Sedgemoor, was advanced in 1690 to the Earldom of Scarborough. Little
more remains to be said, beyond that Lumleys have taken part in almost
every war since that date (one, Sir William, commanded the cavalry at
Albuera; and another, a captain in the navy, was killed on the _Isis_ in
1782), and that Lumley Castle is still the seat of the Earls of
Scarborough.
Closely allied to the Lumleys by marriage, the Lambtons have owned the
adjoining estate of Lambton from the twelfth century. Their connection
with the curious legend of the Lambton Worm has made the name widely
known in the North. From the fifteenth century onwards the family were
perhaps most remarkable for the brilliant series of marriages the
successive owners of the estate made. Matches with Rokeby of Rokeby,
Lumley of Ludworth, the Lords Eure, the Tempests of Stella, and the
Curwens of Workington, each either bringing additional lands to the
house, or else widening and extending the family influence, came to a
climax with the marriage of Ralph Lambton, in 1696, with Dorothy
Hedworth, heiress to great estates on the north bank of the river. The
great-grandson of this marriage was the celebrated Radical Earl of
Durham, whose life has been told in recent years by Mr. Stuart Reid.
The Greenwells are the third ancient house in this county who still
dwell on the lands from which they take their name. At the time our
earliest record, the Boldon Book, was compiled, William the Priest[30]
held lands at Greenwell, in the green valley of Wolsingham, and his
sons, James and Richard de Greenwell, took their surname from their
home. From their generation through long centuries Greenwell succeeded
Greenwell, until the death of Henry Greenwell in 1890. The estate then
passed to his brother’s daughter, Mrs. Fletcher, who sold Greenwell
within the last few years to her kinsman, Sir Walpole Eyre Greenwell,
Bart.
Like other families, as the years passed by, younger sons founded
branches, some of which flourished and became even more influential than
the parent stem.
Anthony Greenwell, a son of Peter Greenwell of Wolsingham, and grandson
of Peter Greenwell of Greenwell, living in the reign of Henry VIII., is
stated to have settled at Corbridge, in the adjoining county of
Northumberland. His son Ralph became allied by marriage to a number of
influential families; the administration issued after the death of his
father-in-law, Ralph Fenwick of Dilston, in
[Illustration: GENERAL JOHN LAMBTON.]
1623, showing that the latter left five daughters, his coheirs. Of
these, Isabel, the eldest, married Ralph Greenwell, Mary married John
Swinburne, Agnes was wife to John Orde, Margaret to George Tempest of
Winlaton, and Barbara married William Harrison.
Ralph’s grandson Nicholas, so named after his mother’s father Nicholas
Leadbitter of Warden, married, in 1683, Frances Whitfield, and their
son, Whitfield Greenwell, a captain in the army, was killed at the
Battle of Glenshiels in 1719. From his grandson, John Greenwell, of the
India House, the present Sir Walpole Greenwell is lineally descended.
A second branch of the family has long been known as the Greenwells of
Greenwell Ford, thus curiously taking their name from the old home in
Wolsingham parish and giving it to the new (though its very newness has
now grown green with age) home near Lanchester.
Thomas Greenwell, probably a younger son of John Greenwell of Greenwell,
living _circa_ 1440, took up his abode at Stobilee, in the parish of
Satley (the vill of which had been held in chief in the early days of
the fourteenth century by Robert de Greenwell), and there his
descendants resided until the time of the Commonwealth, when the then
head of the family, William Greenwell, was sequestered as a Royalist,
his lands being taken from him, and let to Henry Blackett by the
Parliamentary Commissioners.
Nicholas Greenwell, a younger brother of the Royalist William, founded
the house of Ford, purchasing that estate in 1633. He married at
Medomsley, in 1623, Mary Kirkley, probably a near relative of Michael
Kirkley of Newcastle, whose daughter married the first Sir William
Blackett. This Michael Kirkley mentions in his will, which he made in
1620, amongst other relatives, his cousin, Mr. William Greenwell the
elder, of London, merchant, to whom William Camden, the Herald, had
confirmed in 1602 "the antient armes of the worshipfull family of
Greenwell, of Grenewell Hill, in the County Palatine of Duresme, from
which the said William Greenwell is descended." This London branch of
the family ended with an heiress, who married Thomas Legh, of Ridge, in
Cheshire.
