452 Report of Meetings. By the President. 



''The House of Fame" in connection with the Convent at 

 Darham, which existed till the suppression of monasteries in 

 1536, and which was endowed by various individuals, among 

 whose names appears that of Sir William de Scremereston, by 

 which we are reminded of the antiquity of our parish of that 

 name, and, maybe, of a very retired inhabitant of it, upon 

 whose history I endeavoured at our Oornhill gathering to throw 

 some light. 



The Fames were among the most ancient possessions of the 

 Church in Lindisfarne, and passed, in the course of time, to the 

 Prior and Convent at Durham. At the dissolution of Monaster- 

 ies in 1536, Henry VIII bestowed them upon the Dean and 

 Chapter of Durham, who were in the habit of regularly leasing 

 them, and finally sold to Archdeacon Thorp that part of them 

 known as the Inner Fames " together with one house or tenement 

 called Monkhouse to the said islands belonging on the 28th 

 September 1861 subject to the ground on which the Lighthouse 

 and appurtenances stand and also a right of way to and from 

 the shore." 



As considerable misapprehension exists about the ownership 

 of the Islands, and the extent of rights over them claimed by 

 the Fame Island Association, by whose courtesy, I may say, we 

 were enabled to carry out our expedition, I thought it desirable 

 that the matter should be clearly explaiaed, and towards that 

 end Mr Eobert Archer of Alnwick, the secretary of the Associa- 

 tion, kindly furnished me with a map and extracts from the 

 title-deeds. 



From them it appears that the Outer Fames are under the 

 control of the Ecclesiastical Cominissioners, who have declined 

 to renew the Association's current lease, which expires in May 

 1887; while the Inner Fames are the freehold property of 

 the representatives of the late Archdeacon Thorp, and which, 

 until the above named date, are also leased to the Associa- 

 tion. 



However bright and beneficent, however invaluable in their 

 day, may have been the rays of spiritual illumination which 

 emanated from the Fames, there can be no doubt, that at the 

 present time, though in a difi'erent sphere, the rays which they 

 send flashing seawards in all directions for the guidance of 

 ''those who go down to the sea in ships," and who, on these 

 dangerous and harbourless east coasts, were it not for those 



