 d. ; ptfl. 190,
no. 6 ; Cal. S. P. Dom. 1623-5, p. 571 ; Royalist
Comp. P. (Surt. Soc.), 208 ; Feet of F. Dur. Trin.
18 Chas. II ; Dur. Rec. cl. 12 (i-i).

FopcER. Sable a
chevcron engrailed or
between three leopards*
heads argent tcith three
rings sable on the
cheveron.

who held it until the i8th century. The Forcers
were Roman Catholic recusants and suffered
accordingly.'* Basil Forcer,
the last male of his line,
died in 1774, after having
settled Harbourhouse on
his sister Barbara for her
life." Mistress Barbara
died unmarried at her
house in Old Elvet in
1776'^ and the property
then passed under her
brother's will to Thomas
Waterton, with remainder
to his sons in tail male.'*
Thomas Waterton was suc-
ceeded by his son Charles
Waterton of Walton Hall, Yorks, and he, with
the sole surviving trustee, after breaking entail
in 1805,'* sold the estate in the following year to
WiUiam Donald, of Aspatria, Cumberland.'* It
was inherited by his son, George Donald,'* who
sold it shortly before 1834 to Thomas Fenwick,
the Newcastle banker."

The later descent of the property has not been
traced. It seems to have been divided among
various holders.

Beyond a chance reference to John Othehag-
house in 1350'* nothing is known of the
earlier mediaeval history of THE HAGG or
HAG HOUSE (Hagge House, le Hagg house
xvii cent.). It was apparently part of lands
reckoned as in Newton, for in 1421 the Hagfield,
with the Strother and Stankhead, were held by
Maud, widow of William de Bowes, of the Bishop
by knight service." It must have descended
with Newton and Streatlam (q.v.), for in 1564
Robert Bowes conveyed the capital messuage
called the Hagghouse and tenements in
'Cadehouse' field. West Wastes and Stank
closes to William Parkinson and Christopher
Atkinson, yeomen.*" Parkinson and Atkinson
divided the property, the former retaining the
northern portion of the lands on which he built
' the mansion called Hagghouse.' *^ William
Parkinson died in 1605 and was succeeded by

'0 Royalist Comp. P. (Surt. Soc.), 208. The manor
was sold in 1653 by the ParUamentary trustees to
Gilbert Crouch of Clement's Inn and John Rushworth
of Lincoln's Inn, the historian. Close R. 1654,
pt. .xii, no. 17 ; Diet. Nat. Biog.

'^ Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 148 n.

'2 A'. Co. Diaries (Surt. Soc), 228.

'* Surtees, loc. cit: '* Ibid.

'5 Fordyce, Dur. i, 386.

'* Mackenzie and Ross, Dur. ii, 437.

" Fordyce, Dur. i, 386.

'* Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 12, fol. 60.

'* Ibid. no. 2, fol. 202 d.

*<• Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 143.

*i Dur. Rec. cl. 3, file 182, no. 25.

CITY OF DURHAM

his son George, then a man of 40,** whose claim
to bear arms was disallowed by the heralds in
161 5.** He devised the Haghouse and various
closes to Edward Parkinson, his son, in 1631,
without obtaining the necessary licence, which
was, however, granted in 1636.** Edward
Parkinson died in the following year, when his
property descended to George, his son.**
George mortgaged the land in 1685 to one
Shipperdson, and before 171 1 Haghouse had
passed into the hands of the family of Liddell
of Newton (q.v.), with which it was sold to
William Russell of Brancepeth Castle.** In
1857 it was the property of the Hon. Gustavus
Frederic Hamilton Russell, of Brancepeth.

In the division of the Hagg between Parkinson
and Atkinson CATER HOUSE (Caddenhouse,
Caterhouse xvii cent.) fell to the share of
Christopher Atkinson. In his time the messuage
was known as ' The Scite house,' though two
closes were called Caddenhouse field.*'' By his
will dated A'lay 1580 he left the premises to his
wife Jane for life, with remainder divided
between his two sons William and Christo-
pher.** Christopher Atkinson the younger died
in March 1596—7, leaving a son Thomas, a boy
7 years old.** Thomas attained full age in
1611,'° and in 1623 he settled the estate on
Catherine his wife for her life.*' He died in
1632, leaving three daughters Elizabeth, Ann
and Margaret, all under age.°-

Ann, the second daughter, married John
Richardson, and in 1651 they obtained the share
of Margaret, who had married John Hall; the
third of Elizabeth, wife of George Crosyer, being
acquired from him in 1667.*' In 1684 John
Richardson 'maltman and tanner' died and,
being under sentence of excommunication, was
' buried in his owne garden at Caterhouse, near
Durham ; being denyed by the Bishopp to bury
him in the church.'** Ann died in 1690 and
was also buried in the garden.'* Their son,
John Richardson, succeeded to the property,
which passed on his death in 1708 to his son

*2 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, file 182, no. 25.

*' Harl. MS. 1540 ; Lans. NIS. 902, fol. 37od-37i.

*> Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 7, fol. 1 19 d., no. 108, m. 8.

** Surtees, op. cit. 144.

*« Ibid.

*' Dur. Rec. cl. 3, file 192, no. 41 ; about 1348
Robert Bowes entered into certain free land in the
common field of Durham formerly held by Geoffrey
de Catden (ibid. no. 12, fol. 32 d.). In 1465 the tene-
ment is described as a messuage and 40 ac. land in
Newton held of the Bishop by homage and fealty
(ibid. no. 4, fol. 22 d.). This must be Cater House.

** Ibid. ; cf. no. 92, m. 27 d.

*' Ibid, file 192, no. 41.

^ Ibid. no. 7, fol. 8.

91 Ibid. ptfl. 188, m. 38. »2 Ibid.

** Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 145.

»•» N. Co. Diaries (Surt. Soc), i, 49. « Ibid. 54.

of the same name.** John Richardson survived
his father eight years and Caterhouse passed
from his son, who died in 1762, to a grandson
John." This John Richardson survived his
children and died intestate in 1803. The title
to Caterhouse now passed to various members
of the families of Bright and Andrews,
descendants of Elizabeth Hall and Anne,
daughter of John and Ann Richardson.'* The
co-heirs conveyed Caterhouse to the Rev. John
Fawcett, of Newton Hall.** Mr. Foyle Fawcett
is the present owner.

HOUGHALL (Houhal, Howhale, Hocchale,
Hochale xiii cent., Houghale xiv cent.)
lay among the lands of the see until Bishop
Ranulph Flambard gave it and lands in Herring-
ton to William son of Ranulf as two knights'
fees. It descended with Herrington (q.v.) to
Robert son of Thomas de Herrington, who
gave 4 oxgangs here to his sister Emma on her
marriage* and 4 oxgangs to John his younger
son.^ The rest of the land here descended
to Thomas de Herrington, son of Robert.^ He
borrowed 200 marks from the Priory of Durham
in 1260* and afterwards he granted to the
Priory his manor of Houghall in free alms,* the
Priory in 1291 undertaking to maintain two
chaplains and two monks to pray for the well-
being of Thomas and his ancestors.*

The land granted to Emma on her marriage
with Alan, the Prior's brother, was given by her to
Richard de Kelsey,' the transaction being con-
firmed by Thomas dc Herrington.* This land
also was acquired by the Priory, though its title
was disputed by William, son of Thomas
Blagrys, who, however, gave a quitclaim to it
in 1342.' The manor was at first farmed by the
Priory, but in 1464 it was leased to Richard
Rakett*" and this practice seems to have been
generally followed."

After the Dissolution, Houghall, like other
lands of the Priory, was assigned to the Dean
and Chapter. While it may be said that the

** Surtees, loc. cit.

" Ibid. »* Ibid.

99 Ibid. ; Fordyce, Dur. i, 386.

1 Feod. Prior. Dun. (Surt. Soc), 202 n. ; cf. 203 n.

2 Ibid. » Ibid.
■• Ibid. 200 n. * Ibid.

* Ibid. The farms of Houghall appear on the
Bursar's Roll for 1292 {Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc),
ii, 490.

' Feod. Prior. Dun. (Surt. Soc), 201 n.

* Ibid. 202 n.
9 Ibid.

'" Ibid. 199. In or about 1538 livery was granted to
John Rakett son and heir of William Rakett of
Quarrington who was kinsman and heir of John
Rakett late of Houghall (Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 77, m. 21).

11 Feod. Prior. Dun. (Surt. Soc), 327. The leases
will be found in the Act Books of the Dean and
Chapter.

169

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

assignment of lands to the various prebends
under Henry VIII generally followed this
plan, there are some indications that it was
not done in the case of the nth stall. ^^ It is
certain, however, that in March 1554-5
Houghall was definitely assigned as the corpus
of the prebendary of this stall, an arrangement
which has been maintained until the present
day."

In the 1 2th century NEJVTON (Neutona
xi cent., Newton near Durham xi-xvii
cent.) was among the lands of the Bishop
and seems to have been parcelled out among
various retainers. Certain lands were granted
to Richard the engineer,'* Pudsey's architect
in charge of the work of Norham Castle, and a
man distinguished alike for piety and skill.'*
Half of his demesne was in 11 83'' in the hands
of William de Watervill, sometime (1155-75)
Abbot of Peterborough, to whom the Bishop had
granted it of his good will and alms apparently
after his ejection from his abbey." A further
holding of 14 acres was in the hands of the
Bishop's servant, Ralf the clerk, and was made
up partly of land previously held by Robert
Tic and partly of assart.'* According to
Surtees, Bishop Hugh gave the vill to Roger of
Reading,'* but nothing more of his tenure is
known. One William was lord of Newton in
I3ii.=»

Surtees states that in 1337 Bishop Richard de
Bury confirmed the manor to Adam de Bowes
of Streatlam,^' and it is certain that in March
1354-5 Robert de Bowes made fine for the
capital messuage.^- Before 1384 Robert de
Bowes seems also to have acquired the 60 acres
in the Fallowfield lying between the quarry of
Newton and ' Aldnewton ' which Robert son
of Nicholas Scriptor inherited from his father
in 1335,"' as well as other and smaller parcels
totalling at least 86 acres.

In 1383 Sir John Heron, kt., was returned as
holding Newton by foreign service and a yearly
rent of 106/. 8i., but it seems possible that he
was merely acting as a trustee for the Bowes

^ Rec. of the D. and C. of Durham, c. iv, 33,
fol. 148.

" It was sold by the Parliamentary Trustees in
165 1 to Viscount Lisle, being then in the tenure of
Clement Farrowe.

n Boldon Bk. (Surt. Soc.), 2.

'* See Reginaldi Monachi Libellui (Surt. Soc.),
94, 1 1 1-2.

i« BoUon Bk. loc. cit.

1' Ibid. ; V.C.H. NoTthants, ii, 93.

18 Boldon Bk. loc. cit.

1' Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 146.

2« Lans. MS. 902, fol. 369 ; Mem. 0/ St. Giles
(Surt. Soc.), 193.

2' Surtees, loc. cit.

22 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 12, fol. 145.

23 Ibid. no. 2, fol. 8 d. ; cf. fol. 153 d.

Dowts of Streatlam.
Ermine three bent boxs
paleu-ise gules.

George died un-

family, since Sir William de Bowes was holding
the capital messuage and 200 acres of land at the
same rent when he died in or about 1399.^^
The holding^* followed the
descent of Streatlam (q.v.)
until 1565 when Sir George
Bowes, kt., obtained licence
to grant it to Anthony
Middleton.''' In 1577 An-
thony Middleton granted a
lease of the manor for 100
years toThomas Middleton
his younger son.^' Anthony
died in 1581, and his in-
terest descended to George
son of his eldest son,
Cuthbert, a boy of 19.^*
married in 1596, his heir being William Mid-
dleton his brother.-* At some time between
1596 and January 1599-1600, Thomas and
George Middleton sold the manor to Thomas
Blakiston^ and he afterwards conveyed it to
his brother Marmaduke Blakiston,^' prebendary
of the 7th stall of Durham,'^ who was described
as 'of Newton' in 1626. ^^ Marmaduke con-
veyed the manor of Newton next Durham to his
son Toby Blakiston in 1630.** Toby's will
was proved in 1646. He left annuities from the
manor to his children Toby, Margaret and
Dorothy, the mansion house and lands descend-
ing to Thomas Blakiston the eldest son.'*
Thomas died intestate shortly after his father
and left a son, John,** who on coming of age in
1665 refused to execute the provisions of his
grandfather's will.*' The consequent litigation
came to an end in 1667, judgment being given
against John.** On 19 February 1670-1 John

" Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 2, fol. 131 d. ; cf. 202 d.

2* In 1468 William Bowes granted the manors of
' Barneys, Clowcroft, and Palion ' with the fishery in
the Wear called ' Boweswatre ' and the manor of
Newton near Durham to Henry Gillowe and Thomas
Portyngton, probably trustees. (Lans. MS. 902, fol.
176).

-* Ibid. no. 82, m. 6. They also sold a messuage and
land here to Hugh WTiitfield in 1 567 (Dur. Rec. cl. 12

[1-2])-

2' Ibid. cl. 3, file 191, no. 97 (l).

2* Ibid. cf. no. 84, m. 13.

2* Ibid, file 192, no. 66 ; no. 92, m. 15.

*" Surtees, op. cit. ; Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 92, ra. 28,
28 d. *' Surtees, loc. cit.

*- Bp. Cosin's Corr. (Surt. Soc), ii, 27 n.

** Reg. of St. Margarets, Durham (Dur. and North.
Par. Reg. Soc), p. 11.

** Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 7, fol. 103 d. ; no. 106, m. 12 ;
cl. 12, no. 4, m. 2 ; Surtees, op. cit. 162.

*5 Dur. Rec cl. 4, no. 2, fol. 317 d.

36 Ibid. fol. 333 d.

*' Ibid. Surtees (op. cit. 162) says that Thomas
died in his father's hfetime, leaving an infant son
Thomas Uving in 1649. ** Ibid. fol. 352 d.

170

CITY OF DURHAM

L I D D E L L. Argent
frctty gules and a chief
guUs uitb three leopards'
beads or.