Returning to Nicholas Greenwell of Ford, he died in 1640, and was buried
amongst his ancestors at Lanchester. His son, another William, added
lands at Kibblesworth to the paternal estate by marriage with an heiress
of the Cole family. He died at an advanced age in 1701, when his eldest
son, Nicholas, succeeded to Greenwell Ford, whilst Kibblesworth passed
to his younger son, Robert. The latter was great-grandfather of the late
Major-General Sir Leonard Greenwell, K.C.B., who, in 1820, acted as
godfather to the present venerable head of the family, the author of
Greenwell’s Glory, one of, if not, the best trout flies known.
Other branches of the family have flourished for awhile and then
disappeared. In 1697 William Greenwell of Whitworth acquired a moiety,
including the mansion-house of Great Chilton, where his descendants
lived for some three generations. One of his daughters married Cuthbert
Smith, whose brother Ralph became his heir. This hunting squire
bequeathed his property, for no other reason but that they had often
ridden together
"From the drag to the chase, from the chase to the view,
From the view to the death in the morning,"
to Robert Surtees of Milkwellburn.
At a much earlier date another William Greenwell owned a fair estate at
Neasham, and dying in 1619 left two daughters, Margaret aged three and
Eleanor two years, as his heirs. His widow married Marmaduke Wyville,
and the daughters respectively became the wives of John Taylor of
Appleton, and Ralph Hedworth of Pokerley.
One other branch, still surviving, must not be passed over. The estate
of Broomshields near to Satley has belonged to Greenwells from as far
back as 1488, when one of the many Peters lived there. The
representation of the Maddisons of Hole House in the Derwent Valley, a
family celebrated in local history and ballad, passed into this family
by marriage in 1774. A later owner of Broomshields, John Greenwell,
married Elizabeth, daughter of Alan Greenwell of Ford, and thus
re-united the two families.
Many years have passed since Robert Surtees wrote: "_Sic transit._ We
know not what are become of the descendants of Bulmer, whose ancestors
held Brancepeth and Middleham Castles. The family of Conyers, which has
had Parliamentary lords, and once consisted of nine or ten flourishing
branches (excepting some remains in the South), is reduced to a single
Baronet’s title without a fortune, and the probable descendants of
Surtees of Dinsdale are ignorant of their own origin, whilst the chief
male line is either extinct or steeped in poverty and oblivion."
The great house of Surtees derives, as its name implies, its origin from
a family resident to a remote period on the banks of the River Tees.
William, the son of Siward, was living there in the reign of Henry II.,
and his son Ralph was the first to style himself Sur Tees, the family
residence being then, as for many long years afterwards, at Dinsdale,
the adjoining seat to Sockburn where the Conyers family dwelt.
Of the dissolution of this head house of the race, Mr. Surtees added: "I
discovered by a remarkable deed at Durham (unknown to Hutchinson) how
the estates went to Brandling in prejudice of Marmaduke, heir male of
the half-blood; and that Marmaduke’s grandson Thomas sold most of what
remained in the male line; but I cannot find further as to this Thomas
except that his younger brother Richard married and had two sons, Robert
and Richard, who are the last I can trace of this branch, the undoubted
direct heirs."
The existing branches of this old family now resident at Redworth Hall,
Mainsforth, and Hamsterley, derive their descent from a William Surtees
who, in the year 1440, acquired lands in Whickham under the Halmote
Court, his sureties being Robert Boutflower and Thomas Gibson.
His descendants for some generations resided within the parishes of
Whickham in this county, and Ovingham in Northumberland.
Edward Surtees strengthened the family by marrying in 1617 Margaret
Coulson, whose mother was sister and heir of Robert Surtees, Alderman
and twice Mayor of Durham.
The eldest son of this marriage was ancestor of the famous beauty, Bessy
Surtees, who ran away with and married John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon
and Chancellor of Great Britain.
The second son, Robert Surtees of Ryton, added to his inheritance by
marrying an heiress of the Hauxley family. He purchased Mainsforth and
founded the two families now owning that seat and Redworth, and amongst
his descendants was Robert Surtees the historian, to whom his native
county owes an everlasting debt.
The Surtees of Hamsterley Hall trace their descent from a Cuthbert
Surtees of Ebchester who died in 1622, and whose relationship to the
Ovingham family is not at present clear. His son Anthony, however, held
the Hollins in Ovingham parish in 1629, and that property in 1586 was in
the possession of Rowland Surtees, who died the following year, and who
was brother of William Surtees, ancestor of the families already
mentioned.
Hamsterley descended to Robert Smith Surtees, the author of some
well-known sporting novels.
