Part 20

Nicholas Greenwell, a younger brother of the Royalist William, founded the house of Ford, purchasing that estate in 1633. He married at Medomsley, in 1623, Mary Kirkley, probably a near relative of Michael Kirkley of Newcastle, whose daughter married the first Sir William Blackett. This Michael Kirkley mentions in his will, which he made in 1620, amongst other relatives, his cousin, Mr. William Greenwell the elder, of London, merchant, to whom William Camden, the Herald, had confirmed in 1602 "the antient armes of the worshipfull family of Greenwell, of Grenewell Hill, in the County Palatine of Duresme, from which the said William Greenwell is descended." This London branch of the family ended with an heiress, who married Thomas Legh, of Ridge, in Cheshire.

Returning to Nicholas Greenwell of Ford, he died in 1640, and was buried amongst his ancestors at Lanchester. His son, another William, added lands at Kibblesworth to the paternal estate by marriage with an heiress of the Cole family. He died at an advanced age in 1701, when his eldest son, Nicholas, succeeded to Greenwell Ford, whilst Kibblesworth passed to his younger son, Robert. The latter was great-grandfather of the late Major-General Sir Leonard Greenwell, K.C.B., who, in 1820, acted as godfather to the present venerable head of the family, the author of Greenwell’s Glory, one of, if not, the best trout flies known.

Other branches of the family have flourished for awhile and then disappeared. In 1697 William Greenwell of Whitworth acquired a moiety, including the mansion-house of Great Chilton, where his descendants lived for some three generations. One of his daughters married Cuthbert Smith, whose brother Ralph became his heir. This hunting squire bequeathed his property, for no other reason but that they had often ridden together

"From the drag to the chase, from the chase to the view, From the view to the death in the morning,"

to Robert Surtees of Milkwellburn.

At a much earlier date another William Greenwell owned a fair estate at Neasham, and dying in 1619 left two daughters, Margaret aged three and Eleanor two years, as his heirs. His widow married Marmaduke Wyville, and the daughters respectively became the wives of John Taylor of Appleton, and Ralph Hedworth of Pokerley.

One other branch, still surviving, must not be passed over. The estate of Broomshields near to Satley has belonged to Greenwells from as far back as 1488, when one of the many Peters lived there. The representation of the Maddisons of Hole House in the Derwent Valley, a family celebrated in local history and ballad, passed into this family by marriage in 1774. A later owner of Broomshields, John Greenwell, married Elizabeth, daughter of Alan Greenwell of Ford, and thus re-united the two families.

Many years have passed since Robert Surtees wrote: "_Sic transit._ We know not what are become of the descendants of Bulmer, whose ancestors held Brancepeth and Middleham Castles. The family of Conyers, which has had Parliamentary lords, and once consisted of nine or ten flourishing branches (excepting some remains in the South), is reduced to a single Baronet’s title without a fortune, and the probable descendants of Surtees of Dinsdale are ignorant of their own origin, whilst the chief male line is either extinct or steeped in poverty and oblivion."

The great house of Surtees derives, as its name implies, its origin from a family resident to a remote period on the banks of the River Tees. William, the son of Siward, was living there in the reign of Henry II., and his son Ralph was the first to style himself Sur Tees, the family residence being then, as for many long years afterwards, at Dinsdale, the adjoining seat to Sockburn where the Conyers family dwelt.

Of the dissolution of this head house of the race, Mr. Surtees added: "I discovered by a remarkable deed at Durham (unknown to Hutchinson) how the estates went to Brandling in prejudice of Marmaduke, heir male of the half-blood; and that Marmaduke’s grandson Thomas sold most of what remained in the male line; but I cannot find further as to this Thomas except that his younger brother Richard married and had two sons, Robert and Richard, who are the last I can trace of this branch, the undoubted direct heirs."

The existing branches of this old family now resident at Redworth Hall, Mainsforth, and Hamsterley, derive their descent from a William Surtees who, in the year 1440, acquired lands in Whickham under the Halmote Court, his sureties being Robert Boutflower and Thomas Gibson.

His descendants for some generations resided within the parishes of Whickham in this county, and Ovingham in Northumberland.

Edward Surtees strengthened the family by marrying in 1617 Margaret Coulson, whose mother was sister and heir of Robert Surtees, Alderman and twice Mayor of Durham.

The eldest son of this marriage was ancestor of the famous beauty, Bessy Surtees, who ran away with and married John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon and Chancellor of Great Britain.