Blakiston and Martha his wife, William Bothell,

Thomas Hincks and Elizabeth his wife, and

John Tempest and Elizabeth his wife, conveyed

the manor to Sir Thomas Liddell, bart. of

Ravensworth.'' His son Henry made it his

home from 1676-94''" and represented Durham

in the Parliament in 1688-9 ^^^ '^95-''^ ^^

succeeded to his father's baronetcy in 1697 and

died in 1723*^ leaving a grandson and heir,

Sir Henry, created Lord Ravensworth in 1747.*^

On his death in 1784, the

peerage became extinct, but

the baronetcy and lands

were inherited by his

nephew Sir Henry George

Liddell," from whom they

passed in 1791 to his son

Thomas Henry.** Sir

Thomas, who was M.P.

for Durham in 1806-7,**

sold Newton to William

Russell, whose property it

was in 1824 and 1840.'"

At a later date it was converted into a branch

of the County Lunatic Asylum. In 1926 the

house was pulled down.

From the fragments of evidence that remain
for the early history of RELLEY (Rylley
xiv cent.) it is evident that it was at one time
in the hands of the family of Amundevill.
Robert de Amundevill gave his vill of Relley to
John de Hamilton,*' this being possibly a
feoffment, as the family retained a yearly rent of
4_f. from Brunespittell until 1322.'" Richard de
Marsh granted the vill to Simon his brother and
he afterwards sold it to William son of Richard ;
the new owner then conveyed it to John de
Hamilton.^ John conveyed his interest to
Gilbert de Graystanes, a clerk and probably a
trustee.** In 1326 William son of William

3' Dur. Rec. cl. 12, no. 8, m. 2 ; Bp. Cosines Corr.
(Surt. Soc), ii, 265.

■"' Surtees, loc. cit. 146 n.

*^ N. Co. Diaries (Surt. Soc), i, 53 ; Sharpe,
List of Knights . . . who have represented . . . Durham,

25-

*2 It was conveyed to him probably for the purpose
of a settlement under the name of the manor of High
Newton in the parish of St. Oswald by Robert Liddell
and Thomas his son and heir (Dur. Rec. cl. 12, no. 16,
m. 3).

■•' G.E.C. Baronetage, ii, 205.

" Hutchinson, Dur. ii, 218.

« G.E.C. loc. cit.

*« Ibid.

*' Allan, Hist, and Descriptive View of the City of
Dur. 131 ; Surtees, op. cit. 146.

** Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 103. The charters from which
the following particulars are derived are in 3a 14 Spec.
in the Treasury of the Dean and Chapter of Durham.

*' Surtees, op. cit. 103 n.

«» Ibid. " Ibid.

Esshe of Durham gave the vill to Maud his
daughter, who married Roger, son and heir of
Gilbert de Colley, lord of Biddick. Roger
granted it to Richard son of Gilbert de Durham
in 1343,*^ and in 1359 Sir Thomas Gray kt.
exchanged it with William Dalden for a moiety
of the manors of Felkington and Allerden.*'
In 1365 William Dalden granted the manor of
Relley to Richard de Barnard Castle, clerk, and
he obtained a grant of free warren in his demesne
lands here some two years later." It was
conveyed by him to John his brother, the rector
of Gateshead, and in 1378-9 the Priory of Dur-
ham obtained licence for its acquisition.** The
manor was assigned to the department of the
cellarer for the purchase of butter and cheese,**
and since March 1854-5 has formed part of the
corpus of the ninth stall of the Cathedral church.*'
SHINCLIFFE is mentioned among the
possessions of the Prior and Convent of Durham
in Henry H's confirmation charter,** and it also
occurs in the forged charters of Bishop St.
Calais.*^ It was one of the Prior's vills* and
the tenants appeared at the assize of weights
and measures held in the borough of Elvet."
In 1305 the Prior accused one of the Bishop's
servants of carrying off a horse from the vill of
Shincliffe toDurhamCastle and refusing to return
or pay for it.^ The villeins of Shincliffe paid a
rent of hens," and rendered carrying services
which are frequently mentioned in the Account
Rolls of the Convent.^ In 1355-6 three bond-
men there paid 2s. instead of mowing and 8^. for
autumn works, but they still made and carted
the hay.** In 1536-7 the tenants of Shincliffe
leased a meadow from the Prior for 10/.** The
vill formed part of the endowment of Durham
Cathedral in 1541," and a full list of the lease-
holders there is given in a rental of 1580.** On
7 November 1650 a farm in Shincliffe was sold
by the trustees for the sale of Dean and Chapter
lands to Richard Marshall,*' but after the
Restoration the whole returned to the Dean
and Chapter, who are the present lords of the

*2 Ibid. ; Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 29, m. 10, 12 d.

*3 Surtees, loc. cit.

** Ibid. ; Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 31, m. 4 d.

** Ibid. m. 13.

** Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, 67 ; iii, 683.

*' Rec. of the D. and C. of Dur. c. iv, 33, fol. 148.

** Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surt. Soc), p. Ixzzui.

*' Ibid. pp. ih, Iv.

60 Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, 121.

*i Ibid, ii, 349.

6^ Reg. Pal. Dun. (R. Ser.), iv, 73.

*3 Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, 45.

** Ibid, i, no, u6, 152, 241 ; ii, 296, 297.

«*Ibid. i, 121.

«« Ibid, iii, 685.

6' L. and P. Hen. fill, xvi, g. 878 (33).

*« Halmota Prior. Dun. (Surt. Soc), 207, 216-7.

*9 Close R. 1650, pt. iiix, 2.

171

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

manor. Part of Quarrington moor was attached
to the vill of Shincliffe, and it was probably
grazing rights in this place which Sir Richard de
Routhberry, lord of Croxdale, and Peter of
Tursdale released in 1320 to the Prior of
Durham.'* In 1443-4 the Prior recovered his
right of common pasture on this part of the moor
by means of a suit with Sir William Elmeden,
then lord of Tursdale.'^

There were a few free tenements in Shincliffe.
In the early part of the 14th century Gilbert
Warde held land in Shincliffe, which descended
to his son Robert and Margery his wife.'*
Robert dying childless, the land was inherited
by his nephew Robert Warde, the son of Gilbert
Warde's daughter Lucy, Margery holding her
dower third." In 1347 Robert Warde the
younger granted to John de Elvet the reversion
of Margery's dower-land, and 2/. rent out of his
own land in Shincliffe.'* John de Elvet died in
or about 1382, when his heir was his son Gilbert,
aged 23,'* but the history of this holding cannot
be traced further. Alice widow of John Aislaby
in 1429 died seised of land in Shincliffe held of
the Prior of Durham, John being her son and
heir." John left two daughters and co-heirs
Elizabeth and Alice."

Elizabeth married Robert Danby of Thorpe
Perrow, Yorks,'* and survived him, dying in
March 1473-4." Her son
Sir James Danby was
knighted by the Duke of
Gloucester while serving in
Scotland in 1482*" and died
in 1497." His son Chris-
topher was knighted on
Flodden field ;*^ he died in
March 1 5 1 7-8, leaving a son
and heir Christopher,*^ a
boy of 15, married to Eliza-
beth daughter of Richard
(Nevill) Lord Latimer.**
The family connexion with
the Nevills was further strengthened by the mar-
riage of Thomas, son and heir of Christopher, to
Mary daughter of Ralph Earl of Westmorland.**
It was possibly this relationship that made the

" Surtees, loc. cit. 106.

'^ DuT. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, 144-5 ; see Tursdale,
parish of Kelloe.
'- Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 30, m. 12 d.
'3 Ibid. '■« Ibid.

'5 Ibid. no. 32, fol. 151 d.
'6 Ibid. fol. 241.
" Ibid. fol. 267.

'8 Ibid. ptfl. 166, no. 14. '9 Ibid.

*<* Shaw, Kts. of Engl, ii, 17, 20.
*i Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc), iv, 122.
82 Shaw, Kts. of Engl, ii, 38.
^ Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), xxxiv, 47.
" Ibid, clvii, 68. 85 Ibid.

Danby. Argent

fretty sable and a chief
sable zcith three molets
argent therein.

Government suspect him of disaffection in 1565.**
Sir Christopher*' died in 1 571 and was succeeded
by Sir Thomas Danby,** who had been knighted
as long ago as 1 547 when serving in Scotland with
Edward Duke of Somerset.** Sir Thomas died
in 1590 when Christopher Danby his grandson
and heir was still a minor.*" Christopher sold
Shincliffe to John Hedvvorth of Durham at some
date before 161 2*' when Hedworth conveyed it
to George Martin of the same city.*- He
suffered the sequestration of his lands as a
Royalist in 1644,** two years after the marriage
of Mary his daughter and heir to Henry Eden of
Newcastle.** George Martin died in 1650** and
Henry son of Henry and Mary Eden had
succeeded to the property by 1675.** His only
child Jane was baptised in this year*' and
presumably inherited the Shincliffe property on
her father's death in 1702,** though its further
descent cannot be traced.

The family longest settled in Shincliffe was
that of the Hoppers. John Hopper was a lease-
holder in 1580 ;** he married Jane Bell in 1589^
and died in 1612.^ The
lease seems to have been re-
newed to Sampson Hopper,
probably his son, to whom it
was again renewed in 1630.^
John son of Sampson Hop-
per was baptised in April
1 61 6,* and Sampson him-
self died in 1639.* John
Hopper of Shincliffe in-
herited his father's lease*
and was appointed a se-
questrator in 1644;' his
son Robert was baptised in October 1654,* and
he himself died in 1677.* Robert Hopper married

*« Acts ofP.C. 1558-70, pp. 268, 287.

*' He was knighted at the Coronation of Anne
Boleyn in 1533 (Shaw, op. cit. 49).

** Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), clvii, 68.

»^ S\i3LW, Kts. of Engl, i'l, 61.

** Dur. Rec. cl. 3, file 192, no. 95 ; Chan. Inq.
p.m. (Ser. 2), ccxxxi, 96. Thomas father of Chris-
topher died in January 1 581-2 (ibid, cxcix, 74).

*■■ Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 106. ^ Ibid.

«3 Royalist Comp. P. (Surt. Soc), 19.

»■» Headlam, Par. Reg. of St. Oswald's, 99.

»3 Ibid. 106.

** Poll Sheets in the Library of the Soc. of Antiq.
of Newcastle. His father died in February 1664-5
(Headlam, op. cit.).

*' Headlam, op. cit. 143. ** Ibid. 197.

** Halmota Prior. Dun. (Surt. Soc), 216.

1 Headlam, op. cit. 33. * Ibid. 51.

' Close R. 1650, xxix, 2.

* Headlam, op. cit. 56. * Ibid. 94.

* Close R. 1650, xxix, 2.

' Royalist Comp. P. (Surt. Soc), 8.

* Headlam, op. cit. 1 1 2.

* Ibid. 145.

Hopper. Gyronny
sable and ermine a castle
argent.

172

CITY OF DURHAM

Williamson. Or a

cbeveron gules bev^een
three trefoils sable.

Anne Hendry in 1683 -^^ his son John was bap-
tised in August 1684," and marriedMary Hodgson
in 1709.'- He seems to have had a son John.'^
John Hopper the elder died in 1743,'* and was
succeeded by his son John Hopper, who had a
son Robert Hopper,'^ born in 1755.^* Robert
married Anne, daughter
and heir of Dr. WilHam-
son of Whickham" by his
wife Frances, daughter of
Richard Hendry of Durham
and widow of John Barras.**
On his marriage he as-
sumed the name of Hopper
Williamson, and as Robert
Hopper Williamson he held
the offices of Recorder of
Newcastle and Temporal
Chancellor of the county of
Durham.^' He died in 1835,^' and after his death
the connexion of the family with Shincliffe
ceased.

In 1 183 SUNDERLAND BRIDGE (Sunder-
land xi cent., Sunderland near Durham xiv
cent., Sunderland near Croxdale xv-xvii cent.)
was part of the lands of the Bishop and was let
to farm for looj.-^ At some time between this
date and the Bishop's death in 1195 Hugh de
Pudsey gave the vill to Meldred son of Dolfin,--
the ancestor of the NeviUs of Raby. The manor
was afterwards the subject of a sub-enfeoffment,
but the overlordship followed the descent of
Raby (q.v.) until the attainder of the sixth Earl
of Westmorland.

In the 14th century the tenancy in demesne
appears to have been divided between two
co-heirs, of whom one was Cassandra wife of
William Daniel of Bilton-^ in York Ainsty.
Another moiety was in the hands of William de
Kilkenny the younger,'^ whose widow Katherine
in 1382 granted all her right therein to Hugh de
Westwyk, a clerk, as well as her estate in Cas-
sandra's moiety.-^ Richard de Kilkenny the

^^ Headlam, op. cit. 156.

"Ibid. 158. 12 Ibid. 211.

13 iV. Co. Diaries (Surt. Soc), 183 n.

I'' Headlam, op. cit. 281.

1* N. Co. Diaries (Surt. Soc), 183 n.

1* M.I. St. Nicholas, Newcastle.

" N. Co. Diaries (Surt. Soc), 183 n.

1* Headlam, op. cit. 219, 269.

1' M.I. St. Nicholas, Newcastle.

20 Ibid.

" Boldon Bk. (Surt. Soc), 35. Roger de Audin,
lord of Butterby, rendered I mark for the millpond
made, apparently as an intrusion, on the demesne of
Sunderland (ibid.).

22 Lans. MS. 902, fol. 67 d. The grant included
' Winston, Winlokest and Neuhusam.'

23 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 32, m. 4-5.

2< He died before 1373 (ibid. no. 2, fol. 92).
25 Ibid. no. 32, m. 4-5.

Nevilli. Gules
sallire argent.

younger, son and heir of William and Katherine,
also released all right in his mother's moiety2'
and a further release from Katherine was
executed two years later .2' In 1385 trustees
conveyed the moiety ' late belonging to William
de Kilkenny the younger to the overlord, John
de Nevill ' 28 lord of Raby.