The Edens are almost certainly an indigenous family, for there can be
but little doubt that they derive their name from the village of Eden,
now called Castle Eden. The family for a number of generations resided
at Preston-on-Tees,
[Illustration: HOPPYLAND PARK.]
where lands were held by Robert de Eden in 1413. A succession of
Thomases and Williams bring the pedigree into the sixteenth century,
when John Eden married an heiress of the Lambtons. After the heads of
the house successively increased the family patrimony by marrying
heiresses of the Hutton, Welbury, and Bee families, John Eden’s
great-great-grandson, Robert by name, followed his ancestor’s example by
marrying another Lambton heiress. He was Member for the county and was
created a Baronet in 1672. Sir Robert Eden, the third Baronet, had a
large and distinguished family. His second son Robert was Governor of
Maryland, and created a Baronet in 1776. He was ancestor of the present
Sir William Eden, who succeeded also to the inheritance of the
first-named Sir Robert’s eldest son, and is thus doubly a Baronet. The
Governor’s next brother, Sir Robert’s third son, was the distinguished
statesman, William Lord Auckland, and the fifth son, Sir Morton Eden, an
eminent diplomatist, was created Baron Henley, and was ancestor of the
present peer. One of the sisters of this talented trio married John
Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and another married the Rev. Richard
Richardson, Chancellor of St. Paul’s.
Several old families have for many generations dwelt in the Valley of
the Derwent, and were all more or less intermarried with each other.
Thomas Hunter, about the end of the fourteenth century, married Margaret
Layton, heiress, through her mother, of the family of Alanshields of
Alanshields. A century later quite a small clan of the Hunters were
resident up and down the valley, but principally at Medomsley. Here in
1675 was born Dr. Christopher Hunter, the celebrated antiquary; and here
nearly a century later, in 1757, General Sir Martin Hunter, G.C.M.G.,
first saw the light.
The Stevensons were another Derwentside family, whose name is best known
through John Hall, the _Eugenius_ of Sterne, having taken it when he
married the heiress of Ambrose Stevenson of Byerside.
The Shaftos have in various branches been closely connected with the
county for many centuries. The late Rev. John Hodgson, in an early
volume of the _Archæologia Æliana_, throws doubt upon the traditional
descent of the Shaftos in the male line from the Folliots. He
overlooked, however, several important facts that at least render the
assertion possible. The Fenwick of which the Folliots were Lords is not
the Fenwick in Northumberland as he assumed, but the place of that name
in Yorkshire which passed by the marriage of Margaret Folliot to her
husband, Sir Hugh Hastings, and long continued in his family.
Cuthbert, son of John Folliot of Fenwick, is said to have acquired lands
at Shafto in Northumberland by marrying one of the heirs of Roger
Welwick of that place, and his descendants took the local name; another
daughter of Roger is stated in the Visitation of Rutland, 1618, to have
married a Bryan Harbottle. A comparison of the arms of the respective
families shows that the Shafto coat is merely the Folliot arms
differenced. Jordan Folliot in 1295 bore _gules a bend argent_, and
Robert de Shaftowe, a contemporary, bore _gules on a bend argent, three
mullets azure_.
The Shaftos of Tanfield Leigh in this county recorded their pedigree at
the Visitation of 1615. Le Neve continued the family for several
generations. James Shafto, aged eight, in 1615 married a sister of Sir
John Jackson of Harraton, and his son was living in 1707, and then
described as very poor. His son, again, a third James, married a
daughter of Sir Thomas Sandford, and had three sons, after whom the
descent is not clear.
The family now resident at Whitworth Park are an early offshoot of the
Shaftos of Bavington in Northumberland. They have several times
intermarried with the Edens, and, like that family, are very rich in
quarterings. Their escutcheon includes the arms of the Cavendishes,
Dukes of Newcastle; the Lords Ogle, and many other great houses. Within
the last century Beamish Park, near Chester-le-Street, has become the
seat of another branch of the same family.
The Salvins of Croxdale are another of our old historic families who
have held the same acres for generations. They have lived at their
present home from the early days of the fifteenth century. In the time
of King Charles they were gallant Loyalists, and two of them were killed
in the King’s service.
The Whartons have also resided near to Durham for a good many centuries.
They descend from the Whartons of Wharton in Westmorland, and their
armorial insignia is interesting both in its origin and as illustrating
the close alliance often existing between families bearing similar arms.