The second son, Robert Surtees of Ryton, added to his inheritance by marrying an heiress of the Hauxley family. He purchased Mainsforth and founded the two families now owning that seat and Redworth, and amongst his descendants was Robert Surtees the historian, to whom his native county owes an everlasting debt.

The Surtees of Hamsterley Hall trace their descent from a Cuthbert Surtees of Ebchester who died in 1622, and whose relationship to the Ovingham family is not at present clear. His son Anthony, however, held the Hollins in Ovingham parish in 1629, and that property in 1586 was in the possession of Rowland Surtees, who died the following year, and who was brother of William Surtees, ancestor of the families already mentioned.

Hamsterley descended to Robert Smith Surtees, the author of some well-known sporting novels.

The Edens are almost certainly an indigenous family, for there can be but little doubt that they derive their name from the village of Eden, now called Castle Eden. The family for a number of generations resided at Preston-on-Tees,

where lands were held by Robert de Eden in 1413. A succession of Thomases and Williams bring the pedigree into the sixteenth century, when John Eden married an heiress of the Lambtons. After the heads of the house successively increased the family patrimony by marrying heiresses of the Hutton, Welbury, and Bee families, John Eden’s great-great-grandson, Robert by name, followed his ancestor’s example by marrying another Lambton heiress. He was Member for the county and was created a Baronet in 1672. Sir Robert Eden, the third Baronet, had a large and distinguished family. His second son Robert was Governor of Maryland, and created a Baronet in 1776. He was ancestor of the present Sir William Eden, who succeeded also to the inheritance of the first-named Sir Robert’s eldest son, and is thus doubly a Baronet. The Governor’s next brother, Sir Robert’s third son, was the distinguished statesman, William Lord Auckland, and the fifth son, Sir Morton Eden, an eminent diplomatist, was created Baron Henley, and was ancestor of the present peer. One of the sisters of this talented trio married John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and another married the Rev. Richard Richardson, Chancellor of St. Paul’s.

Several old families have for many generations dwelt in the Valley of the Derwent, and were all more or less intermarried with each other.

Thomas Hunter, about the end of the fourteenth century, married Margaret Layton, heiress, through her mother, of the family of Alanshields of Alanshields. A century later quite a small clan of the Hunters were resident up and down the valley, but principally at Medomsley. Here in 1675 was born Dr. Christopher Hunter, the celebrated antiquary; and here nearly a century later, in 1757, General Sir Martin Hunter, G.C.M.G., first saw the light.

The Stevensons were another Derwentside family, whose name is best known through John Hall, the _Eugenius_ of Sterne, having taken it when he married the heiress of Ambrose Stevenson of Byerside.

The Shaftos have in various branches been closely connected with the county for many centuries. The late Rev. John Hodgson, in an early volume of the _Archæologia Æliana_, throws doubt upon the traditional descent of the Shaftos in the male line from the Folliots. He overlooked, however, several important facts that at least render the assertion possible. The Fenwick of which the Folliots were Lords is not the Fenwick in Northumberland as he assumed, but the place of that name in Yorkshire which passed by the marriage of Margaret Folliot to her husband, Sir Hugh Hastings, and long continued in his family.

Cuthbert, son of John Folliot of Fenwick, is said to have acquired lands at Shafto in Northumberland by marrying one of the heirs of Roger Welwick of that place, and his descendants took the local name; another daughter of Roger is stated in the Visitation of Rutland, 1618, to have married a Bryan Harbottle. A comparison of the arms of the respective families shows that the Shafto coat is merely the Folliot arms differenced. Jordan Folliot in 1295 bore _gules a bend argent_, and Robert de Shaftowe, a contemporary, bore _gules on a bend argent, three mullets azure_.

The Shaftos of Tanfield Leigh in this county recorded their pedigree at the Visitation of 1615. Le Neve continued the family for several generations. James Shafto, aged eight, in 1615 married a sister of Sir John Jackson of Harraton, and his son was living in 1707, and then described as very poor. His son, again, a third James, married a daughter of Sir Thomas Sandford, and had three sons, after whom the descent is not clear.

The family now resident at Whitworth Park are an early offshoot of the Shaftos of Bavington in Northumberland. They have several times intermarried with the Edens, and, like that family, are very rich in quarterings. Their escutcheon includes the arms of the Cavendishes, Dukes of Newcastle; the Lords Ogle, and many other great houses. Within the last century Beamish Park, near Chester-le-Street, has become the seat of another branch of the same family.

The Salvins of Croxdale are another of our old historic families who have held the same acres for generations. They have lived at their present home from the early days of the fifteenth century. In the time of King Charles they were gallant Loyalists, and two of them were killed in the King’s service.