It must have been again the subject of
enfeoffment, for before 1420 it had come into the
hands of John Hoton of Tudhoe, being held by
him of Richard (Nevill)
Earl of Westmorland.2'
On John's death in this
year it passed to William
his son and heir,^*' who
was described as ' of Hun-
wick,' on his mother's
death in 1444, when he
was a man of 50.^1 He
died in March 1448 ^2 and
the name of Ralph Hoton
occurs as tenant of the
family lands in 1464.33 A John Hoton died
in or about 1498, leaving two daughters and
co-heirs : Ellen the eldest married John Hed-
worth, while Elizabeth became the wife of
Richard Hansard.3* In March 1512-3 William
and Elizabeth Hansard made a settlement of
their lands here on themselves for life with
remainder in tail to William their son and
contingent remainder to Thomas his brother.**
William Hansard the elder died in 1520 ;3* his
nineteen-year-old son only survived him a few
months and the reversion of the lands of the
elder Elizabeth passed to his posthumous
daughter of the same name.3^

Elizabeth married Francis Ayscough and
obtained livery of her lands in 1528.3* Francis
Ayscough conveyed his lands in Sunderland
Bridge in 1557 to Robert Tempest and Ralph
Hoton,39 lord of a portion of the manor of
Woodham (q.v.). Sunderland Bridge was held
by George Hulton of Sunderland and Woodham,
on his death in February 1621-2.*" George, who
was an old man and childless, in 161 3 made a
settlement of the land here on himself for life
with remainder to his sister Mary Biggins.
Mary died before her brother and George then
granted all his property in Sunderland to her son

«8 Ibid. 2' Ibid. 28 Ibid.

29 Ibid. no. 2, fol. 196.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid. ptfl. 164, no. 58.

32 Ibid. no. 88.

33 Feod. Prior. Dun. (Surt. Soc), 162.
3* Dur. Rec cl. 3, ptfl. 169, nos. 53, 54.
3* Ibid. ptfl. 173, no. 20 ; no. 77, m. 32.
36 Ibid. ptfl. 173, no. 15.

3' Ibid. ptfl. 173, no. 6, 15.

3« Ibid. no. 77, m. 9. 39 Ibid. cl. 12, no. I- 1.

« Ibid. cl. 3, ptfl. 189, nos. 67, 68.

173

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

Christopher Biggins.** The moiety came into
the hands of Richard Lambert before 1622 when
he and Henry Biggins, brother of Christopher,
with Mary his wife sold the estate to Ralph
Younge.''^ Ralph Younge died at Sunderland in
January 1635-6, his heir being his sister Katharine
Cunningham,*^ an aged widow, whose heir was
George Cunningham her son.** No further
history of this moiety of the manor has been
found.

The moiety inherited by Ellen wife of John
Hedworth was probably identical with that
' half of the manor of Sunderland ' that Sir
Reynold Carnaby bought in 1 5 38 from Sir Thomas
Wentworth, captain of Carlisle Castle.*^ Three
years later Carnaby sold the moiety to John
Swinburne of Chopwell, an elaborate settlement
being made on various members of the purchaser's
family.*® This settlement does not, however,
seem to have prevented the forfeiture of the land
by John Swinburne for his part in the Rebellion
of the Earls,*' though John Hedworth made a
conveyance of two parcels of land here to him in
1571.** In 1571-2 the Crown granted his lands
here to George Bowes, who in January 1584-5
conveyed them to Gerard Salvin of Croxdale.**

Gerard Salvin devised the Sunderland Bridge
property in 1587 to his younger sons Richard
and Thomas Salvin in survivorship^ and it seems
possible that throughout the 17th century it was
employed in a similar way. Gerard Salvin of
Croxdale died in 1663 ; he settled the estate on
his eighth son Anthony ,5* who died in 1 709*- and
was succeeded at Sunderland Bridge by James
Salvin his son." From him it descended in 1753
to his son Anthony, and his son Lieutenant-
General Anthony Salvin" sold it to William
Thomas Salvin of Croxdale in the last decade of
the 1 8th century." From this time it has
remained in the possession of the senior branch
of the family.

The Exchequer land called WINDY-HILLS
(Windy hill, Wyndy hill, Windy side, xv cent.,
Wynoghills, xvi cent.) was in the hands of John
Bowman at the close of the 14th century.** It

"■ Dur. Rec. cl. 3, ptfl. 189, no. 67.

*2 Ibid.

*3 Ibid. no. loi, m. 20.

** Ibid. ptfl. 187, no. 41.

*5 Close R. 30 Hen. VIII, pt. iv, no. 21-2.

** Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 80, m. 2, cl. 12 (i-i).

*' Ibid. ptfl. 193, no. 16.

*8Ibid. cl. 12(1-2).

*9 Ibid. cl. 3, ptfl. 193, no. 16. » Ibid.

^* Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 123 ; Burke, Landed Gentry
(1906).

s- S/. Oswald's Par. Reg. (ed. Headlam), 213.

53 Burke, loc. cit.

" Father of Anthony Salvin, F.S.A., of Hawksfold,
the distinguished architect (Diet. Nat. Biog.).

^ Burke, loc. cit. ; Surtees, loc. cit.

** Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 13, fol. 213.

passed through the hands of Isabel his widow
and in 1396 Joan daughter of John took it
from the Bishop at the ancient rent of 3/. 4^."
The 4i acres of land called Windy-hills and
Snawdon were afterwards held by Thomas
Copper but were surrendered by Agnes his
widow to Hugh Boner in 1419.** Land here
formed part of the endowment of the chantry
of St. James in St. Nicholas church and rent
from it was inherited in 1488 by Isabel daughter
of Robert Erne.** Isabel died in 1535 when the
reversion descended to Robert Melot,her son by
her first husband, though the rent was received
by her second husband Roger Smith until his
death. ^ Robert Melot died in possession in

J r-2."

The church of ST. OSWALD
CHURCHES stands on an elevated and pic-
turesque situation above the
wooded bank of the Wear, the churchyard com-
manding a fine view of the Cathedral and city
to the north-west. The site is an ancient one
and fragments of pre-Conquest sculptured stones
have been found,*^ but the oldest part of the
existing structure dates only from the end of the
1 2th century. The building consists of chancel,
49 ft. 6 in. by 18 ft. wide, north vestry and organ
chamber, clearstoried nave, 81 ft. 6 in. by 20 ft.
4 in., with north and south aisles, and west tower
15 ft. by 12 ft.," all these measurements being
internal. There were formerly north and south
porches." The aisles are the full length of the
nave but differ in width, that on the north side
being 12 ft. 6 in. and the other 15 ft. 8 in.

A great deal of alteration and rebuilding
carried out in the 19th century has made nearly
the whole of the outside of the church, with the
e.xception of the tower and part of the north
wall, of modern date, but it still preserves to a
large extent its ancient appearance. The history
of this later work may be thus summarised. In
the first quarter of the century the building was
declared in danger owing to the working of coal

" Ibid.

'8 Ibid. fol. 1085, 1 191.

5» I bid. file 168, no. 12.

•* Ibid, file 177, no. 20.

" Ibid, file 178, no. 17.

•2 V.C.H. Dur. i, 224-5 ; Reliquary, new ser.
viiij 77 ; Stuart, Sculp. Stones of Scotland, ii, 63-4 ;
Trans. Dur. and North. Arch. Soc. iii, 32, and iv,
281-5.

'3 This is the measurement at the ground floor level
inside the tower arch, where the outer walls are about
5 ft. 6 in. thick. The ringing chamber measures
internally 14 ft. 5 in. by 14 ft. 11 in. The greater
length in each case is from west to east.

•^ They are mentioned by Surtees, Hist, of Dur.
iv, 74, and the south porch is shown in his view of the
building. They were pulled down on the rebuilding
of the aisles and not re-erected.

174

Durham : Kepier Hospital

Durham : St. Oswald's Church. The Nave, looking East

CITY OF DURHAM

mines beneath,** and in 1834 '^ underwent a
somewhat drastic restoration. Tlie chancel,
south aisle and the greater part of the north aisle
were taken down and rebuilt, a vestry added on
the north side of the chancel, the clearstory
windows were renewed in an inferior style, the
nave roof destroyed and a new one erected, an
embattled parapet substituted for one of open
work of very graceful design which then existed,
and a new west window inserted in the tower.
There was a second restoration in 1864, when the
east end of the chancel was again rebuilt, an
organ chamber added between the vestry and
the north aisle, and the tower restored, all the
windows being renewed.*^ The interior was
restored in 1883 and a second vestry added to
the east of the former one.

10 5 O

walling belonging to the older church. A new
chancel was probably built round the old one
at the same time or early in the 1 3th century, but
was superseded a century later by the structure
which subsisted down to 1834. "^^^ '4'^^ century
also saw the rebuilding of the north aisle wall,
but no further change was made in the plan of
the church till some time in the 15th century,
probably about 141 2, when the nave was
extended westward two bays and a west tower
added. The impost mouldings of the tower
arch are apparently of late 12th-century date
and are probably portions of the west end of the
fabric then pulled down and used again in this
position.*'

The chancel being entirely new is of no
antiquarian interest except as it reproduces

□cII95

I42J Century
1521 Century
Ei3 Modern

DuRH.\M City : Plan of St. Oswald's Church

The earliest parts of the building are the
chancel arch and the four easternmost bays of
the nave arcades, which date from about 1195 ;
the former chancel seems to have been of 14th-
century date, to which period the old part of the
north aisle wall with two of its windows belongs ;
the two westernmost bays of the nave, the clear-
story, and the tower date from the 15th century.

Nothing definite can be stated about the early
church on the same site as there is no evidence
in the existing masonry of any work older than
c. 1 195, but it is possible that the north-east and
south-west angles of the nave may contain

** ' The church ... is now so shaken by coal mines
that it is shut up and must be taken down ' : T. Rick-
man, Gothic Architecture (4th ed. 1835), 162.

** A large number of mediaeval grave slabs and other
fragments were found at this time, mostly in the tower
walls and at the east end. One of the fragments is
a 13th-century corbel with dog-tooth moulding. They
are described and figured in Trans. Dur. and North.
Arch. Soc. i, loi, 152.

ancient features. The plan of course follows
the old lines, but little else can be said to be even
a 'restoration.'** The east wall is faced with
ashlar, but the north and south walls, like those
of the rest of the building, are of rubble.** There
are diagonal buttresses at the external angles, but
the side walls are unbroken and terminate in
straight parapets. The roof is of low pitch and
lead covered. The east window is of four lights
with reticulated tracery, and on the south side
are three two-light windows with quatrefoils
in the heads and a string at the side level. On
the north side is a similar window at the east end

*' It is, of course, possible that there was a tower
to the 12th-century church, but there is no evidence
of this.

*« The windows in a general way reproduce the old
ones. There were originally three on the north side.

«3 Hutchinson, writing about 1787, says: 'Being
built of stone subject to decay [the church] is in most
parts covered with rough cast and lime' {Hist, of
Dur. ii, 312).

175

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

now opening into the vestry, the western part
of the wall being open to the organ chamber.
There was originally a tall square-headed
opening of two lights with low transom in the
south-west corner, the bottom lights of which
formed a low-side window, and a priest's doorway
below the middle window, but neither of these
features was reproduced in the rebuilding."
No ancient ritual arrangements have been pre-
served and all the walls are plastered internally.
Some oak stall work of 15th-century date with
traceried panels remains ; but the chancel
screen is a modern one of poor design erected in

and bases. The eastern responds are keel-shaped
and those at the west end half-octagonal. All
the arches are of two chamfered orders with
hood moulds towards the nave and spring from
a height 12 ft. above the floor level. On the
north side there is a transverse arch across the
aisle opposite the first octagonal pier, with a
buttress on the external wall, in line with the
west end of the 12th-century nave. The two
easternmost windows of the north aisle are old,
though the muUions and tracery have been
renewed ; they are of two cinquef oiled lights and
have segmental heads with hood moulds, and

Church of St. Oswald : Exterior from the South

1834. The chancel arch is pointed and of two
chamfered orders to the nave, springing from
half-round responds with carved capitals of late
transitional type. On the chancel side the outer
order is square and dies into the wall, and there
is a hood mould on the nave side only.

The nave is of six bays, the arcades consisting
of three semicircular and three pointed arches
on each side, the round arch of the original fourth
bay having been taken down when the nave was
extended westward. The arcades are similar
in character on both sides, the round arches
springing from circular and the late pointed ones
from octagonal piers, all with moulded capitals

'" They are shown in Surtees' view of the church
{Hist, of Dtir. iv, 74).

double chamfered jambs. A square-headed
aumbry with rebated jambs remains at the east
end of the north aisle wall : the door has gone.

The clearstory has five three-light windows on
each side with four-centred heads and external
hood moulds, separated by buttresses running up
to the full height of the embattled parapet. The
aisles have modern lean-to leaded roofs behind
straight parapets and the nave roof is a flat
pitched one of five bays corresponding with the
clearstory windows. The roof destroyed in 1834
appears to have been a handsome one of hammer-
beam type erected by William Catten, vicar in the
early years of the 1 5th century. It was described
by Surtees as a fine vaulted roof of wood, the
rafters springing from brackets ornamented with
angels bearing blank shields and joined with rose

CITY OF DURHAM

knots. On the centre knot was an inscription in
gold letters on a blue ground ' Orate pro W.
Catten, Vicr.' "

The north and south doorways are modern,
that on the south side being in the 13th-century
style, but in the wall above is a 15th-century
niche with cinquefoiled ogee head and tracery
over. Suttees mentions four arches in the south
aisle ' apparently intended as sepulchral, but
without effigy or inscription,''- and Sir Stephen
Glynne in 1825" noted an arch in the wall at
the west end of the south aisle ' under which
apparently was once a tomb.' All these dis-
appeared when the aisle walls were destroyed,
or before. The new walls were reduced in
thickness.

