Chapter VIII: Part 8

The outer wall has two gateways, one on the east, and the other on the west side, leading into the courtyard. Both are defended by machicolated galleries above, the parapet being carried outwards on double corbels. The whole wall is defended by a broad battlement with a high parapet round the top. There are embrasures at intervals, each originally defended by movable shutters; a round socket on one side, and a slot on the other, remain to show where the pivots moved. A number of round holes in the walls were intended to support woodwork on which platforms could be erected, thus enabling the garrison to strike at attackers below.

Each angle of this outer or curtain wall was originally strengthened by a bartizan. Three of these were circular, but one, that at the north-west corner, was pulled down in the early days of last century. The fourth bartizan, that at the south-west corner of the wall, is almost square in shape, with the outer walls projecting and resting on corbels. It contains a guardroom, with a fireplace, and two doors opening on to the adjoining battlements. The south-east bartizan also contains a room, circular in shape, with a loopholed wall. About a century ago the castle was unfortunately damaged by fire. It was afterwards restored by Mr. J. T. H. Hopper, the owner.

Tracing the river eastwards, the ancient home and palace of the Bishops and Lords Palatine stands close to the river and to the east of Auckland town.

Robert de Graystanes, one of the early chroniclers, states that Bishop Anthony Bek erected the manor-house at Auckland, but from several entries in the Boldon Book it is evident that the Bishops had a residence there at the time that record was drawn up.

The existing buildings are extensive, and are approached from the market-place through a castellated gateway. One of the most prominent and interesting features is the chapel, which was originally the great hall. It was adapted for its present purpose and consecrated by Bishop Cosin. Prior to the great Civil War, there were two chapels, variously referred to, and as early as 1338, as the major and the minor. One of these was over the other, and they stood to the south of the castle proper, near to a postern which opened on to a road outside the park. When for a while the Episcopal Church was abolished by a Puritan Government, and the old story of spiteful spoliation began, Auckland Palace was sold to Sir Arthur Heslerigg for £6,102 8s. 11½d. This redoubtable worthy appears to have dismantled a considerable portion of the buildings. He blew up the chapels,[11] and commenced to alter the place to suit his own ideas.

It seems probable that Sir Arthur left his projected buildings in an unfinished state, for when Bishop Cosin came to his diocese at the Restoration, he wrote that the castle "had been pul’d down and ruined." The Bishop commenced an extensive restoration, and a number of interesting letters and agreements have been preserved showing the progress made.

As it now stands, the chapel is divided into nave and aisles by arcades, each of four bays. The supporting pillars are clearly those described by Leland, who, speaking of the great hall, says: "There be divers pillars of black marble speckled with white." Each pillar consists of four clustered cylindrical shafts, two being of Weardale marble, and two of freestone. The four pillars nearest the west are banded half-way up, and the capitals of the two western pillars are carved with foliage, the north-western showing also the spiral scroll or volute. The capitals of the other pillars and the bases of all are moulded, the latter resting on square plinths.

The arches are richly moulded, and have labels terminating in carved ornaments. They rest at the east end on responds of three clustered shafts, two of marble, and one of freestone, with moulded capitals and bases. At the west end the arches rest on highly ornamental corbels. Each of the latter consists in its lower portion of two carved heads, the northernmost being of Bishops wearing mitres, and the southern of crowned Kings. From within the mitres and crowns rise dwarfed shafts with Late Transitional foliage carved on the bells. Each capital is surmounted with a square moulded abacus, on which rest the bases of a triplet of dwarfed, clustered shafts corresponding to those in the piers of the arcades. In the spandrels between the arches, on both sides, are carved corbels; those on the inner side carry single cylindrical shafts surmounted by moulded capitals, and originally carried the pendant posts of the roof. The outer corbels supported the rafters of the aisle roofs. There is now but little doubt that this portion of the building was erected by Bishop Pudsey.

Bishop Hatfield made further improvements, inserting the windows still existing. At a much later period, as already mentioned, Bishop Cosin altered and restored the castle, which he appears to have made his favourite residence. He certainly took great delight and pride in improving his country home. Most of the fine woodwork in the chapel is his work--the roof, mouldings, and the great screen at the west end being particularly noteworthy.

Since his time the chapel has been but little altered. Bishop Van Mildert refloored it, and Bishop Lightfoot erected a new reredos, and filled most of the windows with stained glass.

The other portions of the castle have been considerably modernized, and bear but little resemblance to Pennant’s picture of it. The room which he describes as "below stairs," and having painted on the old wainscot "the arms of a strange assemblage of potentates, from Queen Elizabeth, with all the European princes, to the Emperors of Abissinia, Bildelgerid, Carthage, and Tartaria, sixteen peers of the same reign, knights of the garter, and above

them the arms of every bishoprick in England," is now used as the housekeeper’s storeroom.

The wing containing the servants’ hall (on the ceiling of which is a plaster shield of Bishop Tunstall’s arms) and the dining-room was commenced by Bishop Ruthall, and completed by the former prelate. The arms of both Bishops appear on the exterior of the building. Adjoining this wing to the west is another of some length, still known by the curious name of _Scotland_, and undoubtedly erected by Tunstall. No very satisfactory reason has been offered for the derivation of its name.

Brancepeth Castle stands within a mile from the River Wear, a little to the south of the village of the same name. There was undoubtedly a castle there in the twelfth century, towards the end of which it passed, by the marriage of Emma, widow of Peter de Valoignes, and only child of Bertram de Bulmer, to Geoffrey de Neville, from the former to the latter family.