The Whartons have also resided near to Durham for a good many centuries. They descend from the Whartons of Wharton in Westmorland, and their armorial insignia is interesting both in its origin and as illustrating the close alliance often existing between families bearing similar arms. Amongst the Normans who settled in this country after the Conquest was a family named Flamanville, often abbreviated into Flamville, who took their name from their lordship of that name in the province of La Manche in Normandy, and gave it as a suffix to their new Leicester estate of Aston. Their coat of arms was simply _la manche_, the sleeve, and so the name originally applied to the curious geographical shape of a peninsula came to be a familiar term in English heraldry. They intermarried with the Conyers and the Hastings, and both these families adopted the _manche_ as their emblem. An heiress of the latter family married a Wharton, and to this day a silver _manche_ or _maunch_ on a black field is the Wharton arms.

Dr. Wharton of Old Park, a lineal ancestor of the Dryburn family, is celebrated as one of the courageous physicians who continued to visit the sick during the Great Plague of London. One of his descendants, Dr. Thomas Wharton, was the friend of the poet Thomas Gray, who visited him at Old Park.

The name of Burdon is an old one in the county, and probably derived from one or other of the local villages of that name. There were Burdons at Helmdon centuries ago, and for a number of generations Burdens have owned Castle Eden. The curious articles on the family arms, described by some writers as organ-pipes, are said to be in reality palmers’ staffs, and are so used by the present family.

One branch of the Ords, who are a Northumbrian, or more correctly a North Durham, family, must not be passed over. In the reign of James I. John Ord acquired property at Fishburn, and founded the house who have for so long dwelt at Sands Hall, beside Sedgefield.

Another family of Northumbrian extraction are the Blenkinsopps of Hoppyland, who are, however, in the male line descended from the Leatons or Leightons of Benfieldside. Hoppyland was purchased from the Blacketts in 1768 by William Leaton of Gibside, agent to the Bowes family.

The Blacketts, who now reside at Wylam in Northumberland, held Hoppyland for several generations. Their ancestor, Edward Blackett, of Shildon, married for his second wife a daughter of the famous Lilburne family of Thickley-Puncharden, and a near relative of "Freeborn John." The Baronet family, who now own the old Conyers estate of Sockburn, are also descended from this Edward, and are rather curiously derived from the latter family. The first baronet’s wife was a daughter of Michael Kirkley of Newcastle, whose wife’s grandmother, Marion Anderson, was a lineal descendant of William Conyers of Wynyard.[31]

Ravensworth Castle, near Gateshead, has been the home of the Liddell family since 1607. The third owner of the name was created a Baronet by King Charles I. in 1642, and was a strong Royalist during the troubled years of that King’s reign. Since then the family has twice held peerages. Sir Henry Liddell was created Baron Ravensworth in 1747, but as he had no children the title became extinct at his death in 1784. His great-nephew, Sir Thomas Henry Liddell, took the same title on his elevation to the peerage in 1821.

Two members of the Ravensworth family have left names well known in the literary world. The second Baron, son and namesake of the first, was the author of a translation into English lyric verse of the _Odes of Horace_, and, in conjunction with Mr. Richards, he published in blank verse a translation of the last six books of Virgil’s _Æneid_. He was created Earl of Ravensworth, a title that died with his son, when the Barony passed to a cousin. The Very Rev. Henry George Liddell, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and some time Vice-Chancellor of that University, was one of the compilers of the well-known Greek lexicon.

The Bowes family was once as widely scattered over Durham as the Conyers. Streatlam Castle and Gibside, Bradley Hall, Biddick, and Thornton Hall, were all residences of the Boweses at one time. One branch only in the male line survives, and is now resident at Croft. Streatlam and Gibside, however, still belong to descendants in the female line--the Earls of Strathmore--who have added the name of their Durham ancestors to the paternal surname of Lyon.

One of the most celebrated members of this family was _Old_ Sir William Bowes, whose devotion to the young wife he lost, when he was about twenty-eight years old, has caused him to be celebrated amongst true lovers. He lived to a great age, and never remarried.

A descendant of his, Sir George Bowes, is celebrated in local rhyme as--

"Cowardy! cowardy! Barney Castle,"

a most erroneous term, for he was, in very truth, a loyal and gallant gentleman, whose brave defence of Barnard Castle in a time of strife and rebellion perhaps saved England for Queen Elizabeth. But the Boweses have always, like most of our real old families, been a brave old race, and fully up to their motto: _In multis, in magnis, in bonis expertus_.