The tower is of four stages with embattled
parapet and diagonal buttresses, carried up its
full height as angle pinnacles. It has been very
much restored and all the windows and other
external architectural features are modern. The
belfry windows are pointed openings of two Hghts
and the west window is of three lights. With the
exception of a small single light opening in the
second stage the north and south sides are blank
below the belfry. The tower arch is a lofty
pointed one of two chamfered orders without
hood mould springing from the early impost
mouldings already referred to, below which the
chamfers are carried down the jambs. The first
floor is carried by a ribbed vault with large
circular well hole, but without wall ribs, and is
approached by a staircase in the thickness of the
wall starting in the south-east corner and
returned along the west wall to the north-west
angle. Many of the steps consist of mediaeval
grave covers with crosses and various symbols,
no fewer than twenty-four being used in the
construction of the stairway.'* Some of the
grave slabs discovered in 1864 are now in the
churchyard on the north side of the tower.

The font is modern and stands below the
tower. Above the tower arch are the Royal
Arms of the Stuart Sovereigns. The pulpit and
all the other fittings are also modern. In the
north aisle is a good renaissance mural monument
to Christopher Chayter of Butterby (d. 1592)
and at the east end of the south aisle others to
Jarrardus Salvinof Croxdale(d. 1663) with arms,
helm, and crest,'* and to George Smith of
Burnhall (d. 1756).

'I Surtees, Hist, of Dur. iv, 74. ^^ Ibid.

^3 Glynne's account of the building at this date is
in Pro. Soc. Ant. {Nezuc), 3rd ser. iii, 283. He visited
the church again in 1869 and noted that it had been
' much improved and put into good state.'

'^ Boyle, Co. Durham, 380. One stone shows a line
of small nail-headed ornament.

'5 It was formerly on the north side of the chancel.
The inscriptions in the church are given in Surtees,
op. cit. iv, 75-7, and in the churchyard, 77-80.

There is no ancient glass, but Surtees mentions
' some remains ' in the windows of the north
aisle, including the arms of Nevill, and a roundel
with its sacred monogram. A perfect shield
with the arms of Lumley had been destroyed a
few years before.'"

There is a ring of six bells, five of which were
cast by Christopher Hodgson in 1694. The
second is a recasting of a similar bell by GiUett
&Co. in 1885. All the old bells bear inscriptions
in Roman characters with coins of different sizes
between the words."

The plate'* consists of a small silver-gilt cup
with domed cover, originally a secular drinking
vessel, without marks, but probably of 16th-
century date, inscribed ' Haec Calix est novum
Testamentum in Sanguine meo pro vobis
funditur et pro multis in remissio'em peccato-
rum ' ; a silver-gilt paten of 1699, inscribed
' Hoc est corpus meum quod pro vobis frangitur,'
and on the back ' G. Brown,' with the maker's
mark R.M ; a silver-gilt alms dish of 1701, with
the mark of John Bodington, inscribed ' The
Gift of John Sedgwicke Esq. A.D. 1699 to St.
Oswald's Church in Durham ' ; two silver
collecting basins of 1736, the first made at
Newcastle and inscribed ' The Gift of E.
Lambton,' and the second ' The Gift of David
Dixon ' ; and two silver-gilt chalices and patens
of 1865.

The head of a mediaeval processional cross,
probably of late 15th-century date, found about
the middle of the last century in a mail coach in
an hotel yard in Durham, belongs to St. Oswald's.'*
The figure of Our Lord, and those of the Blessed
Virgin and St. John, together with four angels
at the ends of the arms, are of white metal, the
cross and arms being gilded.

The registers begin in 1538, but there is a gap

■" Surtees, op. cit. iv, 74.

" Pro. Soc. Ant. {Newc), new ser. iii, 194. The
inscriptions are (l) Glovia [sic] in Altissimis Deo
Pex Forster A.M. Vic. Christo. Hodson me fecit
1694; (2) Gillett & Co. made me 1885. Pax hom-
inibus. Arthur Headlam, W.k. Vic. (and names of
churchwardens) ; (3) Deum Timete Pex Forster
A.M. Vic. I. Evans, C. Warden. Christo Hodson me
fecit ; (4) Regem Honorate Pex Forster A.M. Vic.
1694. Christop'' Hodson made me I. Evans IS.
WH. RW. ; (5) Ibimus in Domum Domini Pex
Forster A.M. Vic. Christoper Hodson made me 1694.
I. Evans Ch. W. ; (6) Oswaldus Florem Meleor Quia
Gesto Tenorem Pex Forster, A.M. Vic. I. Evans IS.
WH. RW. CW. 94. The original second bell was
inscribed ' Pax Hominibus Pex Forster A.M. Vic.
I. Evans. Christopher Hodson made me 1694. IS.
WH. RW. CW.'

'« Pro. Soc. Ant. (AVar.), iii, 428-9.

■" Ibid, v, 196. It was sold to a Mr. Caldcleugh,
whose widow subsequently presented it to St.
Oswald's. It is mounted on an ebony staff with
silver knobs, and is used for its original purpose.

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

of six years between 1592 and 1598. They have
been printed down to 1 75 1.***

The churchyard, which is very extensive, lies
chiefly on the north and south sides of the
building, with entrances from the road, which
bounds it on the cast side, at the north-east and
south-east corners. A new detached burial
ground on the opposite side of the road further
south was consecrated in 1889.

The church of ST. MARGARET stands on
high ground near the bottom of Crossgate, above
the left bank of the river, immediately opposite
the castle, and consists of a chancel 25 ft. by
22 ft., with north vestry and organ chamber, and
south chapel 13 ft. 6 in. wide, clearstoried nave
46 ft. by 24 ft., with north and south aisles,

■I 121!! Cl-NTURY

■dig 5
^141!! Cent.
^l5Il!Cb-NT.
E3 Modern

the westernmost arch of the arcade. The detail
of the arcade itself is fairly late in style, and the
date of the erection of the building may have
been about 11 50. The church was enlarged
c. 1 195 by the addition of a north aisle and the
rebuilding of the chancel on a larger scale, the
present north arcade and chancel arch dating
from this period. The south aisle was rebuilt
in the 14th century during the episcopate of
Richard de Bury, and the clearstory windows on
this side, recently renewed, are said to have been
of this date. Those on the north side, which
still remain, are, however, of the 15th century,
when either they were inserted or the clear-
story wall rebuilt, the church at the same time
undergoing alterations and additions. The

Scale of Feet

Durham City : Plan of St. Margaret's Church

north and south porches, and west tower 11 ft.
square, all these measurements being internal.

The oldest parts of the building are the south
arcade of the nave and parts of the west wall to
the north and south of the tower, which date
from the 12th century and are all that remains of
the original church of that period. This early
church consisted of a nave of the same size as at
present, a south aisle, short chancel, and possibly
a small west tower. There was also a nave
clearstory, one of the windows of which still
remains on the south side immediately above

80 Edited by Rev. A. W. Headlam, M.A., Vicar,
1891 (T. Caldcleugh, Durham). After 1680 the
burials, including a repetition of those from 22 Aug.
1678 to the end of 1679, are in a separate register.
There is a duplicate register beginning May 1695
and ending July 1706, the entries varying occasionally
in fulness of detail. In June 1672 was buried 'Jane
Sym, sexton of this parish and wife of John Sym sexton
deceased.'

chapel*' or aisle on the south side of the chancel,
which is slightly wider than the south aisle of
the nave, is of 15th-century date, and an arch on
the west end of the north wall of the chancel
suggests that the north aisle of the nave was
extended eastward to half the length of the
quire at the same time. The existing tower,
whether an addition or a rebuilding, belongs also
to the 15th century, and probably a porch or
porches were also built. The plan then assumed
more or less its present shape, with the exception
of the buildings north of the chancel, which are
entirely modern. Some repairs appear to have
been done in 1699, that date occurring on a spout
head on the south side,*^ but no structural
changes of any importance seem to have been
made till the latter half of the 19th century.
The building, however, experienced the usual

81 Possibly the chantry of the Blessed Virgin.

82 Another has the initials I. W.

178

CITY OF DURHAM

internal vicissitudes of the i8th and early 19th
centuries, galleries being erected at the west end
and in the north aisle, the latter in 1824 with a
separate external entrance.*^ The east window
was ' a modern sash,' and the rest of the windows
on the north and south of the church had been
renewed about the middle of the last century.**
In 1880 the building underwent an extensive
restoration, the whole of the north aisle being
taken down and widened, and the vestry and
organ chamber added at its east end. New
porches were erected, new windows inserted,
except in the north side of the clearstory, the
galleries removed, and the interior generally
renovated. The interior of the tower was
repaired in 1897.

The old walling is all of rubble, and the roofs
are of flat pitch covered with lead behind
straight parapets. The east window of the
chancel is modern and of five lights with per-
pendicular tracery, and there are two modern
square-headed clearstory windows on the south
side. Internally the chancel is open to the aisle
on the south by a wide pointed arch of two
hollow chamfered orders dying into the wall at
the springing, and the lower half of the wall is
reduced in thickness. The aisle is the full length
of the chancel, the east walls being flush out-
side, and is lighted by two modern windows on
the south and one at the east end. The north
wall of the chancel is pierced at its west end
by the arch already referred to, which is of two
hollow chamfered orders, and now opens to the
organ chamber. The east end of the wall con-
tains two aumbries, one oblong in shape, above
which, at a height of about 7 ft. from the
sanctuary floor, is a plain round-headed window,
now built up, with wide internal splay, the only
architectural feature of the late 12th-century
chancel now remaining with the exception of the
chancel arch. The roof is a modern one of three
bays, and the fittings are all modern.

The chancel arch is very lofty and elliptical in
form, and consists of two orders slightly cham-
fered on the edge, with hood mould towards
the nave continued north and south along the
waU. The opening is 15 ft. wide, and the inner
order springs from corbelled shafts with cushion
capitals, the outer order going down to the
ground. The shafts are modern restorations,
and the jambs, along with much of the walling
on either side, including the two squints, have
also been renewed. The squint on the south
side of the arch is so contrived as to afford a view
not only of the high altar from the south aisle,
but also of that of the chantry altar from the

^ Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 128. It is stated that
' the whole fabric has been placed in complete repair.'
An organ was placed in the north gallery in 1828.

M Fordyce, Hist. Dur. (1857), ». 3^3-

nave. The chancel arch, having been weakened
by the alterations in the 15th century, conse-
quent, no doubt, on its excessive height and
extreme flatness, was strengthened by squinch
work on either side and by the erection of a
pointed relieving arch above it which shows on
the east side towards the chancel.

The south arcade of the nave consists of four
semicircular arches of a single order, square to
the aisle but slightly chamfered towards the
nave, springing at a height of 8 ft. 10 in. from
circular piers and half-round responds. The first
and second piers from the east and the western
respond have scalloped capitals and chamfered
abaci ; the capital of the third pier is plain, and
that of the eastern respond has an incipient
volute ornament with a head facing west. The
piers are 27 in. in diameter, and have been
renewed in places, the moulded bases being all
modern restorations. The arches have hood
moulds on the nave side only. The aisle is
10 ft. 3 in. wide, and is lighted by three modern
two-light windows.

The north arcade consists of four semi-
circular arches of two chamfered orders, spring-
ing at a height of 13 ft. from circular piers and
keel-shaped responds, all with moulded capitals
and bases. There is a hood mould towards the
nave, and the piers, which are 22 in. in diameter,
have been a good deal restored, all the bases,
like those on the south side, being new. The
eastern respond has been entirely rebuilt. The
greater height and light proportions of the north
arcade are in strong contrast to the older work.
The north aisle is described as being originally
' very narrow but having no ancient work in
it.'^ As rebuilt, it is 13 ft. wide, with three
windows on the north side and one at the west
end.

The nave roof is a modern one of six bays, and
the clearstory has three new windows of two
trefoiled lights on the south side, with four-
centred heads and hood moulds. The western
12th-century clearstory window is at a very
much lower level, its sill being immediately
above the crown of the arch of the arcade and its
head externally about half the height of the later
openings. It has no hood mould, and the head is
in three stones. A portion of weathering above
the opening apparently shows the height of the
original wall. On the north side there are two
unrestored clearstory windows, each of two
plain lights with four-centred heads, but without
hood moulds. The walls internally are all plas-
tered except at the west end, where the masonry
is left bare.

The tower is of four stages, each slightly
setting back, and terminates in an embattled

^ Informauon of the late Mr. C. Hodgson Fowler,
architect of the restoration.

179

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

parapet with angle pinnacles. It is built of
coursed rough stones with quoins at the angles,
and has a projecting vice in the south-east
corner, sloping back below the belfry stage.
The west window is a pointed one of two
cinquefoiled lights cutting into the string
between the first and second stages, the sill
being lo ft. above the ground. On the north
and south sides the two lower stages are blank,
the third having a small square-headed opening.
The belfry windows are pointed openings of two
lights. The tower arch is a lofty one of two
hollow chamfered orders dying into the wall at
the springing, and is the full width of the tower.
The first floor is carried on a groined vault with
hollow chamfered ribs, at the intersection of
which is a blank shield.

The font stands below the tower and consists
of a circular bowl of Frosterley marble on a
cylindrical shaft. It is lined with lead and may
be of late 12th-century date. The pulpit and
seating are of oak and date from the time of
the last restoration.

In the floor of the nave is a blue stone slab to
Sir John Duck, bart. (d. 1691), with arms, helm,
crest and mantling ; and in the chancel floor is
an armorial slab in memory of Mary, widow of
Thomas Mascall (d. 1736). The chancel also
contains various 1 8th and early 19th century
mural monuments.^

There is a ring of three bells, two of which are
probably of 15th-century date. The third was
cast in 1624. The inscriptions are : (i) ' Vox
Agustini Sonet in Aure Dei'; (2) 'Sauncta Mer-
gareta Ora Pro Nobis ' ; (3) ' Jesus be our
Speed Anno Domini 1624.'*'

The plate^ consists of a chalice and cover,
the former being inscribed ' Calix Benedicttionis
Sanctae Margaretae Dunelmensis Anno Domini
1675,' and the latter 'Anno Domini 1675'*';
a paten of three feet made by Isaac Cookson, of
Newcastle, without date letter, but inscribed
' 1753, Given to the Chapel of Saint Margaret in

** The inscriptions are given in Surtees, op. cit.
iv, 128-30.

*' The inscriptions on the two mediaeval bells are
in Gothic characters with Lombardic capitals. They
bear the same founder's stamp and initial cross, and
a shield with the Royal Arms (i and 4 France, 2 and 3
England). They maybe by John Danyell, of London,
c. 1450. The third bell is probably by Thomas
Bartlett, of Durham. Below the inscription are the
initials AT, IP, RG, IR, at intervals. Pro. Soc. Ant.
{Nezvc), new ser. iii, 195.