The present castle is stated by Leland to have been erected by Ralph, first Earl of Westmorland. It was defended north and east by a moat; south and west the walls rise from a rock nearly forty feet in height. The original gateway, defended by a portcullis and flanked by square towers, stood on the site of the present gate, and was approached from the north. It has been destroyed. It opened directly into the courtyard, south-west of which are the residential parts of the castle.

There were, when Hutchinson wrote, four towers, closely conjoined. Three of these remain, containing respectively the dining-room, saloon, and the baron’s hall. The destroyed tower stood north of the last mentioned, but was not so high. It contained three stories, and was probably, as Mr. Boyle has suggested, the great hall.

The projecting angles of the towers are surmounted by small turrets, eight in number, the arrangement consisting of two sides rising directly from the sides of the buttresses on which they are built, whilst the other two are machicolated, the parapets resting on corbels.

Two other towers now standing at either end of the billiard-room are respectively used as the chapel and the library. The castle possesses a number of other interesting features.

Amongst the pictures is one by Hogarth, painted for the first Viscount Boyne, and representing several members of the _Hell-fire Club_. They are supposed to have assembled in a wine-cellar, and resolved not to part until its contents have been consumed. Sir Philip Hoby is depicted sitting on a cask of claret. Immediately behind him, with his hand held up, is Mr. De Grey, and below him is Lord John Cavendish, who has drawn a spigot from the cask to let the wine flow into a bowl. Lord Sandwich is kneeling down, holding a bottle to his mouth. Lord Galway lies extended on a form, in such a position that the liquor from a cask above him is flowing into his mouth. The arrangement of the four central figures is a clever imitation of a statue of _Charity_ shown in the cellar.

There is some fine armour in the present and modern great hall, amongst others a suit richly inlaid in gold, and traditionally said to have been taken from the Scottish King after the Battle of Neville’s Cross, although really it is of Elizabethan date.

The existing castle in Durham City, long the principal seat of the Episcopal Princes, largely helps, with its frowning walls and grim battlements, standing side by side with the cathedral, to make Durham one of the most picturesque cities in this country.

The castle is approached from the north-west corner of the Palace Green, a short avenue leading to the gateway, which was modernized by Bishop Barrington. The iron-bound gates were placed there by Bishop Tunstall, and one of them contains a wicket which is the subject of one of Spearman’s amusing anecdotes. He states that Bishop Crewe had been pressing Dr. Grey, Rector of Bishopwearmouth, and Dr. Morton, Rector of Boldon, to read King James’s declaration for a dispensing power in their parish churches. Both declined and began to argue against it, when the Bishop appears to have lost his temper. He told Dr. Grey that his age made him dote, and that he had forgotten his learning. "The good old Doctor briskly replied he had forgott more learning than his Lordship ever had. ‘Well,’ said the Bishop, ‘I’ll forgive and reverence you, but cannot pardon that blockhead Morton, whom I raised from nothing.’ They thereupon took their leave of the Bishop, who with great civility waited upon them towards the gate, and ye porter opening ye wikett or posterne only, ye Bishop said, ‘Sirrah, why don’t you open ye great gates?’ ‘No,’ says ye Reverend Dr. Grey, ‘my Lord, wee’le leave _ye broad way_ to your lordship, _ye strait way_ will serve us.’"

The gateway leads directly into the courtyard. A door and flight of steps in the wall to the left leads into the Fellows’ Garden, formerly the private garden of the Bishops, through which they could enter Bishop Cosin’s library.

Crossing the court to the left, the first building approached is partly of early Norman date, with additions by Bishop Fox, and a later restoration by Bishop Cosin, whose arms, impaling the see, are upon the front. It is now used entirely as students’ quarters.

A portico farther along the court leads into the great hall, erected by Bishop Anthony Bek. The hall measures 101 feet long by 35 feet wide, and was restored somewhere about 1850.

The window at the north end was filled with stained glass in 1882 to commemorate the jubilee of the University.

The walls are hung with paintings, and include:

1. A collection of thirteen portraits of English Archbishops and Bishops, said to have been made by Bishop Cosin.

2. Ten pictures of the Apostles, which were taken at St. Mary’s, in Spain, in the expedition under the Duke of Ormond, and purchased by the Dean and Chapter in 1753.

3. A number of portraits of prebendaries and professors.

4. Portraits of Charles I., Bishop Cosin, and Charles II.

On the same wall as the last-mentioned portraits the banners of the Durham local volunteer companies, raised to defend the country at the time of Napoleon’s threatened invasion, are suspended.

A door at the north end of the hall leads to Bishop Cosin’s great staircase, which is most handsomely carved.

At the foot of the staircase a corridor, the woodwork of which originally formed part of the same Bishop’s choir screen in the cathedral, may be entered.

The staircase itself, however, leads more directly to Bishop Tunstall’s Gallery, and to several apartments, from one of which a door opens upon the terrace on the north side of the castle.

Tunstall’s Gallery contains several objects of interest, and the walls are covered with sixteenth-century tapestry.

Here also is the magnificent Norman doorway erected by Bishop Pudsey as the entrance to his lower hall. From its position and the weathering of the stonework, it is supposed to have originally been approached by a stairway from the court; the case at the top must have been roofed with open arcades at the sides.