Amongst the Normans who settled in this country after the Conquest was a
family named Flamanville, often abbreviated into Flamville, who took
their name from their lordship of that name in the province of La Manche
in Normandy, and gave it as a suffix to their new Leicester estate of
Aston. Their coat of arms was simply _la manche_, the sleeve, and so the
name originally applied to the curious geographical shape of a peninsula
came to be a familiar term in English heraldry. They intermarried with
the Conyers and the Hastings, and both these families adopted the
_manche_ as their emblem. An heiress of the latter family married a
Wharton, and to this day a silver _manche_ or _maunch_ on a black field
is the Wharton arms.
Dr. Wharton of Old Park, a lineal ancestor of the Dryburn family, is
celebrated as one of the courageous physicians who continued to visit
the sick during the Great Plague of London. One of his descendants, Dr.
Thomas Wharton, was the friend of the poet Thomas Gray, who visited him
at Old Park.
The name of Burdon is an old one in the county, and probably derived
from one or other of the local villages of that name. There were Burdons
at Helmdon centuries ago, and for a number of generations Burdens have
owned Castle Eden. The curious articles on the family arms, described by
some writers as organ-pipes, are said to be in reality palmers’ staffs,
and are so used by the present family.
One branch of the Ords, who are a Northumbrian, or more correctly a
North Durham, family, must not be passed over. In the reign of James I.
John Ord acquired property at Fishburn, and founded the house who have
for so long dwelt at Sands Hall, beside Sedgefield.
Another family of Northumbrian extraction are the Blenkinsopps of
Hoppyland, who are, however, in the male line descended from the Leatons
or Leightons of Benfieldside. Hoppyland was purchased from the Blacketts
in 1768 by William Leaton of Gibside, agent to the Bowes family.
The Blacketts, who now reside at Wylam in Northumberland, held Hoppyland
for several generations. Their ancestor, Edward Blackett, of Shildon,
married for his second wife a daughter of the famous Lilburne family of
Thickley-Puncharden, and a near relative of "Freeborn John." The Baronet
family, who now own the old Conyers estate of Sockburn, are also
descended from this Edward, and are rather curiously derived from the
latter family. The first baronet’s wife was a daughter of Michael
Kirkley of Newcastle, whose wife’s grandmother, Marion Anderson, was a
lineal descendant of William Conyers of Wynyard.[31]
Ravensworth Castle, near Gateshead, has been the home of the Liddell
family since 1607. The third owner of the name was created a Baronet by
King Charles I. in 1642, and was a strong Royalist during the troubled
years of that King’s reign. Since then the family has twice held
peerages. Sir Henry Liddell was created Baron Ravensworth in 1747, but
as he had no children the title became extinct at his death in 1784.
His great-nephew, Sir Thomas Henry Liddell, took the same title on his
elevation to the peerage in 1821.
Two members of the Ravensworth family have left names well known in the
literary world. The second Baron, son and namesake of the first, was the
author of a translation into English lyric verse of the _Odes of
Horace_, and, in conjunction with Mr. Richards, he published in blank
verse a translation of the last six books of Virgil’s _Æneid_. He was
created Earl of Ravensworth, a title that died with his son, when the
Barony passed to a cousin. The Very Rev. Henry George Liddell, Dean of
Christ Church, Oxford, and some time Vice-Chancellor of that University,
was one of the compilers of the well-known Greek lexicon.
The Bowes family was once as widely scattered over Durham as the
Conyers. Streatlam Castle and Gibside, Bradley Hall, Biddick, and
Thornton Hall, were all residences of the Boweses at one time. One
branch only in the male line survives, and is now resident at Croft.
Streatlam and Gibside, however, still belong to descendants in the
female line--the Earls of Strathmore--who have added the name of their
Durham ancestors to the paternal surname of Lyon.
One of the most celebrated members of this family was _Old_ Sir William
Bowes, whose devotion to the young wife he lost, when he was about
twenty-eight years old, has caused him to be celebrated amongst true
lovers. He lived to a great age, and never remarried.
A descendant of his, Sir George Bowes, is celebrated in local rhyme as--
"Cowardy! cowardy! Barney Castle,"
a most erroneous term, for he was, in very truth, a loyal and gallant
gentleman, whose brave defence of Barnard Castle in a time of strife and
rebellion perhaps saved England for Queen Elizabeth. But the Boweses
have always, like most of our real old families, been a brave old race,
and fully up to their motto: _In multis, in magnis, in bonis expertus_.
The Chaytors are descended from a certain John Chaytor, of Newcastle,
merchant, whose widow remarried William Wilkinson, another merchant in
the same old city.