*8 Ibid, iii, 431.

*' The vestry book records (Easter Tuesday 1676)
that Mr. Samuel Martyn, minister, has presented
a silver chaUce with cover ' in lieu of the old chaUce
formerly used and the said Mr. Martyn hath desired
that two new patens for y* bread may be p'vided
by the Chappelry to be used therewith.' The chahce
has three hall marks, one illegible, but no date letter.

Crossgate for ever'; and two chalices, two patens,
and a flagon of 1849, all inscribed ' Sanctae
Margaritae Capella Dunelmii MDCCCL.'

The registers begin in 1558. The marriage
entries have been printed down to 181 2.'"
There is a complete set of vestry books in seven
volumes, beginning in 1665.

The church stands high above the road,
which passes close to it on the north side, the
churchyard being chiefly to the south. The
churchyard was extended in 1820 by the purchase
of a large orchard in South Street,** and in 1845
the Dean and Chapter gave about two acres
attached to the church for a further enlarge-
ment.*^

The church of ST.
ADVOWSONS OSWALD, Elvet, with its
chapels,** was granted by
Bishop Hugh Pudsey, subject to the incum-
bent's life interest, to the Prior and Convent
on condition that they should maintain priests
at the mother church and at the chapels of
Witton and Croxdale. In 1359 Bishop Hat-
field ordered that the vicar of St. Oswald's
should have the manse by the churchyard
which he occupied, 16 marks of silver a year,
two wainloads of hay, various minor profits and
the offerings, baptismal and other, except from
the vills of Croxdale, Sunderland and Beautrove.
After the Dissolution the patronage was vested
in the Dean and Chapter of Durham.

The earliest chantry in this church was that
of Our Lady, founded** and endowed by Ralph,
chaplain of St. Oswald, at the altar of the B.V.
Mary at the south of the church, probably in
the 13th century. The patronage of the chantry
after the founder's death was vested in the
Prior and Convent of Durham. There were
later augmentations** in 1360 and 1392. The
gross annual value** at the Dissolution was
£6 T,s. ^d., the net about ^^5 gs.

The second chantry in this church was that
of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evan-
gelist, founded by a member of the Elvet family
in 1404, as appears from a licence from Bishop
Skirlaw to Richard de Elvet, clerk, John de
Elvet, clerk, and Gilbert Elvet. The endowment
included the manor of Edderacres in Easington

•0 Dur. and North. Par. Reg. Soc. vol. ix ; transcribed
by the Rev. H. Roberson, M.A. (1904).

^^ Surtees, op. cit. iv, 128. The new burial ground
was consecrated 23 Sept. 1820.

** Fordyce, op. cit. i, 383. Consecrated 7 Nov.
1845.

** Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 81.

^ Ibid. 80.

** Ibid. ; Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 33, m. 9.

** Injunctions and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes (Surt.
Soc), App. vi, p. Ix. Cf. Harl. R. D 36. There is,
however, a somewhat different estimate of the value in
Surtees, op. cit. iv, 81.

180

CITY OF DURHAM

parish, and messuages in Elvet, 'Flesshewergate'
and elsewhere.*' The patronage was vested in
the heirs of the founder, Gilbert de Elvet. The
clear value'* at the Dissolution, less reprises, was
estimated at ^^ii 8/. lod. In 1608 the King
granted to Simon Wiseman and Richard Mare
the lands of this chantry.

A third foundation was that of the Rood Mass
priest, the clear yearly value^ of which at the
Dissolution, less reprises, was £'i ys. Sd. There
were also two gilds attached to this church, one
of St. Oswald,- and the other of the Holy
Trinity, and in 1472 the Prior of Durham
demised to John Tange, alderman, and Thomas
Wade and Thomas Watson, brethren of the
gild of the Holy Trinity, three waste burgages in
New Elvet, on which the alderman and brethren
of the gild proposed to build their new gild
house. In this gild house the hostiller of the
Priory of Durham should have full liberty to
hold his borough court of Elvet.^

The Anchorage near St. Oswald's church-
yard has already been mentioned.* After the
Dissolution its possession led to an entertaining
quarreP between rival grantees.

The chapel of ST. MARGARET, originally
dependent on the Church of St. Oswald, was
probably founded in the 12th century. In 1384
the Prior and Convent authorised the perform-
ance of all sacramental rites in the chapel,
except marriage and burial, and in 143 1 these
exceptions were removed and a commission
issued for the consecration of the chapel and
cemetery.* For all practical purposes St. Mar-
garet's thus became a separate parish, though a
reminder of its old status was found in the small
dues paid to the mother church, as, for example,
' hoUy bread silver ' and in the attendance of
one of the churchwardens of St. Margaret's at
St. Oswald's on occasions of special ceremony.'
The patronage after the Dissolution was vested
in the Dean and Chapter of Durham.

Within this chapel was a chantry of Our Lady,
founded* by one Ralph before 1343. In 1338 a
tenement in Crossgate was charged with the
provision of two lbs. of wax for two lights to
burn before the altar of St. Mary, and in 1355 a

*' Pat. 6 Hen. IV, pt. i, m. 30.
'* Injunctions and Ecd. Proc. Bp. Barnes (Surt.
Soc), App. vi, p. Ix.

* Injunctions and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes (Surt. Soc),
App. vi, p. Ix ; Harl. R. D 36.

2 Surtees, op. cit. iv, 81.

* Ibid. n. c.
*F.C.H.Dur.u, 130.

6 Depos. and Other Eccl. Proc. (Surt. Soc), 296
et seq.

' Surtees, op. cit. iv, 127.

' Depos. and Other Eccl. Proc. (Surt. Soc), iii,
276 et seq.

* Surtees, op. cit. iv, 130.

burgage in South Street was charged with izd.
due to the chaplain of St. Mary's altar. At the
Dissolution the gross revenue' of the chantry of
Our Lady was £j 13;. ^d., and the clear value,
less reprises, £^ p. jid. Benefactions*** to the
lights in St. Margaret's chapel are found in
1327 and 1328, and in the i6th century several
foundations for obits" and anniversaries existed
here. The curates of this chapel were at one
time almost dependent on the offerings and dues
of the parishioners, but by the action of the
Dean and Chapter of Durham and the Governors
of Queen Anne's Bounty the value of the
chapelry has been considerably increased. There
was in Framwellgate before the Reformation a
Gild of St. Margaret^ probably connected
with this church, and as early as 1 3 16 we hear
of a burgage in Framwellgate called the ' Gyld-
hous.' This was probably the burgage some-
time belonging to the Gild of St. Margaret
which in 1574 lay to the north of the burgage
called Paynter's Place.*^

The division of the ecclesiastical parish was
foreshadowed in 1826 by the building of a chapel
of ease at Shincliffe,'* dedicated to the honour of
St. Mary the Virgin, the parish of Shincliffe
being created five years later.** Sunderland
Bridge and Hett (from the parish of Merring-
ton) were next formed into the district chapelry
of Croxdale in 1843," and in 1858 part of the
chapelry of St. Margaret's was assigned to the
new district of St. Cuthbert," the church of
which was built in 1862. A still further altera-
tion was made in St. Margaret's in 1871 by the
building of the chapel of ease of St. Aidan, and
in 1896, when a chapel of ease was built and
dedicated to St. John the Evangelist.** At
Broom, the church of St. Edmund, king and
martyr, was built in 1879, when a parish was
formed, and a further mission chapel of St.
Katherine was set up in 1883.

The Church estate in the
CHARITIES parish of ST. OSWALD origi-
nally consisted of allotments on
Elvet Moor, containing 4^ acres, and four
burgage tenements in Hallgarth Street, which
were sold in 1877 and the proceeds invested in
jf 1,029 J^-^- 9^- consols, with the official trustees.
The annual dividends, amounting to j^25 14J. %d.,

» Injunctions and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes (Surt. Soc),
App. vi, p. be ; Harl. R. D 36.

** Surtees, op. cit. iv, 127 n. c.

" Harl. R. D 36.

*2 Surtees, op. cit. iv, 136.

13 Ibid. 61.

** Mackenzie and Ross, Dur. ii, 440.

15 Lotid. Gaz. 2 Aug. 1831, p. 1563.

*« Ibid. 5 Sept. 1843, p. 2950.

1' Ibid. 10 Sept. 1858, p. 4096.

w Reg. of St. Margaret's, Dur. (Dur. and North.
Par. Reg. Soc), p. vi.

181

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

are applied in the payment of the salary of the
sexton and church expenses.

In 1 701 the Rev. John Cock, by his will,
directed ^600 to be invested in land, the
income arising therefrom to be spent in teach-
ing poor girls, in apprenticing boys, in medi-
cal aid, in clothes and money to poor, and
in distribution of bibles and other religious
books.

The property consisted of a farm, known as
Elvet Farm, containing 44 a. 2 r., of the annual
rental value of ^jo. The farm was sold in 192 1
and the proceeds invested in £6, 115 5/. 2d.
2j per cent, consols, with the official receivers,
producing j^iS2 i-s. id. yearly. In 1925 the net
income was applied in the paj-ment of ^^5 5/. to
the Durham County Hospital; of ^^lo to St.
Oswald's Schools; £z 10s. in books; £1^ for
medical purposes, and the balance, in money and
clothing, to the poor.

Township of Elvet. In 1837 George Ashton,
by will, proved at Durham 28 January,
directed that stock producing ;^ioo a year should
be transferred to trustees, the income to be
divided annually among eight poor women.
The endowment now consists of £l,'J'i'i \s.
consols, in the names of the administrating
trustees. The annual dividends, amounting to
^^92 16s. \d., are divided equally among eight
poor and aged widows.

Croxdale St. Bartholomew. The charity of
Charles Attwood, founded by will, proved
London, 31 March 1875, is regulated by a
scheme of the Charity Commissioners, 7 April
1909. The endowment, originally an annuity of
^£25, is now represented, with accumulations,
by /i,25i 14/. %d. consols, with the official
trustees, producing ^^31 5;. id. yearly. The
income is applied for the benefit of poor of
Croxdale St. Bartholomew, as follows : Sub-
scriptions to any dispensary, hospital, etc. ;
any provident club for the supply of coal,

clothing, etc. ; contributions towards provision
of nurses for sick and infirm ; and in supply of
clothes, linen, bedding, fuel, tools, medical aid,
food, and other articles in kind.

The St. Margaret Church estate is derived
from ancient tenements, and allotments of land
made in respect thereof, on the inclosure of
Crossgate and Framwellgate Moors.

The property now consists of 12 a. 3 r. 33 p.
of land situate in Crossgate and Framwellgate
Moors, producing £\6 3/., and ;^5,387 10/. c,d.
5 per cent. War Stock, producing ;^269 7/. 6d.
yearly, with the official trustees, arising from
sales of land from time to time, representing a
gift, in 1885, by James John Wilkinson.

The income of the charity is applied in the
maintenance and repair of the church.

In 1704 John Hutchinson, by will, proved at
Durham, gave 52J. yearly to be distributed in
bread to 12 poor people every Sunday attending
divine service. This charge issued out of two
houses in Framwellgate Street. £z zs. is received
from the owners in respect of two houses in
Framwellgate Street, los. has for many years
been paid by the churchwardens.

The poor also receive a rent charge of 20/.,
mentioned in the parUamentary returns of 1786
as charged upon an estate at Alwent. The
annuity is paid by the Earl of Strathmore.

In 1782 Catherine Andrews, by her will, gave
j^ioo for the poor. The legacy was, with a sum
of j^i2 12/., given in 1739 by the Rev. John
Simon, invested in ;^200 consols, now held by
the official trustees, producing ^^5 yearly. The
income is distributed monthly in small sums to
the poor.

In 1799 Robert White, by his will, bequeathed
j^io, the interest to be distributed to the poor
of South Street. The principal sum is in the
hands of the rector and churchwardens of St.
Margaret's, by whom 10/. a year is distributed
in respect of this charity.

ST. GILES

The ancient parish of St. Giles contained 1,853
acres exclusive of the extra-parochial district of
Magdalen's Place that covered 26 acres. The
northern and much of the eastern portions of the
parish have been formed into the modern parish
of Belmont,^ containing the settlements at
Belmont, Broomside, Carr Ville, Kepier Grange,
Old Grange, New Durham, and the greater part
of Gilesgate Moor. The parish lies for the most
part on the coal measures, though patches of

^ Under the provisions of the Local Government
Act, 1894. The ecclesiastical parish of Belmont was
formed in 1852 {Land. Gaz. 10 Feb. 1852, p. 370).

alluvium occur along the banks of the Wear,
which for some way forms the southern and
western boundary.

The most westerly portion of the parish occu-
pies the ridge connecting the moorland north of
Sherburn with the promontory on which stand
the castle and cathedral church of Durham. The
main road eastwards from the city runs along
the ridge, dips, rises again to the church of St.
Giles, and then makes its divided way to Sher-
burn and Sunderland. The older houses in the
parish lie along this road of GiUigate, and the
whole history of the parish is centred round the
hospital of St. Giles founded here by Bishop

182

CITY OF DURHAM

^HS Cent.
^152! Cent.
ED Modern

Ralph Flambard in 1112.^ The earliest hospital
stood near the church' which served as its
chapel, but the site proved unsuitable, and at some
time in the latter half of the 12th century the
house was removed to Kepier by the river bank,
north of the main road. The position of the
earlier settlement by the church is still marked
by the existence of the back lane that now serves
as an approach to the Diocesan training college
for women teachers. Just south of the church was
the holy well, the well house of which was newly
decorated with a cross in 1755.*

Houses gradually grew up between this hamlet
and the city and these were afterwards erected
into a mesne borough under the master of St.
Giles. ^ The western boundary of the parish was
marked by a leaden cross standing in the middle
of the street until at
least 1754 ; * irom this
point the boundary fol-
lowed Tinkler's Lane
southward to the Wear.
A certain amount of
meadow land still re-
mains here, traces of
those fields that in
the 17th century were
subject to rights of
common.' Further east
a large close belonged

to the Cordwainers' Company and was still
unbuilt upon in 1754.* Bede College, for training
masters for elementary schools, stands on what
was Felloe Leazes, the modern curved road fol-
lowing the line of the ancient hedge.