The present Senate-room of the University contains some good tapestry, illustrating the life of Moses, and dating from the sixteenth century. This room also contains a handsome carved fireplace, armorially decorated, and evidently the work of Bishop James. In the centre are the Royal Arms, Garter, and Motto. On either side are the arms of the Palatinate impaling the Bishop’s dolphin and cross-crosslets, with the James’s motto, "Dei Gratia Sum quod Sum."

The adjoining anteroom contains several paintings, including portraits of King James II. and his Queen, Mary of Modena.

Leaving the county town behind, the picturesque outlines of Lumley Castle may be seen for some miles from the train journeying to Newcastle. It is situated about a mile from Chester-le-Street, but on the opposite bank of the Wear. The place is first mentioned by Styr, the son of Ulf, in a list of gifts made to St. Cuthbert.

The castle is supposed to have been erected by Sir Ralph Lumley, who obtained licences from Richard II. and Bishop Skirlaw to embattle his house of Lumley. It is in arrangement a square courtyard, surrounded by a quadrangle. Two of the fronts, the south and north, measure 65 yards 1 foot in length, the other two 58 yards and 1 foot. Oblong towers, of greater height than the main portions of each front, from which they project, strengthen and guard each corner. The most exterior angle of each tower is capped by a buttress.

The west front is the oldest existing portion of the castle, and is supposed to have been the Lumley manor-house, before Sir Ralph extended and added to it.

Originally the east side of it, that looking into the courtyard, was the principal front, and in its centre the gateway, flanked by semi-octagonal turrets, may still be seen. The front of the gateway is formed of two arches, the outer segmental headed, and the inner one pointed. Between these is the groove wherein the portcullis ran. The arch leads to a vaulted passage which entered the original courtyard. On the north side of the passage is a pointed doorway, leading into a narrow corridor, having a latrine at its east end, and connected originally with the gatekeeper’s room.

The present gateway is in the centre of the east front, and has incorporated with it an earlier round-headed archway, with semi-octagonal jambs and moulded imposts. On either side of it is a square turret, surmounted by octagonal machicolated parapets, the alternate sides of which are embrasured.

The turrets are joined by a machicolated gallery, defended by a battlemented parapet. Above the door are six sculptured coats of arms. Between the two highest, Neville and Percy, is the royal coat of Richard II. Below is the Lumley coat, having on the sinister side the arms of Grey, and on the dexter the coat of Hilton. The shields are all surmounted by the respective family crests.

A room on the south side of the gateway contains in its centre a flag, which on being raised leaves open the entrance to a vaulted chamber about 10 feet square and some 16 feet deep. From the existence of a latrine, and a little ventilation from a small unglazed loophole looking into the courtyard, it seems to have been intended as a safe place for the custody of prisoners.

In the north-east tower are two rooms, divided by a modern partition, and showing evidence that they originally formed the private chapel of the family. The south-east tower contains on its second floor the state bedroom, in which King James I. is said to have slept when he visited Lumley.

In the north-west tower is the famous kitchen, which Howitt described as "one of the most stupendous, lofty, and every way remarkable kitchens in the kingdom." The south-west tower contains the banqueting-hall, celebrated for its very fine stuccoed ceiling, part of the work initiated by Richard, second Earl of Scarborough.

Between the towers on the west side the main building forms the baron’s, or great, hall, which probably remained unaltered from the time of Sir Ralph to the early days of the century before last. The fireplace is the work of John, Lord Lumley, and is decorated with the family arms, impaling FitzAlan. Here also is a large equestrian statue, representing Liulph, a traditional ancestor of the house. There are also a series of interesting family portraits.

Not far from Lumley, Lambton Castle stands on the northern and opposite bank of the river. The original home of the Lambton family was, however, on the same bank as Lumley. According to an old view, it was a double house of stone, with flanking, gabled wings, and the grounds laid out in parterres and terraces. It remained the residence of the family, until it was dismantled in 1797 by William Henry Lambton, who had adopted Harraton Hall as the family seat.[12]

The present Lambton Castle[13] stands on the site and incorporates portions of the original building of Harraton Hall, a manor-house erected about the year 1600. Very considerable additions were made to this hall by William Henry Lambton, grandfather of the late Lord Durham, from designs by the elder Bonomi, in the Italian style. The first Lord Durham also made considerable alterations and additions to the building from plans furnished by Bonomi, the general appearance of the mansion being entirely changed. The south front is in the Tudor style and castellated, and the north is Norman.

The great hall is panelled, and the windows are glazed with richly stained glass, containing a representation of "Ye Legend of the Worme of Lambton," and also the heraldic emblems of the family. The dimensions of the hall are 94 feet by 36 feet, being larger than St. Stephen’s Hall, Westminster. The principal staircase leading out of the hall, communicating with the upper apartments, is 24 feet wide and 36 feet high. East of the hall is the dining-room and west is the drawing-room, abutting on the terraces of the west lawn.

Owing to the subsidence of the hill on which the castle stands, through some old colliery workings underneath falling in, the castle had become, when the second Earl succeeded to the estates, insecure. To meet this, and strengthen the foundations, the workings, two seams deep, round the castle, to the extent of 4½ acres, were filled up with débris. Three seams lower still were bricked up, over 10,000,000 bricks being used, and in several instances in the fourth seam the brickwork exceeded 30 feet in height.

Hilton Castle, like Lambton, stands on the north bank of the River Wear, on a gentle slope commanding an extensive view of the valley to the west.

