STOCKTON WARD 



BISHOP MIDDLEHAM 



the years between 1802 and 1834 on his H'utory of 

 Durham,^"- to which all later accounts of the county arc 

 so much indebted. Robert Surtees was a brilliant 

 conversationalist, and at Mainsforth Hall he collected 

 round him the members of that famous school of 

 northern antiquaries which he himself had founded 

 and which, after his death, established in his memory 

 the society which bears his name. He was a friend 

 and correspondent of Sir Walter Scott. ^-' 



The older portions of Mainsforth Hall probably date 

 from the time of Ralph Hutton, about 1 62 5, but the 

 house was almost entirely rebuilt shortly after 1720 by 

 Edward Surtees, who added a large square block of 

 three stories at the south-east end. Internal altera- 

 tions were afterwards made, chiefly by Robert Surtees 

 in 1772, and quite recently by Gen. H. Conyers 

 Surtees, the present owner. The entrance gate-piers 

 were brought from Embleton Hall, and some heraldic 

 glass in the house shows amongst others the arms of 

 Claxton and a coat with three scythe blades (for 

 Kempley ?) brought from an old house at Chilton, 

 and some more modern glass from Hardwick Hall, 

 Sedgefield, about the middle of the i8th century. 

 Over the main entrance to the garden is a shield of 

 arms, formerly in Robert Surtees' (d. 1 61 7) house in 

 Durham market place.'^ To the west of it is Narbal 

 Hill, a curious sand-hill with a hollow summit. The 

 name is more correctly Nab Hill.^'' A Wesleyan 

 chapel was built at Mainsforth in 1913. 



Thrislington is immediately north of Mainsforth, 

 and to the west of both these townships the ground 

 slopes steeply down to the marshy ground called 

 the Carrs. The paved pathway leading across the 

 marsh from Thrislington Hall to Ferry Hill is men- 

 tioned in an agreement of 1262, by which the owners 

 of Thrislington agreed to grant to the Prior of Durham, 

 in return for pasture on Ferry Hill Moor, all their 

 marsh ' from the causeway which leads from Fery to 

 Thurstanton as far as the causeway to Mainsworth.' ^^ 

 There is no village of Thrislington. 



Cornforth, the township to the north and east of 

 Thrislington, has an old village built round a green 

 roughly square in shape, with the church of Holy 

 Trinity on its west side, and a new settlement called 

 West Cornforth, which has sprung up since 1857 and 

 is occupied chiefly by colliery workers and railway 

 men. West Cornforth has a station on the Hartlepool 

 and Ferry Hill branch of the North Eastern railway, 

 which here leaves the Newcastle line and runs east. 

 The Ferryhill and Co.xhoe branch also cuts across the 

 township. West Cornforth has a Roman Catholic 

 church dating from i 87 5,'^ and dedicated to SS. Joseph, 

 Patrick, and Cuthbert. 



The mill of Cornforth is north-east of the village, 

 on a little stream called Cornforth Beck. The mill of 

 Thinford (Thynford,Thynforth, in the 15 th century. 



when the Forcer family had meadow land here) ^' is 

 worked by the same stream. It stands near the western 

 boundary, and is not mentioned before 1857.'" 

 Brandon House, a large farm,^' is near Thinford Mill. 

 A messuage called Me Peile,' in Cornforth, perhaps a 

 fortified tower, is frequently mentioned in 15th- 

 century leases,''*' and ' Colynson meadow ' occurs 

 several times.'" 



The tract of land called Garmondsway Moor, east 

 of Cornforth, is the highest ground in the parish ; in 

 places it rises to 500 ft. above the ordnance datum. 

 There is no village. On Raisby Hill, in the north of 

 the township, are quarries and limekilns. 