In 1754 there were not many houses on the
north side of Gilligate' and the ground in front
of the North Eastern Railway goods station was
still fields. The modern approach to the
station represents the old lane to the hospital of
St. Mary Magdalene, founded here in the 13th
century. 1" The hospital stood near the river, the
ruins of its chapel being enclosed within a garden.
The building was in plan a plain rectangle,
measuring internally 43 ft. by 16 ft. 6 in., with
walls 3 ft. thick, constructed of yellow sandstone
in coursed blocks and with chamfered plinth. It
has long been roofless and the upper part of the
walling is broken, the height of the side walls being
from 5 ft. to 9 ft. An earlier chapel which stood a

2 F.C.H.Dur. ii. III.

' Simeon of Dur. Hist. Cont. (Rolls Ser.), 1 5 1-9.

* Mem. of St. Giles (Surt. Soc), iii and n.

* See above, under Durham City.

' Forster, Map of Dur. It is marked on the maps of
the 17th century.

' Mem. of St. Giles (Surt. Soc), 1-2, 40 n.

* Forster, op. cit. This was also subject to common
rights {Mem. 0/ St. Giles [Surt. Soc], 99 and n.).

' Forster, op. cit.

^° r.C.H. Dur. ii, 119.

Scale of Feet

Durham Citi' : Plan of St. Mary Magdalene's Chapel

little to the east of the present one was practically
rebuilt in 1370,^* but in 1448 it was found to be
in so ruinous a condition from the weakness of
its foundations that the Prior and Convent
obtained a licence from Bishop Nevill in Feb-
ruary 1449 to puU it down and remove it to
another site within the territory of the hospital.^
The existing ruins are all there is left of the
building then erected, which was consecrated
on 16 May 145 1.*' Portions of the older chapel
were reused in the new building, the east window
being a pointed 14th-century opening of three
trefoiled lights and geometrical tracery,*'* pro-
bably part of the work of 1370. A 13th-century
gable cross, discovered on the site of the first
chapel, is now in the cathedral library.*^ The
ancient churchyard, then unfenced and overrun

with weeds, was con-
verted into a garden
in 1822.1* Only the
jambs and head of the
east window are now
standing, and there
are remains of win-
dows in the north
and south walls, but
the masonry is very
much broken, and ex-
amination is rendered
difficult by the cover-
ing of ivy and the presence of a greenhouse
within the walls, which takes up a large portion
of the inner space towards the east end.
At the extreme west end of the side walls
are north and south doorways, the walls
themselves being strengthened at the angles
by boldly projecting buttresses westward. The
south doorway is now built up and the head
gone, but that on the north has a round-headed
arch in two stones, chamfered joints and hood
mould and an inner segmented head. ' Within
the ruin there is at least one arch stone with a
roll-moulding on each angle and the base of an
early English font of Frosterley marble.'"

Immediately to the north of Magdalene Place
is the site of Kepier Hospital, of which there
remains only the gatehouse, a picturesque
structure in a state of partial decay facing west
to the river. The gateway has a late pointed
arch on either side and one midway between,

^ Trans. Dur. and North, .-irch. Soc. ii, 140-6. The
extent of the repairs is shown by quotations from the
almoner's accounts.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid. The almoner's accounts, 1449-51, give many
items for the building of the present chapel.

1* It is shown in Billings' Antiq. oj Dur. plate I.
It was then apparently intact except for one mullion.
1* Trans. Dur. and North. Arch. Soc. ii, 140.
" Fordyce, Hist, of Dur. i, 378.
1' Pro. Soc. Ant. (Newc), 1889, iv, 139.

183

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

the passage way being divided into two rectangu-
lar vaulted compartments each measuring about
l6 ft. by 13 ft., the total length of the passage
being 33 ft. 6 in. The building belongs to the
first part of the 14th century, having been
erected during the episcopate of Richard de
Bury (1333-45), whose arms are on one of two
shields on either side of the window above the
west gateway. The other shield is said to have
borne the arms of Edmund Howard, master of
the hospital in 1341, but is now obliterated.
The west elevation is of some architectural
merit, the archway being flanked on either side
by a buttress of three stages, between which
runs a band of quatrefoil ornament immediately
over the crown of the arch. Above is a pointed
window with external hood mould, the head and
jambs of which now alone remain, with the
shields already mentioned on either side, and
the wall terminates in a gable rising well above
the roof. The walling is of rubble and the
roofs are now covered with red pantiles, but the
building has been much neglected, no adequate
renovation having been carried out. It is
now used as a tenement, and approach to the
upper rooms is by means of an external stone
staircase on the north-east. The original newel
stair on the inner, or east, side of the gateway is
partly broken away. On each side of the passage
way are the porter's rooms, the whole extent
of the present west front being about 62 ft.
The two outer arches are each of two chamfered
orders, that on the west side having an external
hood mould, and its inner order springing from
moulded caps, below which the chamfer is con-
tinued to the ground. The vaulting ribs of the
western compartment have a wave moulding, the
others being chamfered, but in both cases they
meet in a carved boss. The middle arch is
chamfered only on the west side and the staples
of the door hinges remain in the walls. The
eastern, or back, elevation is very plain, but
derives a good deal of picturesqueness from its
being well broken up, the north part of the
building standing back about 15 ft. The
gateway on this side has been a good deal
mutilated, the upper part of the newel
staircase, which probably finished as a turret,
having been destroyed and the window over
the archway provided with a wooden sash.

About twenty yards to the south-east of the
gatehouse are the ruins of the residence of the
Heath family, a brick building with an open
stone arcade of three round arches on the ground
floor facing south. The house was long used
as an inn, and was only dismantled in the last
decade of the 19th century. Only the ground
floor now remains, including the arcade and a
portion of the brick walling above, the height at
the highest point being only 14 ft. Too little is
left to form an adequate idea of the original

appearance of the building, but it seems to have
been of late i6th or early 17th century date. It
formerly contained a broad balustered oak stair-
case and some carved oak panelling, but this was
in a dilapidated condition before the house
was dismantled.**

East of Kepier is the High Grange, or Hither
or West Grange as it was called in 1629.*' A
little to the east of this is the modern settlement
of Carr Ville that owes its existence to the
Grange Iron Works, established here in 1866.
This hamlet is almost one with Broomside, and
both are served by the church of St. Mary
Magdalene, built in 1857. In 1869 a Primitive
Methodist chapel was built at Carr Ville, and
this was followed by a chapel of the Wesleyans in
1881.

The Low Grange lies north of Carr Ville,
and a track leads hence westward through the
fields to Woodvvell House by the river side. There
is a considerable amount of wood in this neigh-
bourhood, and a large park surrounds Belmont
Hall, the 17th-century Ramside.

Gilesgate Moor lies between the Sherburn and
Sunderland roads. It was inclosed under an Act
of 18 16,^*' and the hamlet of New Durham has
been built in the angle between the two roads.
The Primitive Methodists built a chapel here in
1852, and a chapel has also been established by
the Wesleyans.

When Bishop Ralph Flam-
MANORS, ETC. bard founded the Hospital
of St. Giles in U12 he gave
as part of its endowment the episcopal
vill of CALDECOTES"^^ (Caldcotes, xv cent.),
which in 1430 was identified with KEPIER
GRANGE.^ This ' manor ' would seem to have
included the site of Kepier, as no further grant
of this appears among the muniments of the
hospital."'

The hospital was surrendered to the Crown in
January 1545-6,^* and in the following month it
was bought by Sir William Paget. ^* Sir William

18 Pro. Soc. Ant. {Newc), iv, 1 39.

19 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 106, m. 4 d.

20 Priv. Act, 56 Geo. Ill, cap. 58.

21 Mem. of St. Giles (Surt. Soc), 194.

22 Feod. Prior. Dun. (Surt. Soc), 77.

23 The muniment room was burnt in an attack
by the Scots in 1306, but exemplifications of the most
important deeds were allowed in 1445, and these are
printed in Mem. oj St. Giles (Surt. Soc), 192 et seq.
At some time in the episcopate of Hugh Pudsey
(1153-95) Gilbert the Chamberlain gave the hospital
leave to make a mill pond on his land, but this does not
necessarily mean in Kepier (ibid. 202-3). Gilbert was
holding I and -I'.-s knight fees of the Bishop in 1 166
{Red Bk. oj the Exch. [Rolls Ser.], i, 416).

21F.C.//. £)«r. ii, 113.

25 I. and P. Hen. VIII, xxi (l), g. 282 (14). With him
was associated Richard Cokkes, S.T.P., chaplain to
the King.

CITY OF DURHAM

l^Al^

Heath. Party cbtve-
ron:vise or and sable xcitb
tzio mohts tn tbe cbief
and a beathcock in tbe
foot all counter-coloured.

quitclaimed it to the King a few months later,^'
and it was immediately afterwards leased to
John Frankeleyne for a term of years.-' In 1552
the hospital with the manors of Gilligate and
Old Durham was granted to John Cockburn,-'
lord of Ormiston, who sold them to John Heath
merchant and Warden of the Fleet, in 1568.-'

John Heath and his family settled at Kepier,
and on his death in 1590 he was buried at St.
Giles.'" By his will he
divided the Kepier pro-
perty among his sons, the
hospital, the East Grange,
Gilligate and Old Durham
being left to John Heath,
the eldest son, while Ram-
side was bequeathed to the
younger son Edward.^^ A
settlement of the manors of
Kepier and Old Durham
was made in 1604,^- and in
August 161 7 John settled
the manor of Kepier on
himself for life with remainder to his sons John
and Thomas in tail male.^^ John Heath died in
January 1617-18, John, his eldest son and suc-
cessor, being then a man of 49.^ Thomas, the
only son of the younger John, had died in 1594,
and the title to Kepier was vested in John's
brother Thomas Heath of Far Grange.^*

In 1629 Thomas Heath and John, his son and
heir, sold the reversion of the capital messuage of
Kepier with the Hither, or West, Grange and
certain other tenements to Ralph Cole,^ but
John Heath continued to live at Kepier until his
death in January 1639-40."

Ralph Cole, a merchant of Newcastle, also
bought Brancepeth Castle (q.v.), but his eldest
son Ralph seems to have been living here in 1651
and 1654.^8 Kepier followed the descent of
Brancepeth until 1674, when Sir Ralph Cole,
bart., sold it to Sir Christopher Musgrave, of
Carlisle, forj^4,8oo.^' Sir Christopher succeeded

«• Feet of F. Dur. Trin. 38 Hen. VIII.
" L. and P. Hen. VIII, xxi (2), p. 439.

28 Pat. 6 Edvv. VI, pt. vii. Printed by Surtees (Dur.
iv(2),65).

29 Dur. Rec. cl. 12 (1-2) ; Foster, Visit. Ped. 31.

^ Dur. Rec. cl. 3, file 191, no. 150 (i) ; Mem. of
St. Giles (Surt. See), 132. Printed by Surtees, Dur.
iv(2), 71.

'1 Ibid. See below.

^ Feet of F. Dur. Trin. 2 Jas. I.

33 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, ptfl. 184, no. 94. 3* Ibid.

35 Mem. of St. Giles (Sun. Sec), 133.

3* Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 106, m. 4 d. ; cf . m. 1 2 d.

3' Mem. of St. Giles (Surt. See), 136. He was aged

71. 38 JbiJ J2g

39 Dur. Rec. cl. 3, R. 118, no. 12. Certain portions
of the estate were sold to the families of Tempest and
Carr (Mackenzie and Ross, Dur. ii, 435). G.E.C.
Baronetage, i, 32.

MUSGRAVE.

six rings or.

Azure

to his brother's baronetcy and Edenhall estates

in or about 1687. He died in 1704, when he was

succeeded by Christopher his grandson and

heir." Sir Christopher was M.P. for Carlisle

in 1713-15, and for Cumberland in 1722-7. He

died in January 1735-6. His son and successor,

Sir Philip Musgrave, sat as

M.P. for Westmorland in

1 741-7, and on his death in

1795 was succeeded by Sir

John Chardin Musgrave.

Sir Philip Musgrave, his

son, succeeded him in 1806.

He represented Petersfield

in Parliament in 1820-5,

and Carlisle in the two

following years. He died

without issue male in 1827,

and the baronetcy and estates were inherited by

Christopher John Musgrave, his brother. He

also died without leaving a son, and Kepier

passed to his brother Sir George. On his death

in 1872 the estate passed to his son Sir Richard

Courtenay Musgrave, on whose death in 1881 it

was inherited by his son Sir Richard George

Musgrave, bart., the present owner.

In 1 1 12 the viU of CLIFTON (Clyvedone,
Clyftone, xi cent., Clifton xvii cent.) was
within the Bishop's demesne.*^ Bishop Hugh
Pudsey gave it to the hospital by his second
charter,*^ and in 1301 it was accounted a manor
and was said to lie to the east of Kepier.**
Clifton was no longer accounted a manor in
1552, but the name still occurs in 1642 as applied
to closes attached to the East Grange.'"

The EJST, FAR, OR POH'DEN, GRJXGE
(Poulton, Powlton grange, xvii cent.) is first
mentioned in the i6th century ; it was apparently
given by John Heath, the second of that name, to
Thomas, his son, who was living here in 1607.**
It followed the descent of Old Durham** (q.v.),
and is now in the possession of the Marquess of
Londonderry.

By his will of August 1589 John Heath the
elder left his grange of RJMSIDE to his
youngest son Edward*' in tail male. Edward

*« Ibid.

*i Mem. oJSt. Giles (Surt. See), 195. *2 Ibid. 196.