The present building, a melancholy-looking tower, is only the gatehouse of the original castle. It is first mentioned in the inquisition post-mortem of William de Hilton in 1435, when it is described as "a house constructed of stone, called the Yethouse." The intention of the original builder, the William just mentioned, was evidently to erect an extensive mansion on a similar scale, but there is sufficient evidence to show that he never completed the work.

That there were other buildings probably surrounding a courtyard is proved by various inventories. In 1559, after the death of Sir Thomas Hilton, an inventory of his effects mentions the great chamber, the green chamber, the middle and new chambers, the gallery, the wardrobe, the parlour, the chamber over the hall door, and various out-buildings, such as the brewhouse, buttery, and the barns. The tower is mentioned separately, and the term evidently applies to the existing building.

These surrounding buildings were probably removed by John Hilton, who early in the eighteenth century built

a large wing in the Italian style against the north end of the gatehouse. This erection was three stories in height, having pedimented windows in the two lower floors, and square-headed windows in the story above. John Hilton also, to some extent, spoiled the ancient gatehouse by inserting a number of similar pedimented windows in it. His son, the last of the male line to own Hilton, and also named John, added a similar south wing. Both these wings were castellated--at any rate, on the east front.

The castle passed by descent to the Musgraves, and afterwards by successive sales to the Bowes and Briggs families, and again within the last year or two to the Monkwearmouth Colliery Company.

As it now stands, the tower presents a bold and picturesque outline. It is divided, on the west front, into three bays by projecting, square-shaped turrets. The main entrance is through the central bay, over which is a fine array of heraldry. Immediately beneath the arcade, the elaborately carved and projecting canopies of which fell in 1882, is a banner and staff of the Royal Arms of France and England _temp._ Henry V. Beneath the banner are the arms of Neville, Vesci, and Percy, and amongst other coats represented are those of the families of Lumley, Grey, Eure, Washington, Felton, Heron, Surtees, and Bowes. On the right-hand turret, close to the entrance, beneath a canopy, is a large banner of the Hilton arms. The east front shows a curious sculpture of the family badge, _a roebuck collared and chained_. Below is the family coat, accompanied with their curious crest--_the head of Moses, horned with triple rays_.

The battlements are exceedingly picturesque and decorated with numerous statued figures, one of which apparently represents the slayer of the Lambton Worm.

The ancient family chapel stands in a semi-ruinous condition a little to the north of the castle.

Ravensworth Castle was erected towards the end of the thirteenth century, and has belonged successively to the Fitz-Marmadukes, Lumleys, Boyntons, Gascoignes, and Liddells. It originally consisted of four towers, one standing at each angle of a courtyard and joined by curtain walls. Two of these towers still stand and form part of the present castle, which was erected shortly after 1808, from designs by Nash. It may be added that the castle was formerly known as Ravenshelm, Ravensworth being the name of the adjoining village. Not far from the castle, and near to the road leading to the north entrance, is an old cross commonly known as the "Butter Cross." It is stated that the country people left their produce here for the citizens of Newcastle to take when that city was infested by the plague in the sixteenth century.

A few miles to the west, Gibside, a seat of the Earl of Strathmore, stands in an exceedingly picturesque position. A terrace at the back of the house stands above a sheer descent to an exceedingly wild glen. The older portions of the building were erected by Sir William Blakiston, who had inherited the estate from his grandmother, an heiress of the Marley family, in the reign of James I. Over the entrance are the Royal Arms, and the arms of Blakiston and Marley quarterly with the initials W. I. B. for Sir William and his wife Jane Lambton. There is also an interesting sundial inscribed with the motto _Ut hora, sic vita_. The old drawing-room has a large fireplace, with figures of Samson and Hercules at either side, and above a further heraldic display of the family alliances.

There are four baronial mansions lying between the Wear and the Tees.

Barnard Castle, once a residence of the princely house of Baliol, has for long years been a ruin.

Originally erected by Bernard de Baliol, son of Guy de Baliol, Lord of Bailleul en Vimeu in Picardy, and founder also of Baynard’s Castle in London, it passed on the attainder of his descendant John Baliol, sometime King of Scotland, in 1296 to Bishop Bek. A few years later Edward I. severed the Durham fees of Bruce and Baliol from the control of the Palatinate and granted Barnard Castle to the Beauchamps. By marriage the estate passed to the Nevilles, and by marriage again to the Crown. Later it passed to the Vanes, who hold it still. The castle, which was of some size and great strength, stands in a commanding position above the River Tees. A great portion of the remaining buildings dates from Norman times. One of the towers is still known as the Brackenbury Tower, evidently deriving its name from the family of the famous Constable of the Tower of London. The castle is also associated with Richard III., whose badge of "the hog" occurs in one of the rooms.

Not far from Barnard, Streatlam Castle stands in a valley between that town and Raby. It has remained the property of the descendants of the owners in the twelfth century to this day, although it has passed by marriage successively to the Traynes, Boweses, and Lyons. The existing castle includes some portions of the structure erected by old Sir William Bowes. This Sir William is stated on the death of his young wife Jane, daughter of Lord Greystock, under the age of twenty, to have gone to the wars in France, where for some years he was Chamberlain to the Regent, the Duke of Bedford. Sometime about 1450 he pulled down the older castle at Streatlam, and erected a new one from designs he had brought from France. His arms are on the north front of the castle, which has been altered frequently since his time. A good portion of it was pulled down by William Blakiston Bowes, who died in 1721, leaving his alterations incomplete.

