President's address. 249 



alia) of the great barony of Muschainp came with Alice de Graham 

 to^ this family of Meincll, when, in the beginning of the 14th 

 century, she married Nicholas of that name. Besides the related 

 Percy families of Kildale and Alnwick, De Brus, Lord of Skelton 

 and Newton, succeeded Maybanoc of the Domesday Survey. The 

 Balliols (of Barnard Castle and Bywell also) dispossessed Hannart 

 and Uchtred, thanes of Stokesley. They endowed the Abbey of 

 St. Mary in York with the church and certain lands in the time 

 of Ruf us, and parted with the fair seigneury under Henry II. as a 

 marriage portion, with the hand of Ada de Balliol to John de 

 Eure, Lord of Warkworth. At Great Ayton, (either from the 

 Celtic ea water, the Leven {smooth river) flowing through it, or 

 form the Gorman-French haie, or haye, the /10^6-enclosecl town), 

 the famous Nevilles, Earls of Westmoreland acquired the old 

 manor of the Estotevilles by marriage in Edward III.'s time, 

 and occasionally resided there until the attainder of Earl Charles, 

 in the 13th year of Elizabeth's reign. 



A short walk from Newton brought us to Great Ayton, which 

 we found possessed a church, in part supposed to be older than 

 the Conquest, and having some good architectural features, 

 though blocked with unsightly galleries. The ancient structure 

 is dedicated to "All Saints," and is about to be superseded by 

 an imposing new edifice, closely adjoining. It is to be hoped 

 that the old church of Ayton will be tenderly dealt with, as it 

 deserves, and allowed to remain, at least, as a mortuary chapel. 



The Rev. J. C. Atkinson, M.A., vicar of Danby, the well-known 

 Cleveland naturalist, antiquary, and historian, has kindly sent 

 me an interesting note on Newton and Ayton, regretting that he 

 did not know of our Field Meeting, as he would have been glad, 

 as an ex-member, to have joined our party. He considers the 

 emblematic sculpture, built into the former church, as very 

 early mediaeval. There is another at Kirby, which may be part of 

 an entry into Jerusalem. In the early Norman church of Marskc 

 is, or was, a corbel, with an animal sculptured, reminding one of 

 the Newton slab. We were reminded by it of the North country 

 legends of the " Laidley "Worm of Spindlcstone Hough," near 

 Bamborough, the famous Lambton Worm, and that of Linton in 



