62 Notices of Chatton, by Messrs. Procter and Hardy. 



In addition to the Church, there was at an early period at 

 Chatton, a Chapel, dedicated to St. Edmund, King and 

 Martyr. Mention of it occurs in an Inquisition on Henry 

 de Percy, March 21, 26 Edw. III. (a.d. 1352) :— 



" There is also in the same place a certain water-mill, which is 

 worth and pays eight pounds a year at the same terms ; and of 

 that four pounds a year are paid to a certain chaplain celebrating 

 divine ordinances* in the chapel of St. Edmund at Chatton' 

 (divina in capella Sancti Edmundi apud Chatton), from a grant 

 made long ago by a certain Lord of Chatton."f 



There is, however, nothing in these terms to sanction the 

 epithet " renowned," applied to it in Mr. Tate's digest of the 

 Inquisition of 1368. At that date the advowson of the 

 Chapel of Chatton, worth sixty shillings, belonged to 

 the castle and manor of Alnwick \. The mill was part 

 of the barony of de Vescy ; and the founder of the 

 Chapel was probably of that family : most likely Eustace, 

 who married Margery or Margaret, the illegitimate daughter 

 of William, King of Scotland, for he, in 1208, obtained from 

 King John a fair at Alnmouth on St. Edmund's Day (20th 

 November) and the day following § — shewing in that a pre- 

 dilection for this East- Anglian saint, which cannot be pre- 

 dicated of any other lord. We find the same Eustace and 

 his wife building a chapel in the courts of Sprouston, where 

 they might have divine service ; and the like purpose may 

 have been intended by that at Chatton. Chapels were 

 numerous in those days||. 



The old Church of Chatton is supposed to have become 

 ruinous about 1763, when it began to be rebuilt. The 

 rebuilding and refitting were completed in 1770. It had a 

 bare and barn-like appearance, but after the institution of 

 the Rev. Matthew Burrell, in 1844, the parish Church was 

 restored^ with enlargement to a handsome ecclesiastical 

 structure ; and the vicarage house and grounds made perfect 



* '• Divina celebrare," signifies " to sing or say mass," in a Paper of date 

 1250, relating to St. Andrew's in Scotland. — See Goodall's Preface (p. xvi) 

 to Keith's " Catalogue of Scottish Bishops," Edin., 1755. 



f " Proceedings of the Archaeological Institute," 1852, Newcastle, Vol. ii., 

 Appendix, cxxiii. Communicated, with other notices, by Mr. R. G. Bolam. 



X " History of Alnwick," i., p. 142. 



§ This giant to Eustace appears to have been superseded by that to 

 William de Vescy, his son, who in 1253, obtained a fair for eight days at 

 Alnmouth, beginning on the day of the beheading of St. John the Baptist 

 (August 29). 



j| "Hist, of Alnwick," i., p. 71. 



