cal novel-writers, and one of the best.

Mr. G. Sim announced to the Numismatic Society the finding of a
hoard of silver coins at Aberdeen in May last, consisting of 12,236
pieces, among which were 11,741 English pennies of Edward I, II, and
III. It would be curious if some of these could be traced to the mint
of Durham, as to which see paper by J. B. Bergne, F.S. A., in Journal,
xxii, p. 266.

On leaving the Cathedral we were struck by the juxtaposition of its

SO-!



422 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION.

neighbour, Durham Castle, once enclosed witlain a wall on the same
eminence, the two presenting a rare combination of the military and
ecclesiastical power of the prince Bishops of Durham. The history of
the Castle has been written by the Rev. C-corge Ormsby in Journal,
xxii, p. 46. The boilding passed into the hands of the University of
Durham in 1837; and may it long maintain the character for learning
which it may be said to have inherited from Anglo-Saxon ancestors,
and from the wise King Alfred of Worthumbria, and the learned
Bishops, to some of whom reference has been made.

It would be interesting to know more than we do about the White
House which was first built on the spot where the Cathedral now
stands, to receive the bones of St. Cuthbert in or about a.d. 999, which
bones had been cruelly chased by the Danes from Lindisfarne to
Crayke in Yorkshire, from thence to Chester-le- Street, and finally to
their permanent resting-place at Durham ; the saint having died at
Lindisfarne in 687, and having been first buried in Fame Island. The
name of White House seems to indicate a church of stone such as
Benedict Biscop introduced at Wearmouth in 674, Romano rfiore, in
opposition to the timber-built churches of the Scots, which would pro-
bably have been covered with pitch, or some dark-coloured paint, for
protection.

The church of the Monastery of Jarrow (Girvii), two miles from
South Shields, founded in 685 by King Ecgfrith of Northumberland,
reflects equal credit on the English builder and Benedict Biscop. The
learned Bede, whose bones have found a last resting-place in Durham
Cathedral, has kept alive a record of the transactions of this century
in his historj'-, composed at Wearmouth, and dedicated to King Ceol-
wulf. This has earned for him the epithet of " Venerable", which
stamps the favourable verdict of antiquity upon his writings. In them
we learn how Eata was appointed first Abbot over the new Monastery
of Ripon, where St. Cuthbei't filled the post of hospitaller, or enter-
tainer of the guests ; the former being afterwards made Bishop of Lin-
disfarne, and the latter Prior of Melrose.

Bede may well be placed among Dr. Dibdin's bibliomaniacs. In a
time of much controversy between the local native church and the
organisation of Rome he did not undervalue the merits of St Aidaii,
who had removed the see of Nortliumbria from York to Lindisfarne,
and who had been of the school of St. Columba and the church of
lona ; but neither the writings of Bede, nor the council held at Whitby
{Streans-Heale) in 664, to settle the disputes with the Scottish and
Irish Churches as to the mode of fixing Easter Day in the calendai%
and of deciding the form and position of the tonsure on the heads of
priests, could prevent the resort to arms by Ecgfrith, King of North-
umberland, in this centuiy. He defeated the Picts, and is found



TKOCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION. 423

invading Mcrcia in G79, and Iiilinid in 084, meeting with his dcatli in
battle at Drumnechtan in Scotland.

It is interesting to see liow the road across Mcrcia and Wales, by
Chester and Carnarvon, was kept open and frequented, since the time
of the Romans, for access to Ireland. It was often a means of repell-
ing in Ireland, by a land-army, the Danes and Norwegians, by alliance
with the native Irish when not strong enough to repel the attacks of
those foreigners on the eastern coasts of England, from the want of a
combined navy.

Bede gives an interesting account of Irish character in his day,
which is not very different from what Tacitus had formerly written of
that nation. Bede's words in relation to Ecgfrith's invasion of Ireland
are, " niisere gentem innoxiam et nationi Angloruni semper amicam
vastavit". Alfred, eldest but illegitimate son of this King, used all iiis
literary powers to promote Christianity when he came to be King of
Northumbria, 684-728. He had been educated under Bishop Wilfrith,
and his learning procured him the friendship of the famous Bishop
Aldhelm.

The names of the churches, in the order in which they were visited,
shall now be passed in review. Architecture has nowhere better illus-
trated the actions of the past than it has at tbis Congress, under the
direction of Mr. E. P. Loftus Brock, F.S.A., Hon. Secretary, and Sir
James Picton, F.S.A., assisted by the clergy and local antiquaries,
well qualified to treat of the subject, even though the opinions ex-
pressed have not always been in complete unison.

