A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



Norwegian pirates under King Eystein carried off 

 ships and goods from Hartlepool.* 



Bishop Pudsey took part in the rebellion of the 

 young Prince Henry against his father, Henry II, and 

 on 13 July 1 1 74 forty knights and 500 Flemings 

 landed at Hartlepool to support the rebels, under the 

 command of Hugh Count of Bar, the bishop's nephew. 

 On the same day the King of Scotland, the rebels' 

 ally, was defeated and c.iptured at Alnwick, and the 

 bishop hastily sent the Flemings home again and made 

 his peace with the king.' 



It seems to have been about this time that the 

 chapel of St. Hilda was built by the Brus family at 

 Hartlepool on the highest point of the peninsula at its 

 southern angle.'" Some of the charters relating to 

 the chapel give the first outlines of the arrangement 

 of the town. Robert de Brus (c. 1 141-94) confirmed 

 the grant made by Gerard de Seton to the church of 

 St. Hilda of a toft which lay on the east of the ceme- 

 tery in exchange for that part of the cemetery which 

 lay between the toft and the old ditch, saving the 

 great road between the toft and the cemetery." This 

 highway was prob.ibly the main street of the town, 

 afterwards called Southgate ^' and now High Street. 

 It runs across the end of the peninsula east and west, 

 from the sea to the sea. 



William de Brus (c. 1 194- 1 zi 5) confirmed the grant 

 of half the wood of Hartlepool made to the monastery 

 of Guisborough by Simon of Billingham,'^ and the 

 same William granted to the church all the land 

 towards the south which extended from the cemetery 

 of St. Hilda's chapel to the sea in one direction, and 

 to the ditch extending from the chaplain's toft to the 

 sea in the other, saving the common road.'^ 



The Franciscan Friars established a house in Hartle- 

 pool before 1 240. The friarage, as it was always 

 called, lay to the north-east of St. Hilda's and had a 

 chapel, a cemetery, and a well.'' In 1538 the house 

 was leased to Richard Threlkeld,'^ and in 1541 the 

 lease was renewed for twenty-one years.'' Before the 

 end of the lease the house was granted in fee to John 

 Doilye and John Scudamore on 16 June 1545." 

 They seem to have sold it to Cuthbert Conyers of 

 Layton (q.v.), who by his will dated 28 September 

 1558 left 'the Freers and mill and lands in Hartle- 

 pool ' for life to his two sons, Matthew and Cuthbert, 

 and the survivor of them, but settled the whole of 

 his lands in entail on his sons Ralph, John, and others 

 in succession.'' Ralph Conyers was attainted for hit 

 share in the rising in the North in I569.''*' His 

 lands were forfeited to the Crown during his life, but 

 after his death in 1605 they reverted to Ralph son of 

 his brother John,-' who seems to have sold the friar- 

 age to Robert Porrett. On 10 January 1634 the 



trustees of Smith's charity purchased the friarage from 

 Porrett. -2 



The ruined building, which was standing in the 

 early part of the last century, was a large rectangular 

 gabled mansion with mullioned and transomed 

 windows, erected probably in the Litter part of the 

 16th or beginning of the 17th century. The walls 

 were tolerably perfect in 1825, but the roof and some 

 of the gables had disappeared.^' Very little or nothing 

 of this building now remains in the Hartlepool 

 hospital, which occupies its site and has developed 

 from it. Used at one time as a workhouse, the build- 

 ing was converted into a hospital in 1867 and rebuilt 

 with the exception of a small portion at the east end 

 in 1889. The grounds are inclosed by an old stone 

 wall. 



The friars preachers of Hartlepool are mentioned 

 in 1259, ^"^ nothing more is known of them." 



A rental of Guisborough Priory, dating prob.ibly 

 from 1299, gives some idea of the town at that date. 

 The ' Great Streat ' there mentioned was probably 

 Southgate Street. On the north side of it the monks 

 owned a well-built toft and garden and four cellars. 

 In St. Mary's Street 3^ crofts, 3 tofts and gardens on 

 one side and i 3 tofts on the other, belonged to the 

 priory. In the street by the sea from the north to 

 the south the monks owned a croft, four tofts, a 

 garden and an anAa tiomus on the east side of the 

 street. They also owned a croft ' on the Island of 

 St. Helen where the little street of St. Epigewina (?) 

 branches off.' Between Northgate Street and South- 

 gate Street there used to be an open space called 

 Messam Green with several detached buildings in it, 

 and one or two narrow alleys leading into the main 

 streets from it. One of these alleys was called Pud- 

 ding Street (Puidingel Street,-' xvi cent.). A place 

 called Eland, where the fishermen used to dry their 

 nets, is mentioned in 1398-9,-' and was possibly the 

 same as St. Helen's Island. The street of St. Helen 

 is also mentioned in the Guisborough Rental ; the 

 monks held a toft and croft there which had been 

 given to maintain a light in the dormitory of the lay 

 brothers. The chapel of St. Helen lay without the 

 walls, and the situation of the street is unknown. The 

 east part of St. Helen's Street w.is ' next to the mer- 

 chant's street,' that is probably the east part of South- 

 gate, where the market cross stood." 



The booths in Southgate are mentioned in the first 

 half of the 13th century. About 1230 the Prior and 

 convent of Durham granted a house and a booth in 

 Southgate at Neshend to William son of Lambert, 

 whose heirs held the house, which had been divided 

 into three booths and a booth that was waste, in 

 1430. At this date there were a ' Northrawe ' and 



® Macpherson, Annah of Commerce, i, 

 331; Johnitone, Aniiq. Celio-Scandicce, 

 z68. 



9 y.c.n. Dur. ii, 142. 



'*' Sec below under church. 



" Guitbro' Chartul. (Surt. Soc), ii, 



" Anct. D. (P.R.O.), B+201. 



^' Guisbro' ChartuU (Surt. Soc), ii, 

 324. 



" Ibid. 



" y.C.H. Dur. ii, 109 i Harl. MS. 

 604, fol. IC4 ; Surtees, < p. cit. iii, 119. 

 Land gr :nted for enlargement of dwelling- 

 place in 1356 {Cal. Fat. 1354-8, p. 367). 



'« L. and P. Htn. Fill, liv (i), 



no. 394. 



" Ibid, xvi, p. 725. 



'*Ibid. X (i), g. 1081 (36). In 1546 

 lands lately belonging to the Friars 

 consisting of waste land at the west end 

 of Morpethchare, a chamber called Sir 

 John Long Chamber on the east of 

 Fishergatc, 3 little closes between the 

 chamber and the Friars' Gate, a garden 

 called Conygarth near the eastern end of 

 the churchyard and waste land on the 

 east side of Northgate Street, where the 

 Wcy House had once stood, near the place 

 called Whitbrigge, were granted in fee to 



264 



William Romesden of Longley, co. York 

 (L. and P. Hen. Fill, xx [i], 718 [4]). 



'" Dur. f^'iUi and Invent. (Surt. Soc), 

 i, 184. 



*' Sharp, Mem. of the Rebellion of 1569, 

 pp. 228, 268. 



" Dur. Rec cl. 3, ptfl. 182, no. 14 ; 

 Sharp, Hiii. of Hartlepool, 192 n. 



" Ibid. 192. 



»' Sketch by Capt. William Latham, 

 1825, in Manchester Reference Library. 



» F.C.H. Dur. ii, no. 



'^ Rentals and Surv. ptfl. 7, no. 29. 



'* Dur. Rec cl. 3, R. 33, m. 19. 



" Guisbro' Chartul. (Surt. Soc), ii, 437. 