Raby Castle, one of the finest baronial piles in the North of England, and for many centuries the great seat of the princely house of Neville, would require, to deal with it in justice, more pages than a volume of limited space can afford. A few of its leading features must, however, be mentioned. Portions of the present building were erected by Ralph, Lord Neville, one of the commanders at Neville’s Cross, who died in 1367. His son John carried on the work, and in 1378 obtained a licence from Bishop Hatfield to embattle and crenellate his manor-house at Raby. In aspect the castle consists of buildings forming a rough square, with towers projecting from three of the corners, the whole enclosing a courtyard. The four outer sides face the cardinal points. Some distance from the main building, a wall 30 feet high with a deep moat on its outer side entirely enclosed it. The main entrance is guarded by a large tower thrown forward in a flanking position, rendering the approach exceedingly difficult to an opposing force. This building is known as Clifford’s Tower. At the south end of a curtain wall running southwards stands the Watch Tower, which has, however, been considerably modernized. Adjoining the great gatehouse,

which is the work of at least two builders, is the tower which Leland says bears the name of Joan, wife of the first Earl of Westmorland. East of Joan’s Tower is another stretch of curtain wall now containing the drawing-rooms, and terminating at Bulmer’s Tower, an interesting building in shape an irregular pentagon. On the upper story of this tower is the badge of the builder, a large Old English <f>b</f>, doubtless like the bull, their other badge, derived from the Bulmers.

A block of modern buildings adjoining the Bulmer Tower adjoins a tower, from which a corridor enters the great hall, 90 feet long and 35 feet wide. Close to the hall is the kitchen, which has been preserved in all its original quaintness. Over a passage leading from the east side of the great hall is the chapel. A short curtain wall connects this portion of the building with the Mount Raskelf Tower, evidently named after a manor owned by the Nevilles in Yorkshire. It is rather curious to observe that the Christian names Ralph and Henry, which occur so frequently in old northern families, are the predominating names respectively of the great houses of Neville and Percy.

Walworth Castle, a large, picturesque old house, was erected by the Jenisons in or about the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The north front, flanked by two projecting wings, has a centre three stories high terminating in a balustraded parapet. The south front has a circular tower at each end. The windows were originally decorated with fine old painted glass of heraldic design, which has been almost entirely destroyed in modern times. Some fragments have, however, been gathered together and are preserved in a window in the corridor. Here King James I. was entertained and slept on his progress to the South in 1603.

Inferior to the larger houses, there were in the county several buildings of great strength coming under the same head as the _peel-houses_ or _towers_ on the borders.

One of these, now only represented by a few portions of the outer walls, was Dalden Tower. The buildings appear to have formed a tower rather longer than square, standing on a slight mound. The walls were of rubble, 5 feet thick. In the east wall there is a square-headed niche, surmounted by a pediment within an ogee-headed arch, the space within which is filled with tracery. Two blank shields are upon a cornice over the pediment. The niche seems to point to the room once adjoining having been the private chapel. On the inner side of the curtain facing the west wall there appears to have been a cell with a loophole.

A more recent manor-house was built about the reign of James I., adjoining the tower on the east, and portions of it are built into the present farmhouse. For some generations it was a seat of the Royalist family of Collingwood, and, at an earlier date, of a branch of the great house of Bowes. It was a lady of this family, Maud, wife of Sir William Bowes and heiress of Sir Robert Dalden, who possessed within the old walls a curious library. In her will, made in 1420, she left to Matilda Hilton _one Romaunce-boke_, to Dame Eleanor Washington _the boke with the knotts_, to Elizabeth de Whitchester a book that is called _Trystram_, and to her god-daughter Maud, daughter of the Baron of Hilton, _one Romaunce boke is called the Gospells_. Surtees pertinently writes: "Did a romance ever actually exist under this strange title? or had the lady of Dalden met with one of Wicliffe’s Bibles, and conceived the Gospels to be a series of fabulous adventures, in which our Saviour and His Apostles were introduced to act and to moralize like the goodly personages who figure in the ancient mysteries, or in _Les Jeux du Roi René d’Anjou_"?

Farther to the south an old tower, oblong in shape stood at Little Eden. It was, however, taken down in the early days of last century by Mr. Rowland Burdon, who erected the present castellated house at Castle Eden. At Dinsdale, on the banks of the Tees, the remains of the ancient home of the Surtees family were excavated by the late Mr. Scott Surtees, and showed that a large gatehouse of late twelfth-century work, with vaulted chambers and a newel stair, had once stood there.

The later manor-house of the Place family retains some portions of the older building. With thick walls and low rooms with heavy beams and rafters, and an old oak staircase with a wicket, it still remains a picturesque fragment of former days. A stone originally fixed over a gateway destroyed shortly before Hutchinson compiled his history is now let into the wall on the left of the farmhouse door, and bears the arms of Place quarterly with Surtees.

The home of the Surtees’s neighbours, the allied and equally noble house of Conyers, was at Sockburn, situated on the same sweep of the Tees. Traces of the foundations of gardens and orchards alone point out the site of the old house, where Dugdale in 1666 had noted the family emblazonments in or on the building--the arms of Conyers, Vesci, Scrope, Neville, Dacre, FitzHugh, Lumley, and of the Royal Family. Surtees suggests that seven of the coats seem to have formed a rich armorial window, and that amidst them ran the motto, "REGI SECVLOR I’ MORTALI I’ VISIBILI SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA I’ SECVLA SECVLOR." When the historian wrote, "one old decaying Spanish chestnut" seemed alone to connect the deserted spot with some recollection of its ancient owners. Of the old house not one stone remains. A new house was erected about a century ago by the baronet family of Blackett, who for some generations have owned the manor. Here the far-famed Conyers falchion is preserved. The sword dates from the thirteenth century, and has a blade 2 feet and 5½ inches long. The handle is partly covered with ash, and has on the pommel two shields, the three lions of England, and an eagle displayed. The cross is engraved with decorative foliage of the period.