From Darlington, on the first day, visits were paid to the churches
of Aycliffe and Haughton-le-Skerne. At the former the party was
received by the Rev. G. Eade, and at both churches we had the benefit
of the observations of Mr. Dyer Longstaffe, the historian, who showed
how the work of Bishop Pudsey at Ayclifie passed from pure Norman,
through the transitional period, to the Early English ; and besides
these, it contained excellent examples of the Decorated and Perpen-
dicular styles. He recommended that two Saxon crosses, now in the
churchyard, should be brought under cover for their protection.

Mr. Longstaffe also described Haugliton-le-Skerne Church, and
showed that Sadberge, now a chapelry of Haughtou, had formerly been
the capital of the district, and had given its name to the Wapentake.
Sir James Picton, in reference to the successive alterations in tlie
church, remarked that " architecture was an open book which those
wlio could read it would understand." Many sucli books have of late
years been opened to the archa;ologist, and well did the President say
in his opening address, that " archaeology is every day assuming a more
scientific attitude, and is removing tiiose blemishes wliich attaclied to
the days of its youth." It has left off spelling, and is now beginning
to read.



424 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION.

The cliiircli of St. Cuthtert's, at Darlington, with its tower and
spire rising to the height of 180 feet, was one of the important found-
ations of Bishop Hugh Pudsey, and was described by our Local Secre-
tary, Mr. J. P. Pritchett. An appropriate sermon was preached in
this parish church, on the Sunday following, by the Rev. Canon Hodg-
son, Vicar of Witton-le-Wear.

The proceedings of Tuesday did not admit of other churches being
visited than the Cathedral.

On Wednesday the excursion was up the beautiful valley of the
Tees, and visits were paid to the churches at Gainford and Staindrop,
to that at Barnard Castle, and to the ruins of Bgglestone Abbey.

At Gainford Sir James Picton and Mr. J. P. Pritchett described the
architecture ; and Mr. E. P. Loftus Brock remarked that there were
in this district, perhaps, more Early English churches than in any
other ; and he pointed out the flatness of the roofs as a remarkable

feature.

At Staindrop (or Stane-thorp, the stone village), the Rev. H. A. Lips-
combe, M.A., Rector, read a historical account of the sacred edifice,
which he said might be called the church of the ISTevills, as the chiefs
of the family worshipped and were buried there. Among the many
ancient monuments, that in alabaster, to Ralph Nevill, first Earl of
Westmoreland, stands conspicuous. He is represented in complete
armour, his head resting upon his helmet, with a lion placed at his feet.
On the right and left sides are figures of his two wives; the first
being Margaret, daughter of Hugh Earl of Stafibrd ; the second, Joan,
daughter of John of Gaunt, who is buried with her mother, Catherine
Swynford, in Lincoln Cathedral.

The ruins of Egglestone Abbey, near Barnard Castle, were described
by Mr. J. P. Pritchett, the foundation being ascribed to Pr^monstra-
tensian or White Canons, who first came to this country in about 1140.

While stopping on the site where Rokeby Castle once stood, now
built into a modern mansion at the junction of the Greta river with
the Tees, the ruined tower of Mortham, on the opposite side of the
river, still stands as the ancient landmark to the poem of Sir Walter
Scott ; and the Rere Cross far away in the distance, in the direction of
Stane Moor, points to a tract of waste land deriving its name from
Balder, the Norwegian god, —

" Beneath the shade the Northmen came,
Fix'd on each vale a Runic name."

The excursions on Thursday were to radiate fi'om Bishop Auckland,
where the Congress party was to be entertained by the President in
his episcopal palace or castle, and which was done with right princely
hospitality.



PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION. 425

The parish church of Auckhind chaims our first notice, upon which
observations were made by Mr. Brock, Dr. HooppcU, and Sir James
Picton. The edifice is cruciform, and said to bo the largest parish
church in the diocese, measuring internally 157 feet in length, and the
width across the transepts being about half the extreme length. Its
characteristics are of the Early English period ; but Mr. Brock pointed
out that there were evidences of the building at different dates, and
even " some Saxon stonework had been discovered during the recent
restoration, and some of it was the most delicate that had been seen
on this side of the Humber."

St. Helen's, Auckland, a small rural church, bears externally and
internally all tbe evidence of great antiquity.