The widow of both made her will on March 23, 1558-59, and in it, after
desiring to be buried in All Saints’ Church, Newcastle, beside her last
lord, mentions her two sons, Christopher and John, and her daughter,
Jane Kirkhouse. John Chaytor the younger married a daughter of James
Perkinson, and left two children, Elizabeth and John, living in 1579.
Christopher Chaytor became an important public man, and, besides
acquiring the Manor of Butterby, near Durham, gathered into the family
fold the great estate of the noble old house of Clervaux, of Croft, and
founded the present Baronet Chaytors. His son Thomas married a daughter
of Sir Nicholas Tempest, Bart., of Stella; and his son again, Nicholas
Chaytor, was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Army under the famous
fighting Marquess of Newcastle, and by his wife, a Lambton heiress, was
father of Sir William, created a Baronet in 1671. This baronetcy became
extinct on the death of the first holder in 1720, but was again revived
when Sir William Chaytor was created a Baronet in 1801.
The Tempests, as already mentioned, were relatives of the Chaytors. They
came into the county from Yorkshire, when Sir William Tempest, of
Studley, married the heiress of the Washingtons of Washington. His
natural son, Rowland, acquired a considerable estate by marrying one of
the many coheirs of the great baronial family of Umphreville, and was
ancestor of the various families of the name seated in this county.
Sir Nicholas Tempest, of Stella Hall, in the reign of James I., was
created a Baronet, and was buried at Ryton in 1625.
[Illustration] Portrait of Sir George Bowes
(_From the painting at Streatlam Castle_)]
His younger brother, Rowland Tempest, was ancestor of the Tempests of
the Isle and Old Durham, whose representative some hundred years later,
John Tempest, who was many years M.P. for the city of Durham, left a
daughter Frances, who became eventually heiress of this branch of the
family. She married the Rev. Sir Henry Vane, Bart., Prebendary of Durham
Cathedral, a descendant of the famous Sir Henry Vane the elder, and her
son, assuming his mother’s name, became Sir Henry Vane-Tempest. He left
an only daughter, Frances Anne Emily, who married the third Marquess of
Londonderry as his second wife, and was grandmother of the present
Marquess.
The Vanes, who descend from a common ancestor with the Earls of
Westmorland, have only been connected with Durham since the reign of
James I., when Sir Henry Vane, of Hadlo Castle, a Kentish knight,
acquired Raby Castle by grant from the Crown. His youngest son was
ancestor of the Marquesses of Londonderry, and his eldest son was
ancestor of the late Duke of Cleveland and of the present Lord Barnard.
The Williamsons came into this county through a strange decree of fate.
The estate of Monkwearmouth passed from its purchaser, Colonel George
Fenwick, of Brinkburn, the well-known Puritan, to his daughter Dorothy,
who married Sir Thomas Williamson, of East Markham, in Nottinghamshire.
Sir Thomas belonged to a Cavalier family that had lost much in the Royal
cause.
Sir William, the fourth Baronet, married a sister of Mrs. Lambton, of
Lambton, and co-heiress of John Hedworth, of Harraton, whose wife was a
descendant of William James, sometime Bishop of Durham. Whitburn Hall
has for several generations been the family residence, and the present
Baronet is the ninth.
Lord Boyne’s family are only recent settlers in Durham, and came here
when Brancepeth Castle passed to the seventh Viscount upon his marriage
with an heiress of the Russells. They have been Barons of Brancepeth
since 1866.
Other old families still existent in the shire who should at least be
mentioned are the Pembertons[32] of Belmont Hall, the Wilkinsons of
Durham, the Fogg-Elliots of Elvet Hill, the Bateses of Wolsingham, the
Trotters of Helmdon, and the Hutchinsons.
The Claverings of Axwell, a noble old race, have within the last few
years died out in the male line, but the name and blood continue in the
present owners of the old home.
Descendants of other old families doubtless linger on: Byerleys and
Fawcetts, Darnells and Croudaces, Muschamps and Emersons, Morgans and
Marleys, Ewbankes and Raines, Rippons and Maddisons, and many another
race, inheriting to the full the traditions of our country, are to be
found scattered up and down the county.
INDEX
Abbey, Durham, 158
---- of Durham dissolved, 16
Acre, 107
Agnes’s Fast, St., 53
Alanshields of Alanshields, 249
Aldhun, Bishop, 109
"All Fools’ Day," 57
Alston, 41
Altars at Bolihope, Roman, 80
Altar-screen, Durham, 121-122, 138