The common fields of Middleham were inclosed in 

 i693.''2 



In the purchase of Sedgefield 

 MANORS, ye. and its appurtenances for St. Cuth- 

 bert by Bishop Cutheard^' (900- 

 15) MIDDLEHAM was probably included. Never- 

 theless Bishop Ranulf Flambard ( 1 099-1 128), treating 

 it as his personal possession, made a grant of it to his 

 nephew Osbert the Sheriff, who was still in possession 

 in I 146.^"' From him it seems to have passed to 

 Jordan de Escoland of Seaham, of whom land herc*^ 

 was held in the second half of the 12th century by 

 Ralph Basset. Bishop Pudsey 

 restored it to the see before 

 1 I 80 bygranting Ralph land in 

 Painshaw (q.v.) in exchange.''^ 

 He also recovered 2 oxgangs 

 from Ralph the clerk, who re- 

 ceived in return land in New- 

 ton, near Durham.''" The vill 

 remained a part of the endow- 

 ment of the bishopric, except 

 from 1 649 to 1 660,^* down to 

 1856, when it was vested in 

 the Ecclesiastical Commis- 

 sioners.^' The land is held for 

 the most part by leasehold or copyhold.'* 



In 1 183 there were in Middleham and Cornforth, 

 which were surveyed together, twenty-six villeins, 

 whose tenure was similar to that of the villeins of 

 Boldon.*' Seven cottiers held 6 acres each. Four 

 bordars had four tofts and crofts.'- The demesne, 

 which was common to both vills, and perhaps to 

 Sedgefield also, was in the bishop's hands." In 1349 

 it was farmed by the bishop's bailiff; the services of 

 the bondmen were commuted for a money payment. 

 The grass of Sprowes lawe,' a meadow in Middleham, 

 was sold for 1 2/. to the bondmen of Middleham, that 

 of ' Corneforth medowe ' was sold similarly to the 

 men of Cornforth, and that of ' Seggefel medowe ' to 

 the men of Sedgefield.''' Both Cornforth and Sedge- 

 field were part of Middleham Manor, and did suit at 

 the halmotes held at Middleham or Sedgefield." 



Bishopric of Dur- 

 ham. A-zure a cross or 

 benutcnfour lions ardent. 



" Diet. Nai. Biog. 



»2a The 'Old Northumbrian ballad' 

 pivcn in Alarmion was a literary hoax 

 perpetrated by Surteea and accepted as 

 genuine by Sir Walter Scott (App. to 

 Marmion, note M ; Xlem, of Surtees 

 [Surt. Soc], 13, 237). 



'' The Autijuary (New Scr.), i, loi. 



•* Surtees, op. cit. iii, 20. 



" Ibid. 1 6. 



5« Caih. Dir. 



" Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 4, fol. 39, 59. 



" Fordyce, Hist, of Co. Pjlai. of Dur. i, 

 399, ^^ See below. 



*» Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 16, fol. 263 ; 

 17, fol. 34 ; 18, fol. 107. 



<' Ibid. no. 16, fol. 56 d. ; Hatfield's 

 Surr: (Surt. Soc), 184. 



" Char. Com. Ref. xxiii, 85. 



" Simeon of Dur. Ofera (Rolls Ser.), 

 i, 208. 



" Charter printed in Surtees, op. cit. 

 iii, 3 85. 



*' Evidently a considerable amount, as 

 Ralph Basset received most of Painshaw 

 in exchange. 



«« r.C.H. Dur. i, 328 i BolJon Bk. (Surt. 

 Soc), App. p. xlii. 



205 



*' r.C.H.Dur.i, 327. 



** It was sold in 1649 by the trustees 

 for church lands to Thomas Heselrigg 

 (Close, 1649, pt. xii, no. 1;). 



" UnJ. Gaz. 22 Apr. 1856, p. 1505. 



*** Surtees, op. cit. iii, 3. 



" r.C.H. Dur. i, 330. 



" Ibid. 



» Ibid. 



" Hatfield's Surv. (Surt. Soc), 236-7. 



"Dur. Rec. cl. 3, no. 12-17. Th' 

 court about 1820 was held at Middleham, 

 Sedgefield and Cornforth in rotation (Sur- 

 tees, op. cit. iii, 3). 