Dr. Hooppell undertook the description of the Saxon church at Es-
combe ; and its early origin was only discovered some seven or eight
years ago. It is described by the Rev. Dr. G. F. Browne as the best
preserved Romanesque building in England, next to the church at
Bradford-on-Avon. A sculptured fragment in its walls shows " the
interlaced bands like the intertwined snakes at Monkwearmouth", and
in the Saxon church of Britford, near Salisbury ; all which, and many
more such carvings, are figured in juxtaposition, for comparison, in
the remarks on the " Remains of the Original Church of St. Peter,
Monkwearmouth", by the Rev. Dr. G. E. Browne. Mr. Longstaffe
knows nothing equal to this church at Escombe in interest. Its dirai-
nutive size is remarkable. A striking feature in the walls are the
massive quoins at the angles, with alternating faces and edges some-
what after the manner of long and short work. Mr. C. Roach Smith
remarked as to this church, that it indicated not only Roman material,
but even Roman influence.

At Auckland Castle, His Lordship the President entered at length
into details of the building, formerly known as " The Bishop's Manor-
House", It might have been an episcopal residence at an earlier date
than 1183 ; but as to that year there was definite proof. It was one
of the popular residences of the Bishops of Durham, who at one time
bad six castles and eight manor-houses ; but the principal residences
were at Auckland and Durham.

On Friday an excursion was made into Yorkshire, and visits to the
parish church of Richmond, to a tower of the Grey Friars Monastery,
and to the remains of a Pri3emonstratensian Priory, Easby Abbey.
Mr. Brock described the church of St. Mary's at Richmond, and the
Castle hard by, said to have been originally founded by Alan Rufus,
Earl of Brittany and Richmond, in 1071. The early tower of the keep
is a noble specimen of architecture, with walls of extraordinary thick-
ness. The tower of the Grey Friars was explained by him. It was
founded as late as 1257, by Ralph Fitz-Randolph, lord of Middleham.



426 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION.

Easby Abbey was founded in 1152, by Ronald, Constable of Ricbraond
Castle, and dedicated to St. Agatha.

The remarkable locality visited on Saturday is mnch interwoven
with the history of the county. A greater contrast can hardly be seen
than that presented by Darlington town, whence we set out in the
morning, bustling with commercial activity, compared with the still,
pastoral scene of the half-isle of Sockburn, nearly insulated by the
winding of the river Tees, which sweeps round its pleasant meadows,
forming a sort of Campus Martius up to Dinsdale, on the Tees bank.
" Two families of ancient gentry, and the little female Monastery of
Nesham, possessed the whole of tliis green peninsula"; the family of
Conyers, and that of Surtees at Dinsdale.

We had visited Croft Chui^ch and Hnrworth Church, passing through
Nesham to the ruined church of Sockburn. By favour of Sir Edward
Blackett, Bart., of Sockburn Hall, we were shown the falchion pre-
sented at the ford over the Tees, or on Croft Bridge, to every new
Bishop of Durham on his first entering the principality, in commemo-
ration of its having been the instrument with which a large wyvern,
worm, or serpent, had been slain by an early ancestor of the family of
Conyers, lord of the manor, and now represented by Sir Edward
Blackett, Bart. The legend savours much of those circulated in the
thirteenth century, yet coloured with the reflex of antecedent history.
The Norwegian invasions and occupations could hardly be signified
under a more appropriate emblem than that of a serpent. Winged
serpents and dragons are characteristic of the oldest carvings for
adornment of Romanesque and Anglo-Saxon churches. Witness the
many sculptured remains seen during this Congress, and those already
referred to by Dr. G. F. Browne, who also points to the ornamentation
of the beautiful MS. in the British Museum called the Lindisfarne
Gospels, — a book still stained with the salt water from its immersion
by the monks who fled with it before the Danes, and dating from the
time when those who wrote and illustrated it set their names at the
end. The falchion and heraldic emblems upon it jDrove the date to be
not earlier than the thirteenth century.

The fatal day for the Norwegians in England was that when the
great battle was won by Athelstan on the plain of Brunanburh, to
which reference has already been made ; but no one has yet succeeded
in identifying the locality. Mr. Scott Surtees, of the Manor-House,
Dinsdale, who entertained our party, and gave an interesting account
of the antiquities around, would fix Brunanburh on the plain of Sock-
burn ; and as King Olave came up the Humber, and thence northward
to York, this spot for the battle is not an improbable one, though I
fear there is not enough known to fix the locality with certainty.
What Mr. Surtees has said as to evidences of name is not so convinc-
ing as the general concurrence of circumstances.



PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION. 427

Brunanburgh, if meaning " tlic burgh of hot springs" in modern
German, must bo shown to have this meaning in Anglo-Saxon. I find
nothing nearer than hrynan, to burn, and brijnnn, the word for chain-
mail, eitlior of which may have been in some way connected with the
battle, though such derivations must be inconclusive. Mr. Scott
Surtecs has given interesting particulars of Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and
media3val remains found in his neighbourhood, in the Journal for this
year, p. 7G.

At the excursion to Wensleydale, on Monday, the churches visited
from Northallerton were those of Aysgarth, Leyburn, Wensley, and
Midilleham ; some of these containing interesting rood-screens and
stall-ends from the Abbeys of Jervaulx and Easby, and sculptured
Anglo-Saxon stones.

The small church of Redmire, an ancient one of the eleventh cen-
tury, has not been restored, which cannot be said of Middleham
Church ; which, however, is still interesting as one of the few of Per-
pendicular character seen at this Congress, and one of the many which
•were founded as collegiate churches : and this was not disestablished
at the Refoi-mation.

This was the last official day of the Congress. Let us now retrace
our steps among the castles which command the valleys of the Tyne,
Wear, and Tees, though as they have mostly been described in detail
by members of this Society on their visit to Durham twenty-one years
since, I will very briefly refer to some of the buildings and their occu-
pants.

Northward of Durham, on the A7ear, stands the town of Chester-
le-Street, and near it Lumley Castle, the ancient seat of the Lumleys,
descended from Liulphus the Saxon, who was slain in the fourteenth
year of King William I, Sir Robert de Lumley, who married the
heiress of Thweng, died in the twelfth of Edward III (1338). Ralph
was summoned to Parliament as Baron in 1385, under Richard II.
The portraits of these and others of the family were painted for the
Castle by order of John Baron Lumley, who died April 11, 1609. The
anachronisms of the armour and costume have been clearly and con-
cisely pointed out by the late J\L-. J. R. Planche, as well as the confu-
sion and misappropriation of the stone effigies of several members of
the family in the church of Chestcr-le-Street.^

Southward of Durham, on the banks of the Wear, among the hills,
is Brancepeth Castle, built by tlie Buhners, and added to the great
possessions of the Nevills of Raby by the marriage of a daughter of
Robert Bulmer to Galfrid Nevill in the reign of Henry II.- In the
church, dedicated to St. Brandon, is an ancient figure, 7 feet 9 inches

^ Jourtidl^ xxii, p. 31.

- " On the Xoraiau Ancestry of the Ncvills", see Journal, xxii, p. 'J 79.



428 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION.

long, generally received as that of Robert Nevill,^ slain at Berwick in
1319; and the tomb of Ralph Lord Nevill"^ and his wife, circa 1484,
•with their effigies carved in oak.

At Bishop Auckland, south of Durham, the Bishops have had their
residential Castle since the times of Anthony le Bee. On the same
river Wear, near to its source, are the Castles of Wilton and Stauhope ;
and the famous Abbeys of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow occupy the
north and south banks of the same river, near its outflow into the Ger-
man Ocean. Thence, pursuing the coast of Durham southward, the
peninsula is arrived at near which was seated the Convent of Hartle-
pool ; and a few miles south of this, again, is the mouth of the Tees
river, which forms the southern boundary of the county.

Let us follow the Tees river up stream towards its source. The
Skerne river runs into it, upon which Darlington is situated ; and
beyond this point and Piers Bridge, up the beautiful Tees valley, Bar-
nard Castle appears on the north ; and Rokeby Castle once stood on
the south of the river, towards Stane Moor and the old boundary cross
of Reare.

Barnard Castle is placed on the brink of a steep rock, about 80 per-
pendicular feet above the Tees, according to Leland ; but Will. Howitt,
on the contrary, says that it " standeth on a plain". This is mentioned
to show the advantage of going to see for ourselves. The cognizance
of the boar of Richard III, carved in the masonry, proclaims the work
of that Monarch, who resided much here ; but his must be the latest
part of the building, which was originally founded by Barnard Baliol,
son of Guy, in Norman times, and remained in the family until the
attainder of John Baliol, King of Scotland, when it was granted by
Edward I to Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Richard Duke of
Gloucester came into possession by right of his wife, the Lady Anne,
daughter of Richard ISevill, "the King-Maker", by Anne, sister and
heir to Henry Beauchamp, Duke of Warwick. Some 6| acres of ruins
are all that remain of this "great, grey, and stately feudal castle", as
W. Howitt terms it, and "the fitting abode of the mighty Nevills".

