A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



to Chester and to New-Castelle.'^* The chapel of 

 St. Margaret stands in the angle formed by the 

 junction of South Street with Crossgate. A map 

 of 1754 shows houses aU along the south side of 

 Crossgate and the north side of its branch 

 Allergate, but only one block of houses on the 

 intervening space where the workhouse now 

 stands. 



From the end of Crossgate the road leads 

 across the Browney to Brancepeth. The land 

 between the river and end of Margery Lane 

 is dotted with modern \allas, and suburban 

 roads now cross the site of the battle of Neville's 

 Cross. Both Scots and English were drawn up 

 in line on Bearpark"* Moor, between the city and 

 the manor-house. Much of the fighting centred 

 on the Red HiUs, enclosed land belonging to the 

 Priory*" and now cut through by the railway 

 line. The Prior and some of his monks took 

 their stand ' a litle distant from a pece of ground 

 called ye flashe above a close lying hard by north 

 Chilton poole and on ye north side of ye hedge 

 where ye maydes bower had wont to be.''' Here 

 they displayed St. Cuthbert's corporax case 

 and prayed for an English victory.^ The Scots 

 were routed by Ralph Lord NeviU and his fellows, 

 King David was badly wounded in the face, and 

 according to tradition he fled down to the Browney 

 and hid under a narrow stone bridge near Aldin 

 Grange, but was there betrayed by his shadow 

 on the water.'' However this may be, the King 

 was taken captive by John de Copeland, a 

 Northumberland esquire and husband of one of 

 the heirs of Crook Hall.** In commemoration of 

 his victory Lord NeviU set up the cross whence 

 the district takes its name.'^ This monument 

 was broken down one night in 1589^* by ' some 

 lewde and contemptuous wicked persons,' but 

 the stump remained in its old position until 

 1903, when it was moved to a new mound a few 

 yards distant. 



Milburngate, at right angles to Crossgate, 

 was of great importance in the middle ages" as 

 being an urban portion of the road to Newcastle 

 and the North. The road, though paved as 



^ Iti7i. (ed. L. Toulmin Smith), i, 73. 



29 Hist. Dunelm. Script. Ires (Surt. See), App. 

 no. cccxxxvii. 



30 Cf. Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 16, fol. 39 d. 

 '1 Rites of Dur. (Surt. Soc.), 28-9. 



3^ According to Gough the Prior signalled the result 

 of the battle to the monks watching on the Priory 

 tower, and in 1789 the custom of singing ' Te Deum ' 

 from the tower on the anniversary of the battle was 

 still observed (Camden, Brit, iii, 121). Hist. Dunelm. 

 Script. Ires (Surt. Soc), App. no. cccmvii. 



" Mackenzie and Ross, Dur. ii, 438 and n. 



** See below. 



3* Rites of Dur. (Surt. Soc), 27. 



3* Ibid. 28, 217. 



'' There were 87 burgage tenements in MUburngate 

 in 1540 (Mins. Accts. Dur. Hen. VIII, no. 708). 



early as 141 3,'* was narrow and inconvenient, 

 and in or about 18473* the present North Road 

 was opened, with the result that an entirely new 

 settlement came into being in this direction.*" 

 Piper's close and White's close have all been 

 built over, but Shaw Wood under Western Hill 

 still lies as it was when granted by the Bishop 

 to the burgesses of Durham in the 1 7th century.''^ 

 Just east of Shaw Wood is the County Hospital, 

 opened in 1853, and a little to the west a ditch 

 forms the parish boundary, and is all that is left 

 of the Mill Burn which divided the Prior's 

 borough of Crossgate from Framwellgate, the 

 bishop's borough.*- 



Framwellgate, though on the main road to the 

 north, struck a 19th-century observer as squalid 

 and mean.'" In the mid-i8th century the land 

 between the road and the Wear was laid out in 

 gardens and closes, one of which must have been 

 that Bishops Mead let to the tenants of Fram- 

 wellgate as a garden in the 15th century. In 

 1754" ^^^ Castle Chare was a country lane, and 

 the North Eastern Railway station, opened in 

 1856, stands on what was then market gardens.** 

 The ground west of the station was given to the 

 city as a pubUc park by Mr. W. Lloyd Wharton 

 about i86o'" and bears his name. 



Framwellgate runs northwards for about half 

 a mile and then abruptly branches north-east 

 and north-west. The north-western road is the 

 main highway to the north and until the inclo- 

 sure of Framwellgate Moor in 1800" was an 

 open track, as Leland described it, ' partely by a 

 litle corne ground, but mostly by mountainiouse 

 pasture and sum mores and firres.'*' On the 

 western side of this road and at some little dis- 

 tance from the city once stood the hospital of 

 St. Leonard on the ground called Spittleflat.** 

 Little is known of this leper hospital, but it was 

 probably that at which St. Godric's sister died 

 in the late 12th century and it was certainly in 

 existence in 1292.^ Though an entry made in 

 January 1404-5 seems to imply that the plot 



38 Dur. Acct. R. (Surt. Soc), i, 224. 



'9 Illus. Guide to Dur. (1907). 



** See Lans. MS. 902, fol. 73. 



" Dur. Rec. cl. 4, no. 2, fol. 340 d. 



*2 Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surt. Soc), 192 n. As early 

 as 1754 the latter part of its course ran underground 

 (Forster, Map oj Dur. 1754). 



^3 Though the borough of Framwellgate belonged to 

 the Bishop, the Priory had 16 burgage tenements here 

 in 1540 (Mins. Accts. Dur. Hen. VIII, no. 708). 



** Cf. Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 14, fol. 11, 35 ; no. 15, 

 fol. 188. 



** Forster, op. cit. 



" Brief Sketch of Dur. (1863). 



■" Priv. Act, 41 Geo. Ill, cap. xii. 



*8 Leland, Itin. (ed. L. Toulmin Smith), i, 74. 



*9 Marked on Christopher Schwytzer's map Dunelm. 

 engraved in 1595. 



so V.C.H. Dur. ii, 123. 



146 



