DR. OILLT ON NORHAM CHURCH AND CHURCHYARD. 185 



render its aspect inconsistent with the sobriety of Protestant 

 reformed worship. 



Since the opening of the railroad from Edinburgh to Ber- 

 wick, the castle, village, and church of Norham have become 

 a favourite resort of visitors from Scotland ; and many of our 

 northern neighbours have acknowledged that this stately 

 fabric furnishes a model for the improvement of ecclesiastical 

 architecture on the other side of the Border. Neither church 

 nor churchyard contains anything very ancient as a sepul- 

 chral relic, except a stone effigy, in the chancel, of Cospatrick, 

 Earl of Northumberland, the ancestor of the noble family of 

 Home, who died about the year 1080 ; and a Saxon tomb- 

 stone preserved within the iron railing in the churchyard, 

 which has already been described. 



The oldest legible epitaph in the church is the following: — 



" Her lyes Grace Selbe who decesed at the wel of God in 

 the 6of Agwst 1648." 



The early parish registers of Norham church have been 

 lost, and none remain of an older date than those com- 

 mencing Oct. 1 653 ; but in several of the volumes published 

 by the Surtees Society, and in Raine's History of North 

 Durham, many curious particulars of local interest will be 

 found relating both to ecclesiastical and parochial matters. 

 In " the Durham household book, or accounts of the bursar 

 of the monastery of Durham from Pentecost 1530, to Pente- 

 cost 1534," published in 1844, there is a variety of entries 

 for repairs done to the chancel of Norham church. The fol- 

 lowing is a sample, and makes mention of work done and 

 prices paid for windows mended in 1533 : — 



"Norham. — Et eidem, pro 21 dies, pro operacione 42 pedum 

 novi operis ad 2d. (5s. lOd.) et pro emendacione et le lettynge 

 ibidem diversorum foraminum in Choro de Norham, per diem 

 5d., 8s. 4d. De domino Priore 4 lb. souder, versus Norham 

 16d. Et in vitro empto per Robertum Sanderson, ut patet 

 in compoto inter nos, i credyl, 8s. Et in 6 ferri (sic) emptis 

 pro fenestris ibidem, ad 9d., 4s. 6d. Et in 6 petris plumbi, 

 2s. Et pro operacione ferri, 18d. Et in Calce et Carbonibus, 

 5d." P. 268. 



The parchment register book, beginning in 1714 and end- 