*3 Ibid. 216. The hospital granted a rent charge of
6o.f. from the manors of Caldecotes and Clifton to
Durham Priory in exchange for the advovvson of
Hunstanworth church.

** Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 109, m. 30 ; cf. m. 2 ; no. 106,
m. 12 d. See also cl. 12, no. 2, m. I.

« Mem. of St. Giles (Surt. See), 125.

** Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 129, m. 12. It was leased for
21 years to Henry Smith and George Middleton in
1642 (Ibid. no. 9, m. 38 d.).

*' Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 71. With contingent re-
mainders to John Heath, the eldest son in tail male ;
to Nicholas, the second son in tall male ; and to the
right heirs of John the elder.

85 24

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

Heath died in 1599,*' when this land passed to
John, his son.*' Edward, son of John Heath of
Ramside, was christened in 1607,^ and John was
still living here in the third decade of the 17th
century."

Nothing more is known of the history of this
holding until 1679, ^vhen, according to Surtees,
a settlement of Ramside was made by Anthony
Smith on the marriage of Richard his son with
Ann Crosier.^^ Richard, whose son Crosier was
born here in 1695,'' inherited the estate under
his father's will of 1698.^ In 1709 Richard Smith
conveyed it to Eleanor, his mother,** but the
family circumstances became embarrassed and
various mortgages were effected,*' ' the equity
of redemption ' at one time belonging to Joseph
Martin husband of Eleanor, a daughter of the
elder Richard Smith.*' According to Surtees the
estate was vested in John Hutton of Marske,
by a Chancery decree of
1737,** and he in 1746 con-
veyed Ramside to Ralph
Gowland.** Ralph died in-
testate and the property
descended to his nephew
Ralph Gowland, who in
1769 conveyed it to John
Pemberton. The estate was
sold by Stephen Pember-
ton, M.D., son of the new
owner, to Walter Charles
Hopper, but again passed
to the family of Pemberton
in 1820, when Thomas Pemberton pulled down
the old grange and built in its place the house
he called Belmont.'" The present owner is Mr.
John Stapylton Grey Pemberton of Hawthorn
Tower, Seaham Harbour.

The church of ST. GILES

CHURCH stands in a fine situation at the top

of Gilesgate, the ground falling

rapidly on the south side to the river Wear. It

« Mem. of St. Giles (Surt. Soc), 33.

^' Dur. Rec. cl. 3, ptfl. 192, no. 129.

*o Mem. of St. Giles (Surt. See), 125.

*i Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 68 n. In 1625 John Heath
gent, and Isabel his wife conveyed by fine about
210 acres of land in Ramside to Isabel Shawdforth
and Thomas Shawdforth (Dur. Rec. cl. 12, no. 4,
m. 2).

*2 Surtees, Dur. iv (2), 68 n.

*3 Mem. of St. Giles (Surt. See), 159.

** Surtees, loc. cit.

** She was still living in 1719 (Dur. Rec. cl. 5, no.
98). *« Ibid. cl. 4, no. 4, fol. 442, etc.

*' Surtees, loc. cit.

** No trace of this has been found among the records
of the Palatinate of Durham.

*' George Vane and Anne his wife in 1746 quit-
claimed property here to John Hutton, with a war-
ranty against the heirs of Anne (Dur. Rec. cl. 1 1 [22-3] ).

*•• Surtees, op. cit. 69

PlMBEBTON. Argent
a cheveron ermine be-
ttueen three griffons*
heads sable.

forms a prominent landmark in all views of
the city, its tower rising above the trees which
clothe the hillside. The building consists of
chancel, 34 ft. 6 in. by 20 ft., with organ chamber
on the south side, nave 73 ft. 6 in. by 20 ft.,
south aisle 20 ft. 9 in. wide, north porch and
west tower 14 ft. 6 in. by 14 ft., all these measure-
ments being internal. There is also a vestry
on the south side of the organ chamber.

The oldest part of the building is the north
wall of the nave, which dates from the time of
Flambard, c. 11 14; the chancel is of Pudsey's
period, c. 1 190-5, and the lower part of the tower
is of early 13th-century date. The upper stages
of the tower belong to the first quarter of the
15th century, and the remainder of the building
is modern.

Flambard's church consisted of a chancel
and nave of equal width, the total length of which
was about equal to that of the present nave,
which practically represents the early 12th-
century building with the chancel arch removed.
The arch stood between the first and second
windows (from the east) on the north side, the
length of the original chancel having been
19 ft. and of the nave 52 ft. This building was
lighted by small round-headed windows placed
high up in the walls, and had north and south
doorways. It remained unaltered till the end of
Pudsey's episcopate, when it was lengthened
eastward, theold chancel arch being taken down,'*
and a new one erected just outside the line of
the old east wall. The old chancel space was
thus thrown into the nave and a new chancel
formed. The addition of the tower in the early
part of the 13th century caused the destruction
of Flambard's west wall. In 1414 Bishop
Langley rebuilt the upper stage of the tower and
inserted the window in the remaining lower
stage. The side walls of the nave were raised
at some period, but whether before or during
the 15th century is uncertain. ' Two or three
clearstory windows''^ with square heads in the
upper part of the old south wall appear to have
been of 15th-century date, but they may have
been insertions. In the 18th century, ap-
parently, sash windows were inserted.** In

'i ' When the old north wall was first stripped of
plaster the point of junction between it and the
transverse wall of the original Norman chancel in
which the arch was situate was very clearly defined ' :
Trans. Dur. and North. Arch. Soc. v, 5. See also
Pro. Soc. Ant. {Newc), new ser. iii, 431 : ' It pushed
out the wall and ensured its demohtion down to
within a few feet of the ground.'

«2 Trans. Dur. and North. Arch. Soc. i, 130. The wall
now, of course, no longer exists.

*3 Sir Stephen Glynne, who visited the church in
1825, wrote : ' Modern taste has not allowed one of the
original windows to remain in its primitive state — some
have been stopped up and others altered into sashes . . .

186

CITY OF DURHAM

1828 there was a 'restoration ' by VVyatt, who
introduced ' three large and pretentious would-be
perpendicular windows,'** in the south wall,
and another at the east end in place of the then
existing sashes. He also erected a west gallery,
and other alterations, in the taste of the time,
were effected.** Pudsey's chancel arch, having
been set at a great height from the ground and
not properly abutted, had in course of time
pushed the whole of the side wall outwards,
which led at this time to its entire removal and
the erection of a lath and plaster substitute.**
Some alterations were made internally in 1843,
but about a quarter of a century later the build-
ing seems to have been condemned to demoli-
tion.*' Efforts, however, having been made in

doorway in the Norman style had previously
been inserted.** The work of restoration and
enlargement was completed in 1876.

The chancel is faced with squared ashlar, the
stones being placed ' bed-ways, edge-ways, and
face ways indiscriminately,'** but the walling of
the nave and tower is of roughly coursed rubble.
The roofs are of flat pitch and lead-covered
behind new embattled parapets to both chancel
and nave. The east window is of five lights
with perpendicular tracery inserted in 1875 in
place of Wyatt's.™ Traces were then found of
the orip-inal east window, consisting of three
round-headed lights. A moulded plinth runs
round the chancel and at the siU level is a plain
double chamfered string-course, which breaks

IC.11I2
□ €(195
'A3l^ Cem.

EARLY

^15111 Cent.
ii3c.lS73-6

Scale of Feet

Durham City : Plan of St. Giles's Church

1873 for its preservation, the church was restored
and enlarged. The aisle, north porch, organ
chamber, and vestry were then added, which
necessitated the destruction of Flambard's south
wall and of some portion of the south side of
Pudsey's chancel. The old south doorway was
transferred to the north side, where a modern

the whole of those on the north side being closed up.
The church within is of singular appearance, being
very long, narrow and lofty ; the pews are of ancient
fashion and most of the chancel furniture of a very
homely and humble character.' Pro. Soc. Ant. (Neuic),
3rd ser. iii, 284.

*^ Trans. Dur. and North. Arch. Soc. i, 130.

65 Fordyce, Iliit. of Dur. i, 377.

«* Trans. Dur. and North. Arch. Soc. v, 5, and i,
132.

*' It is so mentioned in April 1868. See ibid, i,
129.

round the buttresses. At the north-west corner
is a plain semicircular-headed priest's doorway,
now built up, round which the string is taken
as a hood mould. A similar string runs round
the inside of the chancel below the windows.
There are two tall round-headed windows, one

** When inserting this doorway the arch of a former
opening of ' very rude description ' was found
exactly opposite the doorway on the south side ;
ibid, i, 130. An old drawing of the south side of
the church previous to the insertion of the modern
windows shows two windows to the aisle, one square-
headed of three Ughts and the other, near the east
end, a pointed one of two Ughts. There was also a
plain porch with square-headed opening.

*9 Ibid, i, 131.

"The tracery of Wyatt's window was in 1911
in the back garden of a house on the north side of
Gilesgate near to the church.

187

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

on the north and the other on the south side of
the chancel towards the east end, both restored,
but preserving a good deal of their original
detail." The arches are of two orders, the
outer moulded on the edge and carried both
internally and externally on angle shafts with
moulded capitals and bases. The indented
hood mould is continued as a string along the
wall inside at the height of the springing and
may have been so originally on the exterior, a
portion remaining on either side of the south
window and on the south-east buttress. There
were originally two windows on the south side,
but one was maltreated in 1828 and disappeared
when the western part of the wall was pulled
down. In the north wall, 5 ft. from the east
end, is a square-headed aumbry, but no other
ancient ritual arrangements are visible. The
east and south walls, however, are plastered,
the ashlar being exposed only on the north side.
On the south the chancel is open to the organ
chamber by a modern pointed arch, the opening
of which is filled with an oak screen. On the
north side the springing of the Transitional
chancel arch is still in situ high up in the wall.
The arch consisted of two chamfered orders
springing from coupled shafts set against the
walls, the capitals of which remain. The inner
order has entirely gone, but five voussoirs of the
outer order remain in position. The modern
chancel arch is of two moulded orders springing
from shafts with moulded capitals and bases.
The roof is of five bays. The floor is raised
above that of the nave by two steps below the
arch and two others further eastward.

The old north wall of the nave is of bare
rubble internally, having been stripped of its
plaster during the restoration. Externally the
later upper portion sets back about 3 ft. above
the windows. The easternmost of the three
windows is entirely new, with a cinquefoiled
head, and is in that portion of the wall belonging
to the original chancel. The two ancient
openings had been long blocked up, but were
opened out and restored in 1873-5. Externally
the heads are in one stone and the glass is about
2 in. from the face of the wall. The sills are
new and slope internally. At the north-east
end of the nave is a built-up square-headed low
side window, the sill of which is 3 ft. above the
ground outside, an insertion probably after the
chancel had been pushed eastward.

The old north doorway was slightly to the
east of the present one, which has a lintel and
plain tympanum with inclosing semicircular
arch springing from angle shafts with cushion
capitals and chamfered imposts. The lintel

'* The window on the south side was originally
further to the west in that portion of the wall
destroyed in 1873.

and tympanum are new. On the south side
the nave is open to the aisle by an arcade of
five pointed arches.

The tower is of four unequal stages and ter-
minates in an embattled parapet with angle
pinnacles. The outer angles have flat double
buttresses of three stages. The pointed west
window is of three cinquefoiled lights with
perpendicular tracery and hood mould, much
restored. The tower arch is of 13th-century
date and of two orders, the outer square and
the inner chamfered springing from moulded
corbels with large dog-tooth ornament in the
hollows. In one of the members of the north
corbel a small nail-headed ornament also occurs.
The two lower stages of the tower are now
blank on the north and south sides, but on the
south side there was formerly a window now
blocked. The low third stage has a small
square-headed window, and the belfry windows
are pointed openings of two cinquefoiled lights
except on the east side, where the heads of the
lights are plain. There is no vice, access to the
upper stages being gained by a ladder.

The baptistery is in the tower, the font con-
sisting of a rough circular sandstone bowl,
2 ft. 9 in. in diameter, of 13th-century date, on
a circular shaft and square base.

In the south-east corner of the chancel is a
wooden effigy, on a modern wood tomb, repre-
senting John Heath of Kcpier, who died in 1591
and was buried in the chancel. The figure,
which suffered much in 1843, is in armour, with
the head uncovered but resting on a tilting
helmet, with the crest (a cock's head) attached
by a wreath. The hands are in prayer and the
feet rest on a scroll enfolding two skulls and
inscribed ' Hodie michi. Cras tibi.''-

Below the tower is a fragment of a coped
gravestone with tegulated ornament, but another
more interesting slab with floriated calvary cross
and the symbol of a large pair of shears across
the stem has disappeared.'^

There is a ring of three bells. The oldest is
probably of 14th-century date and is inscribed
in Lombardic letters ' Campana Sancti Egidii.'
The second dates perhaps from the i6th century
and bears the inscription in Gothic characters,

'^ The figure is illustrated and described in detail
in Fryer, Wooden Monumental Effigies, 32 and 42 ;
also Jrchaologia, Lxi, 518, 528. 'This effigy is truly
wooden in every sense of the word. . . . We are at once
reminded of Don Quixote when we behold it.'

'^ It is figured in Trans. Dur. and North. Arch. Soc.
i, 132. In the same place it is recorded that ' a very
interesting vesica, representing in low relief the
Saviour sitting in judgment, was in the church but
... in 1829 the rector of St. Mary-the-Less carried it
off and stuck it over the vestry door of that church.
. . . The stone was found face downwards doing duty
as the lowest step of the pulpit of St. Giles.'

CITY OF DURHAM

* 4 Sancta Maria ora pro nobis. IHC The
third is dated 1640 and is inscribed ' Soli Deo
Gloria ' and with various initials.'*

The plate'* consists of a chalice and cover
paten of 1638 with the maker's mark W W,
the chalice inscribed round the bottom ' Remem-
ber John Hethe Esq the third and last of
Keepeyre : 1638' and the cover ' Desember
the 25th 1638 ' ; a standing paten made by Eli
Bilton of Newcastle in 1728, inscribed ' The Gift
of Mrs. Jane Lightley to Gilleygate Church ' ;
a flagon made by John Langlands of Newcastle,
1772, inscribed ' Presented to the Ancient
Parish Church of St. Giles, Durham, by Frances
Anne Vane, Marchioness of Londonderry,
heiress of Heath, Sept. 1845 ' ; and a chalice of
1889 'Presented by R. J. P., Easter 1889 St.
Giles Church Durham,' a copy, but smaller,
of that of 1638."

