A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



Beauchamp, Earl of 

 Warwick. C'uUs a Jesse 

 between six crosslets or. 



to Elizabeth de UmfraviU Countess of Angus, the 

 lands being in the king's hands, as pertaining to 

 Barnard Castle, by reason of the minority of the heir 

 of Guy de Beauchamp Earl of 

 Warwick.'^ From ministers' 

 accounts of this time it appears 

 that in 1317 thirteen oxgangs 

 of land held in demesne 

 rendered £^ 2/., the demesne 

 meadows 26/., and four free 

 tenants 38;. id. ; the seven 

 tenants of i 2 oxgangs and I 2 

 acres of land in bondage paid 

 £j I 5/., and cottars paid 24/. 

 The fishgarth rendered a sal- 

 mon in Lent, which had been 

 sold for I zd., and y. came 



from ale-brewing.'* Six years later, when much 

 destruction of the crops had been wrought by the 

 Scots, the free tenants named were the Abbot of 

 Rievaulx for a messuage and two ploughlands ( i ^s. Sd.), 

 and Robert de Westwick for a messuage and 2 oxgangs 

 of land (16/.) ; 9 acres in Dinsdale, which used to pay 

 9/., were then unoccupied and fallow (/risen) for lack 

 of tenants.'" The same estates of Long Newton and 

 Newsham on Tees were granted for life in 1339 by 

 Thomas Earl of Warwick to Sir Robert de Herle.'' 

 After the Warwick estates had escheated to the Crown 

 a lease of the farm of Newsham in the lordship of 

 Long Newton was granted to Edmund Oglethorp 

 (on surrender of a former lease) in 1532.'* 



Soon afterwards the second large estate in Newsham 

 came into the possession of the Crown. This was 

 the land which Rievaulx Abbey 

 had acquired from various 

 donors in the 12th and 14th 

 centuries. The fishery of New- 

 sham, apparently with some 

 land, was granted to the abbey 

 by Bernard son of Bernard de 

 Balliol.'^ His grandson Hugh 

 made a grant of 10 acres with 

 common of pasture.** Guy de 

 Bovencourt, a sub-tenant of 

 the Balliols, granted 8 oxgangs 

 here to Rievaulx." Finally, 

 about 131 5, Henry le Scrope, 

 who presumablyalso held under 

 the Balliols, exchanged a messuage, 8 tofts and 14 

 oxgangs in Newsham for lands in East Bolton and 

 Bellerby (Yorks), which belonged to the abbey.*- In 

 1316 a rent of jos. was due to the lord of Barnard 

 Castle from the tenements of the Abbot of Kievaulx.'^ 

 At the Dissolution they had an annual value of 

 /20 13/. ^d.«* 



A grant of the fishery in the Tees at Newsham 

 was made in 161 l to John Eldred and others,*^ who 

 were ' fishing grantees,' and may never have come 



V A u I. X Abbey. 

 Gules a crozier or be- 

 Uveen three water bougets 

 argent. 



iXiXi^ 



Hall of Newsham. 

 Argent a cbevcron en- 

 grailed bettveen three 

 talbots* heads razed az ure 

 Kith three molels or 

 in the chief. 



into possession. No grant of the lands of the lords 

 of Barnard Castle or of Rievaulx Abbey has been 

 found. Before 1 6 1 I , however, 

 most of Newsham belonged to 

 Francis Hall," who died in 

 that year. He was succeeded 

 by his son Christopher Hall of 

 Newsham, who took the Royal- 

 ist side in the Civil War, and 

 was reckoned a 'delinquent' 

 by the Parliament because he 

 left his dwelling and went to 

 Oxford. He surrendered upon 

 the Oxford articles. His estate 

 was valued at j(^2 30 a year, and 

 in 1648 a fine of two years' 

 value was accepted.*' His son 

 Lodowick, who recorded a 

 pedigree in 1666,** sold New- 

 sham in 1 662 to Robert Blakiston of Old Elvet.** His 

 great-grandson the Rev. Robert Blakiston was living in 

 1738. About a century later the estate was owned by 

 William Skinner,'" who was followed by William 

 Skinner Marshall. It was advertised for sale in 1855 

 and is now divided among various owners." 