Staindrop and Raby Castles next appear on each side of a small
river which flows into the Tees. The old towers of Raby, the courts,

• Elder brother of Ralph Lord Nevill of Nevill's Cross.

2 Urandson of Ralph, first Earl of Westmoreland. His wife was Eliza-
beth, daughter of Hotspur. This is Stoddart's opinion ; but Howitt is in-
clined to cousidcr the etfigies as those of Ralph himself, the first Earl, and
of Margaret his first wife ; which seems the most probable for the reasons
given by Henry J. Swallow in his work, The House of Nevill in Sidiahhie and
S/iude (1H86), to which I am indebted for much monumental and historical
information. See account of Brancepeth Church, by C. Hodgson Fowler,
in Journal, xxii, p. 272. The Royal Archaeological Institute visited this
among other places in this county, at their Newcastle Congress in 1884 ; as
to whicli, see their TrunHactions.



PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION. 429

the great baronial liall, and the kitchen, are the objects of antiquarian
interest; for the rest has been modernised, and made habitable. The
initials, B. B., of Bertram Bulmer, on one of the towers, recall perhaps
the name of a member of the family connected by marriage with
the Nevill family. Another tower bears the name of Joan, second
â– wife of the first Earl of Westmoreland, whose alabaster effigy is in
the church of Staindrop, as before mentioned, in complete armour,
and conspicuous among the dead as was the living Earl among the
members of a long line of ancestry and successors. Howitt says
" we can almost imagine the royal Joan walking with her maidens
on the green terrace that surrounds Raby Castle ; or the first great
Earl of Westmoreland, Ralph Nevill, setting out with all his train
to scour its wide chases and dales for the deer, or to proceed to the
Marches to chastise the Scots." By his two wives he had twenty-
three children. By his first wife, Margaret, a long line of the Earls
of Westmoreland ; by his second wife, Joan Beaufort, daughter of
" time-honoured Lancaster", John of Gaunt, and sister of Henry IV,
he became the founder of three illustrious families, Salisbury, Latimer,
and Bergavenny, and grandfather of Richard Nevill, " the King-
Maker". The Salisburys failed in the Wars of the Roses ; the Lati-
mers owed their extinction to their advocacy of the rising in the North
in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The family of Abergavenny is still
flourishing.

The Castle was described by the Rev. J. H. Hodgson and the Rev.
Prebendary Scarth. It had been built by John Nevill in about 1349,
and w-as purchased by Sir Henry Vane in the reign of James I, from
whom it has descended to the Dukes of Cleveland, its present posses-
sors. The ballad of " Langley Dale", by Surtees, gives an interest to
the park and its surroundings, which are not lost upon William Howitt,
who quotes the poem in his picturesque description of Raby and
Brancepeth Castles.^

Though outside the confines of Durham county, yet on the last offi-
cial day of the Congress, Middleham Castle, near Richmond, was
visited as being one of the Torkshire strongholds which even outshone
those which have been described. It was the home of the Warwick
branch of the Nevills, and especially of Richard Nevill, " the King-
Maker." The name of the place, as " Medelai", is in Domesday ; and
without going into the question of the supposed builders of the keep,
generally assigned to Robert Fitz-Randolph, third lord of Middleham,
we may survey with astonishment the vast envelope, as it were, or
oblong fortress, 210 feet by 175 feet, which surrounds the keep. It
came to the Nevills by the marriage of Mary of Middleham with Robert

' Vuits to Remarkable Places, Second Series, 184'J,




430 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION.

de Nevill, who was buried at Coverham Abbey in 1271. The property
was settled upon her grandson, Eobert Nevill, "the Peacock of the
North"; but as he died without issue, in his grandmother's lifetime, his
brother Ralph succeeded to the estate, which then descended to his
son John de Nevill, who built Raby,and was buried in Durham Cathe-
dral. His son became the Earl of Westmoreland ; and this Earl was
the last of the Nevills, of the older line, who died seized of Middleham
and its dependencies. It then went to the Salisbury branch of the
Nevills, and fell to Richard Earl of Warwick, " the King-Maker." In
its halls many of the dark scenes in the Wars of the Roses, and in the
life of Richard III, were premeditated. Here Edward IV was a guest
or a prisoner ; and here the bastard Falconbridge was beheaded. It is
a noble pile of ruins, and in its decay has fared better than the remains
of Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire ; another Yorkist castle,
where not one stone remains upon another, but which played a promi-
nent part in the times we have been discussing (that is, of the Wars of
the Roses), and which was the residence, during the long years of her