The Chaytors are descended from a certain John Chaytor, of Newcastle, merchant, whose widow remarried William Wilkinson, another merchant in the same old city.

The widow of both made her will on March 23, 1558-59, and in it, after desiring to be buried in All Saints’ Church, Newcastle, beside her last lord, mentions her two sons, Christopher and John, and her daughter, Jane Kirkhouse. John Chaytor the younger married a daughter of James Perkinson, and left two children, Elizabeth and John, living in 1579.

Christopher Chaytor became an important public man, and, besides acquiring the Manor of Butterby, near Durham, gathered into the family fold the great estate of the noble old house of Clervaux, of Croft, and founded the present Baronet Chaytors. His son Thomas married a daughter of Sir Nicholas Tempest, Bart., of Stella; and his son again, Nicholas Chaytor, was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Army under the famous fighting Marquess of Newcastle, and by his wife, a Lambton heiress, was father of Sir William, created a Baronet in 1671. This baronetcy became extinct on the death of the first holder in 1720, but was again revived when Sir William Chaytor was created a Baronet in 1801.

The Tempests, as already mentioned, were relatives of the Chaytors. They came into the county from Yorkshire, when Sir William Tempest, of Studley, married the heiress of the Washingtons of Washington. His natural son, Rowland, acquired a considerable estate by marrying one of the many coheirs of the great baronial family of Umphreville, and was ancestor of the various families of the name seated in this county.

Sir Nicholas Tempest, of Stella Hall, in the reign of James I., was created a Baronet, and was buried at Ryton in 1625.

His younger brother, Rowland Tempest, was ancestor of the Tempests of the Isle and Old Durham, whose representative some hundred years later, John Tempest, who was many years M.P. for the city of Durham, left a daughter Frances, who became eventually heiress of this branch of the family. She married the Rev. Sir Henry Vane, Bart., Prebendary of Durham Cathedral, a descendant of the famous Sir Henry Vane the elder, and her son, assuming his mother’s name, became Sir Henry Vane-Tempest. He left an only daughter, Frances Anne Emily, who married the third Marquess of Londonderry as his second wife, and was grandmother of the present Marquess.

The Vanes, who descend from a common ancestor with the Earls of Westmorland, have only been connected with Durham since the reign of James I., when Sir Henry Vane, of Hadlo Castle, a Kentish knight, acquired Raby Castle by grant from the Crown. His youngest son was ancestor of the Marquesses of Londonderry, and his eldest son was ancestor of the late Duke of Cleveland and of the present Lord Barnard.

The Williamsons came into this county through a strange decree of fate. The estate of Monkwearmouth passed from its purchaser, Colonel George Fenwick, of Brinkburn, the well-known Puritan, to his daughter Dorothy, who married Sir Thomas Williamson, of East Markham, in Nottinghamshire. Sir Thomas belonged to a Cavalier family that had lost much in the Royal cause.

Sir William, the fourth Baronet, married a sister of Mrs. Lambton, of Lambton, and co-heiress of John Hedworth, of Harraton, whose wife was a descendant of William James, sometime Bishop of Durham. Whitburn Hall has for several generations been the family residence, and the present Baronet is the ninth.

Lord Boyne’s family are only recent settlers in Durham, and came here when Brancepeth Castle passed to the seventh Viscount upon his marriage with an heiress of the Russells. They have been Barons of Brancepeth since 1866.

Other old families still existent in the shire who should at least be mentioned are the Pembertons[32] of Belmont Hall, the Wilkinsons of Durham, the Fogg-Elliots of Elvet Hill, the Bateses of Wolsingham, the Trotters of Helmdon, and the Hutchinsons.

The Claverings of Axwell, a noble old race, have within the last few years died out in the male line, but the name and blood continue in the present owners of the old home.

Descendants of other old families doubtless linger on: Byerleys and Fawcetts, Darnells and Croudaces, Muschamps and Emersons, Morgans and Marleys, Ewbankes and Raines, Rippons and Maddisons, and many another race, inheriting to the full the traditions of our country, are to be found scattered up and down the county.

