216 Anniversary Address. 



vice, and were sent for on account of the fire. I cannot tell from 

 whence the officiating minister came, or how he was remunerated 

 for his trouble." 



" The burial ground is open to the inhabitants of Brainshaugh 

 and Gruyzance. A register of burials was commenced by the late 

 Mr Tate, but it is said that interments have been registered at 

 Edlingham, Shilbottle, Felton, and Warkworth, as suited the 

 convenience of the officiating clergyman. Mr Tate's family 

 burial place is within the chancel, of which the east end has been 

 an apse," as shewn by the old foundations. " The popular tra- 

 dition, so frequently appertaining to similar ruins, exists in the 

 neighbourhood, that the Priory of Brainshaugh was an append- 

 age to Brenckburne Priory, and that a subterranean passage 

 existed between the two places. All this is, of course, mere 

 fable, as the chapel undoubtedly belonged to Alnwick, but it is 

 curious as shewing, that these old tales, however confused, had 

 their origin in actual local circumstances, to note that Brenck- 

 burn had possessions in Gruyzance and Barnhill. May not the 

 subterranean passage have been a secret footpath through the 

 dense wood, which, in early times, filled the Yale of the Coquet ? 

 The existing walls of the ruin are faced with dressed stones, 

 'blocked in course,' but very irregular, the core of the walls 

 being filled with round stones from the river, and coarse lime. 

 They are about thirty inches thick. In the nave, about half the 

 height of the walls, there are holes as if there had been beams 

 let in to carry the floor of an upper chamber. The piscina, 

 which has two basins, has the arch of its recess formed of one 

 large stone, quite out of proportion to the ' blockers ' of varied 

 size and thickness around."*' 



In order to prevent further decay and destruction, a few years 

 ago, Mr Tate had the walls of the old church pointed with 

 cement, and at the same time a large accumulation of rubbish, 

 stones, and debris from the building was removed from the in- 

 terior of the church, when the beautiful base of one of the old 

 columns was laid bare. Some carved stones were also found and 

 preserved, and the graveyard generally put in good order. 



When Acklington was constituted a separate parish in 1859, 



[ * See Mr Bell's paper inextenso, in " Archseologia iEliana," vol. iv , N.S., 

 pp. 1-5 ; also a paper, full of research, by Mr Longstaffe, on the Church of 

 Guyzance, and its benefactors, in the same work, vol. iv., pp. 129-145. 

 —J. H.] 