One of the most interesting specimens of the older fortified residences was Ludworth Tower.[14] The building, which consisted of a three-storeyed oblong tower of common limestone, stands near a brook, on a low hill, at the head of the valley in which Shadforth village lies. A lower vaulted room up till recently still contained a large open fireplace and hearthstone. The only entrance was by a small arched door leading to a spiral stone staircase, projecting from the north-west angle of the tower. Remnants of a curtain wall exist to the east, and on the west the adjoining ground has apparently been levelled by hand.

The whole appearance of the building, which has, unfortunately, in recent years[15] been allowed to fall into a ruinous condition, was dark and gloomy in the extreme. The date of its erection is fixed by the licence obtained in 1422 by Sir Thomas Holden to embattle his manor-house of Ludworth.

At Bellasis, or Belasyse, another old house, with stone walls of great thickness and moated, is now occupied by a farmer.

Hollinside, an old mansion, associated with the Hardings, of whom Ralph Harding the chronicler was a noteworthy member, still stands in ruins on a bank above the River Derwent. Originally three stories in height, and with two wings forming the three sides of a narrow court. The fourth and east side is arched over and surmounted by a tower. On the west side a turret projects in line with the south wall. The interior presents several interesting features, and an outbuilding contains a large fireplace.

Passing from the great homes of the county, and the older fortified towers, we come to the time when, with the greater security accorded to the minor gentry,

numerous manor-houses and country granges began to rise.

Even at this time, spoiled as the county is for residential purposes, it requires no strong effort of the imagination to picture the county as it was in later Tudor times. The Bishops, greater than ever through the collapse of the Nevilles, still appointed their foresters, and doubtless often made the dales resound with all the view-halloo of a gay hunt. Durham City became a stronghold of great ecclesiastical families, the sons and daughters of the prebendaries intermarrying with one another, and the descendants of successive Bishops allied themselves by cross marriages. In the country better farmsteads became erected, and throughout the shire the landowners began to erect more commodious residences. It is, with one or two exceptions, from this period that the older halls and manor-houses still in existence date. It must not be forgotten that there were at this time no great landowners in the county in the sense that we now understand the term, and almost every village had its own predominating squire.

A few houses still remain, not so strongly built as the peel-towers, yet well adapted to defence. Holmside Hall is one of these. Once one of the principal seats of the great House of Tempest, it was forfeited by Robert of that name, who, with his son Michael, had joined the Earls in their rebellion, and therefore appears in Hall and Humberston’s Survey as a "capital messuage, with all the housings built of stone and covered with slate, with the orchards and gardens, within a park containing three acres." Now sufficient remains to show that once the buildings were ranged round a court and surrounded by a moat. The north side was faced by the chapel containing a still perfect west window of two trefoil-headed lights under a square label, with the cinquefoil of the Umphrevilles and two blank shields in the spandrels. Above the window "a mutilated figure is fixed to the wall, with a full-moony face, and a kind of round helmet," of which Surtees writes: "I should almost conjecture this to be a rude piece of Roman sculpture, removed from the station, which may possibly have furnished the coins and squared stones used in building this chantry."

The house itself is a curiously confused building of many different periods of architecture. The original gables were pulled down and the house enlarged to the south. The windows are mullioned and narrow and guarded with iron bars.

After the Tempests’ fall the estate became the property of William Whittingham, the bigoted Calvinist Dean, whose name deserves perpetual execration as the destroyer of much that was old and beautiful in Durham Abbey. It is possible that in the austere gloom that even now pervades the old house at Holmeside, he might find something sympathetic with his own strange faith.

The Isle, another Tempest residence, stands on low ground, surrounded by marshes caused through risings of the Skerne. It is a picturesque place, with projecting gables and narrow mullioned lights. It was the residence of Colonel John Tempest, first M.P. for Durham County, and still belongs to the Marquess of Londonderry as representative of his family.

Sledwish Hall, standing lonely and sequestered, is a place of "ghastly grey renown." Upwards of a hundred years ago the bones of an infant were found interred in a stone coffin in the field adjoining. The house, too, like most of these old mansions, is supposed to contain secret passages and rooms. Portions of the present building, more particularly the south front, date back to Plantagenet times, but the house as it now stands is an interesting specimen of Tudor architecture. It was rebuilt by John Clopton, Queen Elizabeth’s Receiver, his great work being the ceiling in the Orchard Chamber. This is divided into compartments by deep mouldings, ornamented by numerous crowned roses, fleurs-de-lis, and pomegranates. In the centre is a shield bearing his family arms, a quarterly shield, first and fourth, _paly a lion rampant_, and second and third _a cross pattee fitchée_, over all a crescent for difference. The arms are reversed through the artist having formed his mould without considering that the impression was the final result. Two other shields impressed from the same mould bear the initials E. C. (evidently for the builder’s wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Ralph Ashton of Great Lever, in Lancashire), the date 1584, and "a _tun_ with a rose _clapt on_."[16] Above this shield is a rose surrounded by three crowns. At the four corners of the room are large decorative groups; two are falcons with pomegranates, the third is a swan, and the fourth a boar under an oak-tree devouring an acorn. A deep cornice running round the whole ceiling is decorated with repeated devices of the Royal lion and the Welsh dragon supporting the crowned rose, the whole evidently symbolic of Good Queen Bess. There are several other good rooms, and a large chimney at the south-west is supported outside by three double brackets.