INDEX

Abbey, Durham, 158

---- of Durham dissolved, 16

Acre, 107

Agnes’s Fast, St., 53

Alanshields of Alanshields, 249

Aldhun, Bishop, 109

"All Fools’ Day," 57

Alston, 41

Altars at Bolihope, Roman, 80

Altar-screen, Durham, 121-122, 138

Altar-tomb, Neville, 170

---- of Bernard Gilpin, 194, 195

Amiatinus, the Codex, 151

Anglo-Saxon memorial crosses, 183

Arms, Greenwell, 225

---- Lumley, 242

Associations of John Wesley, Durham, 229-238

Asylum, Sunderland Orphan, 35

Auckland, brasses in St. Andrew’s, 180, 189

---- brass in St. Helen’s, 180, 190

Aucklandshire, 39

Aycliffe Church, 171

Baker, Mrs. Sarah, 194

Bale Hill, 218

Balliol, Bernard de, 213

---- John, sometime King of Scotland, 213

Ballads, Robert Surtees’, 65

Bank, 105

Barbara, Bishop William de St., 30

Barnard Castle, 40, 213

---- ---- Church, 170, 185

Barnes, Mrs. Fridesmond, 189

Baronial houses, 239

Barons of the Bishopric, 3, 11

Barrow at Copt Hill, 182

Bateses of Wolsingham, 256

Battle of Neville’s Cross, 41

Baydale inn, 24

Bayley, K. C., 7

Beaumont, Lewis, Bishop-elect of Durham, 27, 28

Bede, Venerable, 4, 36

---- at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, 146-151

Bede’s chair, Jarrow, 54

---- tomb, 123

---- Well, Monkton, 55

Bellasis, 218

Bell, Durham Curfew, 63

---- Pancake, 56

Billingham Church, 172

Binchester, Roman camp at, 4

---- Roman epitaph at, 183

Birthdays folk-lore, 46

Biscop, Benedict, 4, 36, 147, 149, 150

Bishop Aldhun, 109

---- Auckland, 39

---- ---- Palace, 200

---- Cosin, 20, 120, 179

---- Crewe, 21, 204

---- Flambard, 8, 40, 118, 133

---- James, 206

---- Middleham, 222

---- ---- Church, 180

---- Philip de Pictavia, 172

---- Pudsey, 9-33, 37, 38, 134, 166, 195, 202, 241

---- Walcher, 6-7, 30, 32, 36, 156

---- William of St. Carileph, 7, 30, 110, 114, 118, 158, 166

Bishopric, Barons of the, 3, 11

---- of Durham, 1, 2, 81

Bishop’s revenue, 11

Bishopwearmouth effigy, 185

Black Death, the, 12-13

Blackett family, 252

---- Sir Edward, 75

Blakeston of Blakeston, 188

Blakiston, 222

---- Sir William, 212

Blenkinsopps of Hoppyland, 252

Boar, the Pollard, 68-71, 74

Bogs, 101

Boldon Book, 9, 30, 38, 39, 42, 241

---- Church, 176

Bolihope, 91

---- Roman altars at, 80

Bowes of Streatlam, 253

---- Sir George, 41

---- Sir William, 214, 216

Boyne, Lord, 255

Bradley, Ralph, 194

Brae, 105

Brag, the Picktree, 76-78

Brancepeth, 41

---- Castle, 203

---- Church, 179

Brass, Chester-le-Street Church, 190

---- Haughton-le-Skerne, 191

---- Hoton, William, 168, 190

---- Houghton-le-Spring, 191

---- Brasses, monumental, 189

---- Sedgefield Church, 168, 190, 191, 192, 193

Bridge, Prebend’s, 52

---- Tyne, 34

Brigantes, occupation by, 4

Brocks, 91-92

Bronze Age, 182

Brow, 105

Brown, Dame Dorothy, 26

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 224

Bruce, Robert de, 37

---- tombs, 196

Brunskill, Thomas, 222

Bruses (De), tomb of, 165

Bulmer, Bertram de, 203

---- family, 247

---- stone, 25

Burdon family, 251

---- John, 224

Burns, 91-92

Butler, Bishop, 22

"Butterby churchgoer," 64

"Butter Cross," Ravensworth, 212

Byerley, Colonel Anthony, 224

"Byerley’s Bull Dogs," 224

Carileph, Bishop William of St., 7, 30, 110, 114, 118, 158, 166

Carling Sunday, 57

Castle Barnard, 213

---- Brancepeth, 203

---- Durham, 204-207

---- Eden, 216

---- Hilton, 187, 210, 211

---- Lambton, 74, 209

---- Lumley, 207-208

---- Raby, 214, 215

---- Ravensworth, 211, 212

---- Stanhope, 198

---- Streatlam, 213, 214

---- Walworth, 215

---- Witton, 199

Castles and Halls of Durham, 198-228

---- the, 79

Cathedral brasses, Durham, 190-191

---- Durham, 3, 7, 12, 18, 108-129

---- local lore of Durham, 63

Cau’d Lad of Hilton, the, 71-73

Cave, Heatheryburn, 79