TRAFFORD HILL ( Ireford, xii cent. ; Straflbrth, 

 xvii cent.) was held with Coatham Mundeville (q.v.) 

 for one knight's fee in the 12th century by the family 

 of Amundevill.'^ William de Amundevill and Emma 

 his wife granted I acre of land here to Rievaulx 

 Abbey in free alms.'* Before 1236 the tenancy in 

 demesne had come into the hands of Pleasance, 

 daughter and heir of William le Breton, who in 

 February of the following year came to an agreement 

 with the overlord, Ralph de Amundevill, whereby he 

 took her homage for the manor of Trafford."" 

 TrafFord did not follow the descent of lands Pleasance 

 held in EgglesclifFe, though the reason for this di- 

 vergence is not clear. Pleadings in I 279 show that 

 Godfrey Breton held land here in the time of Bishop 

 Richard le Poor ( I 228-37) that descended to Walter 

 his son, probably that Walter le Breton who was 

 steward to Alexander de Balliol in the time of the 

 Barons' war.'*'' Walter le Breton enfeoffed John 

 Gillet, whose son John took the habit of the 

 friars preachers, and may possibly be identified 

 with the John de EgglesclifFe who figures so 

 largely in the assize rolls of 1236. John left no 

 issue, and his lands passed to Hugh his brother, who 

 was also childless ; his brother and heir Walter had a 

 son Robert, and his son William, son of Robert de 

 Birdshall, successfully fought various claimants to the 

 lands in 1279.'*- Whether or no these various 

 persons had any claim on Traflbrd is uncertain, nor 

 is their connexion established with the William Gra 

 who was in possession in 1336, when he was said to 

 have held the ' manor ' of TrafFord of the bishop by 

 rendering a pair of white gloves on St. Mary 



'< Cat. Pat. 13 1 3-17, p. 567. 



" Mins. Accts. (Gen. Ser.), bdle. 835, 

 no. 2. *' Ibid. no. 4. 



" Cat. Pat. 1338—40, p. 320. 



" L. and P. Hen. VIII, ii (2), 4302 ; 

 ». g- '499 (32) ; Harl. R. D 36 ; Aug. 

 Off. Partic. for Leases, file 36, no. 63. 



" Rie-uaulx Chan. (Surt. Soc), 66. 



"•Ibid. 221. " Ibid. 266. 



"' Cal. Pat. I 3 I 3-1 7, p. 260 ; Rie-vaulx 

 Chart. (Surt. Soc), 104-6. 



" Cat. Inf. p.m. (Edw. II), v, 412. 



«s> Mins.Accts. (Gen. Ser.), bdle. 835, 

 no. 4. 



64 Dugdalc, Man. v, 286. 



'' Pat. 9 Jas. I, pt. viii. 



'" Brother of Christopher Hall of 

 Hardwick, mentioned above. 



^^ Royalist Comp. Rec. in Our. and 

 Northumh. (Surt. Soc), 224. 



^"^ Foster, op. cit. 149. 



''^ These details are from Surtees, op. 



228 



cit. iii, 208. The place is scarcely men- 

 tioned in the records. 



'" Mackenzie and Ross, op. cit. ii, jS, 



"^ Fordyce, op. cit. ii, 225. The estate 

 included the Hall, Grange and White 

 House. 



^- Cal. Chart. P, 1300-26, p. 394. 



^* RU'vaulx Chart. (Surt. Soc), 78. 



^^3 Assize R. 224, m. 5. 



'3b Ibid. 225, m. 5. i, id. 



'^c Ibid. 