The registers begin in 1584," and the church-
wardens' accounts in 1664.

The Church of ST. GILES
ADVOWSON was founded by Ranulph
Flambard in 1 114, and appro-
priated to the Hospital of Kepier. No vicarage
was ordained and probably the church was
served by one of the priests of the hospital.
At the Dissolution the church passed with other
property of this foundation to the Crown. In
1553 the church and rectory were sold'* to
John Cockburn, lord of Ormiston, who conveyed
it to John Heath, and thus the advowson passed
by the marriage of Elizabeth, daughter and heir
of John Heath, in 1642 to the Tempest family,
in which it descended to the Marquess of Lon-
donderry. On 6 December 191 3 the patronage
was conveyed by the Marquess of Londonderry
to the Dean and Chapter of Durham.

In connection with the church there existed
a Gild of St. Giles, the gross yearly value '•
at the Dissolution being estimated at £j js. 2d.
and the clear value, less reprises, at ^^5 14/. \id.
There was also an obit of John Smith of the
yearly value of 4/. gross and 3/. less reprises.

Some account of the Hospital of St. Mary
Magdalene has been given elsewhere. The
chapel here was accounted a parochial church,

'■• Proc. Soc. Ant. {Ntwc), iii, 196. The initials on
the third bell are AE, RT, RO, MD. In 1552 there
were ' three bells in the steeple.' Inv. of Ch. Gds.
(Surt. Soc.) 142.

'° Proc. Soc. Ant. {Newc), iii, 432.

" The donor was Mr. R. J. Pearce.

" Extracts are printed in Mem. of St. Giles
(Sun. Soc. xcv), 123-160.

" Pat. 6 Edw. VI, pt. 7, no. 24.

" Injunctions and Eccl. Proc. Bp. Barnes (Surt. Soc),
App. vi, p. Ixiij. A slightly earUer survey gives a
gross value of ^6 15/. od. and a clear value of
X4 11^. 8|i. Chantry Certificate, Durham Roll 18,
no. 6s.

for it was so described in a licence of Bishop
Nevill to the Prior and Convent in 1449 to
remove and rebuild the church on a safer and
more convenient site. The new church was
consecrated*" in 1451. After the dissolution
of the monastery of Durham the Dean and
Chapter provided the stipend of the incumbent.
Institutions to the rectory are found to the 17th
century,*^ but after the Restoration service was
discontinued owing to the ruinous state of the
church, the rector's stipend being transferred
to the librarian of the Chapter. The old church-
yard was turned into a garden in 1822.

In 1448 we hear of a plot near the castle wall
and possibly in the parish of St. Mary le Bow,
where had been lately built ' a house called
" Mawdelyngyldhous." '^

The ecclesiastical parish of Belmont was
formed in 1852** and the advowson of the
vicarage is in the alternate gift of the Crown
and of the Dean and Chapter of Durham.

The origin of the GiUigate
CHARITIES Church Estate is unknown,
except that some portion of
the property would appear to be derived from
the Hospital of St. Giles or Kepyer. It consists
of 15 a. 3 r. 33 p. of land with houses thereon,
situate at Gilesgate, and of the annual rental
value of about X^oo, and £5,090 gs. lod. consols,
producing £127 f,s. 4^. yearly, and £495 13/. ^d.
5 per cent. War Stock, producing £24 15/. id.
yearly. The income is applicable under a
scheme of the Court of Chancery, 28 February
1866, and later became regulated by a scheme of
the Charity Commissioners of 6 October 1922.
Out of the income of this estate fund ;^I50 is
paid yearly to the official receivers for investment
to form the Estate Improvement Fund. The re-
maining income of this estate fund is applicable as
to one part to the trustees of the St. Giles School
Fund, one part to the Belmont School Fund,
four parts to the parish church of St. Giles and
two parts to the parish church of St. Mary Mag-
dalene, Belmont. This charity is also possessed
of a fund called the Chantry Fund, consisting of
^^5,633 8/. id. 2i per cent, consols, representing
the proceeds of sale of a property known as the
Legge's Tenement, otherwise ' The Woodman '
public house, the net income of which is appHc-
able, in equal moieties, in the parish of St. Giles
and district of Belmont, towards providing a
curate to assist the respective incumbents. The
charity further has a fund called St. Giles'
Income, which comprises the sums of ^^400
5 per cent. National War Bonds (1928) and
2^240 lOJ. lod. 5 per cent. War Stock, standing
to an account with the official trustees entitled

**> Surtees, Dur. iv, 69.

82 Surtees, Dur. iv, 37 n.f.

** Lond. Gaz. 10 Feb. 1852, p. 370.

81 Ibid.

189

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

the ' St. Giles Fabric Fund.' The income, which
includes the dividends on the stocks standing to
the Fabric Fund and the four parts from the
Estate Fund, is applicable in the maintenance
and repairs of the fabric and internal fittings of
the church, upkeep of churchyard and in warm-
ing and cleaning the church. Under another
fund of this charity the official trustees hold ;^250
5 per cent. National War Bonds (1928) and
^^546 Ss. yd. 5 per cent. War Stock to an account
entitled ' Belmont Church Repair Fund,' the
income from which, with the two parts from the
Estate Fund, is applicable in the maintenance
and repairs of the fabric and internal fittings of
the church and in warming and cleaning the
church. In 1572 John Frankelyn by his will
gave 8/. 4(i. yearly to the poor of Belmont : this
sum is received from the Corporation of New-
castle. In 1675 Francis Callaghan by his will
gave igs. yearly in sums of is. to the poor of
St. Giles, charged upon premises in Sadler Street.
The annuities are distributed to the poor at
Christmas. The charity of Jane Finney, founded
by will dated 14 November 1728, and proved at
Durham, gave ^^830 17/. 11^. consols, produc-
ing j^20 15/. j^d. yearly. The income is applied
in moieties for the benefit of the poor of St.
Giles and Belmont, by providing them with
clothes, bedding, fuel, medical or other aid in
sickness, food, and other articles in kind.

The charity of Jane Smith, founded by
will 14 July 1785, and proved at Durham, is
regulated by scheme of Charity Commissioners
dated 17 March 1903. The original bequest

of £60 was invested in £75 consols, which has
been increased to ;^492 js. iid. consols by
investment of accumulations from time to time.
The income amounting to j{^i2 6s. yearly is
applicable under the scheme in prizes to
children attending Public Elementary Schools,
and in exhibitions for pupil teachers in Public
Elementary Schools.

In 1882 William Cassidi, by his will, proved
at Durham, gave ^40, the interest arising there-
from to be applied in tracts for circulation
in the p.irish. The endowment consists of
;^3S 41. 4<i. consols, producing ijs. ^d. yearly.
The sums of stock are held by the official
trustees.

The Ecclesiastical District of Belmont is
entitled to ^th of the income from the Gilligate
Church Estate applicable for church purposes.
The official trustees also hold a sum of
;^594 6s. gd. consols, producing ^14 17/. yearly,
in trust for this branch of the trust.

The National School, founded by deed
5 November 1870, is also entitled to Jth of the
income of the same estate.

One moiety of the income of the property
known as the Legge's Tenement (see under St.
Giles' Parish) is payable to the curate of this
district.

By her will proved 25 April 1919 Margaret
Brown gave X^oo, the income to be applied in
augmentation of the stipend of the curate of
St. Giles Church. The money was invested in
;£i,i98 6s. lid. 2i per cent, consols, with the
official trustees, producing ;^29 19/. yearly.

190

TOPOGRAPHY

STOCKTON WARD

The ward of Stockton included in 1831 the parishes of

BILLINGHAM

BISHOP MIDDLEHAM

BISHOPTON

CRAYKE

LOW DINSDALE

EGGLESCLIFFE

ELTON

ELWICK HALL

GREATHAM

GRINDON

HART

HARTLEPOOL

HURWORTH

MIDDLETON ST. GEORGE

LONG NEWTON

NORTON

REDMARSHALL

SEDGEFIELD

SOCKBURN

STAINTON

STOCKTON

STRANTON

The townships of Coatham Mundeville and Sadberge in the parish of
Haughton le Skerne (which is in Darlington Ward) are also part of Stockton.
The parish of Crayke is locally in Yorkshire, and has been united to that
county for all purposes since 1844.^ The townships of Girsby and Over
Dinsdale in Sockburn parish are in Yorkshire.

Stockton Ward seems to have been formed late in the thirteenth or early
in the fourteenth century. In 1293 the bishop had only three wards in the
liberty of Durham,^ and it has been pointed out elsewhere that these were
probably Darlington, Chester and Easington.^ In 1303 the four coroners
of the bishop are mentioned.* If, as seems probable, one of these belonged
to the wapentake of Sadberge, Stockton Ward was not then provided with
its principal officer. In 1308 the 'quarter' of Stockton appears in the
accounts of the bishopric,^ and in January 1343-4 an inquiry took place
before the coroner of the ward of Stockton.^ At that date the ward included
the parishes of Bishop Middleham, Billingham, Bishopton,' Grindon, Norton,
Redmarshall, Sedgefield, Sockburn and Stockton. The remaining parishes,
lying in two blocks, one in the north-east and the other in the south-west of
the modern ward, belonged to the wapentake of Sadberge, which till 1189
was part of the county of Northumberland. ^ The wapentake included
the parishes of Hart, Hartlepool, Greatham,^ Stranton, Elwick Hall, Stainton,

1 Stat. 7 & 8 Vict. cap. 61.

2 Plac. de Quo JVarr. (Rec. Com.), 604.

' Spearman {Inquiry into the State of the County Palatine, 48) states this as a fact.

* Reg. Palat. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 558-9.

* Boldon Bk. (Surt. Soc), App. p. x.xvi.

" Reg. Palat. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 370.

' The township of Nevvbiggin in Bishopton belonged to Sadberge.

8 Testa de Nevill (Rec. Com.), 395 ; Northumb. Assize R. (Surt. Soc), 354.

* Except the township of Claxton (q.v.).

191

A HISTORY OF DURHAM

Elton, Long Newton, EgglesclifFe, Middleton St. George, Low Dinsdale,
Hurworth with the townships of Coatham Mundeville and Sadberge.^" The
parish of Coniscliffe," now in Darlington Ward, also belonged to it, as did
Gainford with its barony, though the latter developed an organization of its
own which rendered it independent of wards and wapentakes.^^

When Sadberge was purchased from Richard I by Bishop Hugh Pudsey

i H „

\.* ^

• 'mi^'-imf *•••■

SEDCfFIELD

•. ELWICK
*• HALL

•;vrAISTON'. X? '. .
' .♦^,/le STREEJ.',"*^^'.**

*«llf • ^••'* * ^^ KEP /

/, ^ •' .' MARSHALL/'

', BISHOPTON •, ,•* ,

4. *^V ••■■":'"" '■•" STOCKTON ^^

* ./' •••.elt„n\ ™ --^

K r '••5i •• .•••■•. ■f"^

i •••••• .'

. LONG NEWTON I

-•'••••.. .•••"■■ ',

.'• MIDOLETON ; • ^

• ^ •!■?:« . I.EORGE ; ECCLESCLlTfl '*; »

.# :.••-•••.. : ^*'*'»-

' :2; ; • •• »

I- '" HURWORTH '.%* '• \ : «• /

**. 1 • ^ • '-'r. ■ ■ •

■^ V *»*'*»**! socsburn/"

J';--.^f^^^^^

Index Map to the Ward of Stockton

nearly all the land in the wapentake was held by free tenants.^^ It did not
therefore fit easily into the organization of the palatinate. For some time
it was regarded as a separate county, in which the bishop had the same regal
authority as he had in his county of Durham. There seems to have been

*• This list is compiled from the Inquisitions post mortem {Dep. Keeper's Rep. xliv-v). See
also Testa de Nevill (Rec. Com.), 395.
^ Ibid.

'^ Cf. Dep. Keeper's Rep. xxxvi, App. i, 48.
" Cal. Chart. 1300-26, pp. 393-4. See under the different vills.

192

STOCKTON WARD

a separate sheriff for Sadberge at least till 131 1/* and after that date, though
only a single sheriff was appointed for Durham and Sadberge, he was regarded
as holding two offices.^^ The escheator had similarly a double office, and
separate inquisitions were held at Sadberge for lands within the wapentake
down to the late fifteenth century. i" Places were described as * in the county
of Sadberge ' as late as 1435,^'' and there are references to the county court of
Sadberge down to 1576.^^ The bishop's justices in Eyre sat at Sadberge as
well as at Durham till about the same date,i^ but both the county court and the
assize court at Sadberge had lost their importance in the sixteenth century.^o
After 1 576 the separate county organization disappeared, though the whole
county was officially .known as 'Durham and Sadberge' till 1836, when
the double name was abolished oy Act of Parliament. ^i

While Sadberge was thus in some aspects a separate county, in others
it was on a level with the wards. In 1344 commissioners were appointed for
the levying of an assessment in the wards of Darlington, Stockton, Chester
and Easington and the east and west wards of Sadberge.-- This division
of the wapentake into two wards seems to have ceased after the fourteenth
century. It had from the thirteenth century its own coroner, whose functions
corresponded in most respects to those of the coroners of the wards,-^ though
the financial duties of the coroner ^^ seem to have been performed by the
bailiff of the wapentake.^^ Separate commissions of array for Sadberge were
issued down to the late fifteenth century at least. ^^ In 1497 it was called a ward,
and its coroner acted with those of the other four wards and the bailiff of
Barnard Castle and Gainford in the arrangements for the passage of the king's
army. 2'

The connexion of Sadberge with Stockton Ward began on the financial
side. As early as 1 4 1 3 the account of the bailiff of the wapentake was attached
t