An Account of Lesbury Parish, by Geo. Tate, F.G.S. 251 



with, our Lord extended on a cross, and the sun and moon beside 

 the head ; the thieves are at his side a little lower down, and at 

 the foot are two of his executioners ; and a much obliterated in- 

 scription is at the top. The other face is chiefly filled with knot 

 or interlacing work ; but with one line of an inscription in good 

 preservation — " Myredeh meh wo" — that is, Myredeh me 

 wrought. On one edge, besides knot work, there is an inscrip- 

 tion in two, Eadulfes th, and another in one line, Savx. The 

 letters are chiefly Roman, with a few Saxon runes, and indicate 

 an early age. Myredeh, probably an Irish name, was the sculp- 

 tor ; and the cross may have been erected to Eadulf , who usurped 

 the throne of Northumberland, in 705, and after besieging 

 Berchtford, the guardian of young King Osdred, in Bamburgh, 

 was repulsed and slain. The fragments are now in Alnwick 

 Castle Museum.* 



Alnmouth Chapel, as well as the parish church of Lesbury, was 

 dependent on Alnwick Abbey, after 1145, for the supply of 

 priests. Clarkson's Survey, made in 1567, furnishes important 

 information of the ecclesiastical arrangements both before the 

 Reformation, and for a few years subsequently. This document 

 is given entire, with the spelling modernised : — 



" There is one church all covered with lead for the most part there stand- 

 ing, upon the south part of the borough, and upon the water bank nigh the 

 haven, with one parcel of ground, called the Church yard, and appertaining 

 to the said church, wherein in ancient time there was always three priests 

 and one clerk, two of the said priests, viz., the Master and his fellow, other- 

 wise named the Yicar and his fellow, were found and had living of the Abbot 

 and Convent of the late Monastery of Alnwick ; and the said Vicar towards 

 their said finding had the two tenements with all the land pertaining there - 

 unto that did belong to the said Abbot and Convent in Aylmouth, without 

 any rent paying, and also divers burgages therein, over and beside all manner 

 of tithes of the said town and the tithe fish of his own coble, the tithe fish of 

 all the rest of the cobles ; only excepted the third priest and the clerk were 

 found by the inhabitants of the said town, at which time the Service of God, 

 by that means was maintained, the church and parishioners in their due 

 order, where now there is only one priest and no clerk, who hath only the 

 tithe of the said town, with other petty tithes thereof ; and for the clerk's 

 wages four-pence of every fire-house, and not well paid, as also the oblations 

 due which do not amount to the sum of 53s 4d by the year. The Prince has 



[* On this subject see 'Brand;' ' Archasologia ;' Table-Book, vol. ii., p. 

 324, where there is a woodcut; Dickson's Hist, of Alnmouth, p.. 15; 

 Archseolog. iEliana, N. S., vol. i., p. 187, where are copies of the inscriptions ; 

 Hist, of Alnwick, vol. L, pp. 39, 40, with plate.] 



If 