There are several other interesting mansions in this district. At Cleatlam the old mansion of the Ewbankes still stands, gable-ended, with mullioned windows. It was sold by them in the troublous times of the great Civil War to the Somersets of Pauntley in Gloucester, and later was a seat of the Wards. Another old home of the Ewbanke family was Staindrop Hall, at the east end of the village of that name. The family arms, _three chevronels interlaced and on a chief three pellets_, are on one of the ceilings. Still another old house, once belonging to the same race, was Snotterton Hall, which stood about a mile to the west of Staindrop. Here the walls were embattled with crocketed pinnacles at the corners, and the windows were triple mullioned lights under square labels. Over the entrance the arms and crest of the Bainbridges, who sold the estate to the Ewbankes in 1607, were sculptured. A portion of the house which was pulled down in 1831 is preserved in the present Raby Grange.

Westholme Hall is another existing good specimen of Jacobean architecture. It consists of a main building, with two gabled wings and mullioned windows. The date 1606, and the name IOHN DOWTHET on a chimney-piece in the hall, points to its erection by the Douthwaites, who purchased the estate from the Boweses in 1603. Erected about the same period, Gainford Hall still stands at the west end of the village. It, too, has gable ends and mullioned windows, and several of the rooms are wainscotted. One of the latter has a stuccoed border of flowers and fruit. Over the door is the three-garbed chevron of the Cradocks and the inscription IOHN : CRADOCK 1600.

At Bishop Middleham a large old gable-ended house has a doorway with jambs and a pediment of carved freestone. It stands on the west side of the road leading to the church, and was originally the property of the Wards, one of whom was Master of Sidney-Sussex College at Cambridge. In 1738 it was the residence of Thomas Brunskill, whose daughter or granddaughter married Edward Watson, of Ingleby Greenhow, in Yorkshire.

Another picturesque fragment of the past is the old house now standing at the western end of Thorpe Thewles village. It is built of brick, with low rooms, and is locally stated to have been visited by Queen Anne. The tradition may possibly be a survival of one of our sovereigns’ passage through the county, but it is impossible that any crowned head can ever have rested in this old mansion. A few fields away a wing of the once great house at Blakiston still stands. It alone remains to show where the birthplace of one of our great old families once stood, and is the only remnant of the later home of the loyal house of Davison, two of whom were slain at the storming of Newcastle in 1644.

Cotham Conyers, or Cotham Stob, derives its affix name

from its erstwhile owners, the Conyers, and is another old gable-ended manor-house. It stands, surrounded by elms, near to a brook. The rooms are wainscotted, and over the fireplace in one of the rooms there was a hunting scene on the panel, depicting a stag at bay. One of the upper rooms was hung with tapestry. The estate was forfeited by the Conyers through Ralph Conyers having taken part in the Earls’ rebellion in 1569. Lying almost midway between the two Conyers’ seats of Cotham and Sockburn stands the old home of the Killinghalls and Pembertons, at Middleton St. George. The house formerly contained a painting, by Francis Place, of "A Pointer and Pheasants." An old cross in the garden is said to have been brought from Neasham Abbey.

Passing to the west of Darlington again, near the highroad leading to Staindrop, stands Thornton Hall, for many years the residence of a branch of the baronial family of Tailbois. It is a stone house, with high pitched gables, old-world red tiles, and mullioned windows, and has long been used as a farmhouse. Above the window over the main entrance are two gargoyles. An interesting account of this house, with a number of good sketches, may be found in Mr. G. A. Fothergill’s _Sketch-book_.

Several miles north of Thornton, a small old mansion with gables and mullions may be seen at School Aycliffe, and not very far away, in a north-westerly direction, the old grange of Midridge stands within an old walled garden, with a row of old elms leading along the road from the south. The house is a large treble-gable-ended building, and is said to have been garrisoned by the Loyalist owner, Anthony Byerley, who was a Colonel in the Royal army. His troopers are still locally known as "Byerley’s Bull Dogs." A little to the south-west, the old house of Newbiggin stands low, with solid stone walls, and the main staircase of the same substantial material. There was formerly a tower on the west end of the house.

The hall at Coxhoe, erected about the year 1725 by John Burdon, has a richly decorated interior of contemporary date. In this house Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on March 6, 1806.

The northern portion of the county does not contain so many houses of interest as the southern; there are, however, a few interesting mansions.

Fen Hall, near Lanchester, is an interesting old house,

dating from the Stuart period. It has the Greenwell arms over the entrance, and is now fast falling into a ruinous condition.

Washington Hall, a large, old stone mansion, built in the form of an E, with high-pitched roof and gable-ends, stands to the south side of the low hill on which the church is built. The lights are divided by stone mullions and transoms. It was erected by the family of James, possibly by the Bishop, and was, in Hutchinson’s time, the seat of the Bracks.[17] It is now, like the old hall at Rainton, in a pitiable state, and let in tenements.

In the neighbourhood of Sunderland there are several interesting houses. High Barnes, for long the home of the Ettricks, is now a convent, and has been considerably altered. Low Barnes, the Pembertons’ old home, is let to a laundry company. Ford Hall is a comparatively modern house, but is interesting as having been the birthplace of General Havelock. Pallion Hall, an old stone mansion, has recently been pulled down.

The old hall at West Boldon is more modern, having been erected in 1709 by the Fawcetts. The house has the arms of that family over the main entrance, and several of the rooms are wainscotted. A quaint record of another generation may well be noted in the late Mr. Boyle’s own words: "On one of the window-panes in a bedroom, in a neat hand of the early part of last century, someone has written with a diamond:

"Beautifull Grace Andrew."

On the next pane, in equally delicate script, another hand has added:

"Fair written Name, yet fairer in my heart,
No Diamond cutts so deep as Cupid’s Dart."

Travelling by railway from Boldon to Newcastle, the house now known as the Mulberry Inn is a familiar object, just outside of Felling station. It has been a picturesque building, and for long was the residence of the Brandlings. It is now undergoing a serious alteration. A small stone summer-house, once in the garden, still stands on one of the station platforms.

Kibblesworth Hall, a few miles south of Gateshead, is a solid Jacobean brick house, with stone-mullioned, square-headed windows. It has a fine oak staircase, and some of the fireplaces and cornices are of contemporary date. The house has been let in tenements to the pitmen of the adjoining colliery, the stables turned into cottages, and the gardens into allotments. Another old house that has undergone a similar fate is West Rainton Hall, erected about 1690 by Sir John Duck, Bart. It stands on the main street of the village, shorn of the battlements mentioned by Surtees, but still retaining a fine old doorway, reminiscent of its better days.

There are also in this district several other old houses dismantled and in tenements, betokening the scattering of their once owners to many far lands. It is a pleasure to turn from these to a few houses still in good condition. The Hall,[18] Houghton-le-Spring, was perhaps erected by Robert Hutton, Rector of Houghton, between the years 1589 and 1623, although its erection is more popularly attributed to his grandson and namesake. This later Robert Hutton was Captain of a troop of horse in the Parliamentary army, and, like Dobson of Harlow Hill,

" ... went to Dundee
And when he came back
held his head hee."

With the proceeds of this expedition he is supposed to have built the house in which his descendants dwelt for many generations. To satisfy some scruple of his conscience, or, according to another story, to lie near a favourite horse, he was buried in his garden under an altar-tomb, inscribed:

"Hic Jacet Robertvs Hvtton armiger qvi obiit Avg die nono 1680. Et
moriendo vivet."

Stella Hall, a picturesque Elizabethan structure, situated close to the River Tyne, was erected by the Tempests on the site of a nunnery, and still contains some tapestry representing the story of Hero and Leander.

Scattered up and down the dales are many other old homes that a writer dealing with his homeland would love to touch upon, but space forbids. Even these short notes are all too short. The old mansions of our countryside are a much neglected feature of archæology, and each house in itself demands photographs and drawings and a chapter quite as long as this.

DURHAM ASSOCIATIONS OF JOHN WESLEY

BY THE REV. T. CYRIL DALE, B.A.

A packet of old letters suggests many questions as to the writers, whom they have long survived. Nor is this curiosity diminished when one of the correspondents has achieved a world-wide fame, so that there is no portion of the globe where his name is not known. For then one desires to know who were the people whom he honoured with his friendship, and to scan the letters closely to see if they throw any new light upon the character of the writer. There are in existence seventeen letters written by John Wesley to a member of a family once well-known in the county of Durham. Originally there were thirty letters, as appears from the numbering of those which remain, but where the other letters are the writer does not know.[19] These seventeen letters, two of them being only copies of the originals, came into the possession of the Rev. Thomas Dale, Canon of St. Paul’s from 1843-70, and from him passed to his eldest son, the Rev. Thomas Pelham Dale (1821-92), at one time well-known as the Rector of St. Vedast in the city of London.[20] They were written to Miss Margaret Dale, second daughter of Edward Dale[21] of Tunstall, who, owing to the extinction (as it seems) of the elder branch of the family in the male line, was head of the family of Dale, first of Dalton le Dale, and then of Tunstall. This Edward Dale was the son of Thomas Dale by his wife Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of George Middleton of Silksworth. Through her Burke, who was far too amiable a genealogist to doubt the assertions of any one respecting his ancestors, however remote, traces the descent of Edward Dale from Gundreda, daughter of William the Conqueror. The curious will find the descent set out at length in Burke’s _Royal Family_, Pedigree XVI. Edward Dale married Eleanor, youngest of the three daughters of the Rev. John Lawrence, Rector of Bishop’s Wearmouth. Mr. Lawrence (1668-1732) was in his day a well-known writer on horticulture, and has, as a consequence, a niche in that temple of fame--the _Dictionary of National Biography_. It is related that when in 1721 he was appointed to the Rectory, he was so obnoxious to the principal inhabitants of his parish, owing to his Hanoverian proclivities, that when he was "reading himself in" the three chief landowners of the place--John Goodchild of Pallion, John Pemberton of Bainbridge Holme, and Thomas Dale of Tunstall--walked out of the church as a protest against his appointment.[22] By a kind of poetic justice, his three daughters married into the families of the three protesters. His eldest daughter married the above-named John Goodchild, his two younger daughters the sons and heirs of John Pemberton and Thomas Dale. Only unfortunately for the completeness of the tale, the two last marriages did not take place till after the death of John Lawrence.

By Eleanor Lawrence, Edward Dale had three daughters--Mary, Margaret, and Anne--and one son, also called Edward. He died when his eldest daughter was only eleven and his son still an infant.