208 Memoir of the Rev, John Frederic Bigge. 



degree of B.A., and after another year of reading for his theolo- 

 gical "testamur" was ordained to Deacon's Orders by Bishop 

 Malt by, in the church of St George's, Hanover Square, London, 

 on July 5, 1840. Being licensed to the curacy of Eglingham, 

 near Alnwick, in Northumberland, he began his clerical duties 

 there under the Rev. Henry J. Maltby, son of the bishop, who 

 had shortly before married his sister ; with whom, however, 

 having been in the meantime ordained Priest on December 6 

 1840, by Bishop Maltby at Auckland Castle, he remained but a 

 short time; being presented in 1841, on the death of the Eev. 

 James Birkett, to the living of Ovingham on the Tjme, a benefice 

 in the gift of his father. 



At Eglingham, Mr Bigge formed another life-long and valu- 

 able acquaintance, with J. C. Langlands, Esq. of Old Bewick, a 

 thorough and stei'ling specimen of the true English country 

 gentleman, courteous and straightforward, unflinching and out- 

 spoken in the right ; an earnest and high -principled churchman, 

 to whom is due the restoration of the then ruined but most 

 interesting church of Old Bewick. 



Ovingham — to which Mr Bigge was then transferred — a small 

 village on the north bank of the Tyne, about midway between 

 Newcastle and Hexham, though the centre of a very extensive 

 parish, was at that time a most charming place of residence. 

 Though it can never be deprived of all its natural beauties, yet 

 those who are acquainted with it only as it has been of late 

 years, since colliery villages, coke ovens, and brick works have 

 covered the ground on the south side of the Tyne, can have no 

 idea of the beauty of the situation at the time when Mr Bigge 

 entered on his duties as Vicar of Ovingham, in 1841. 



To the eye of the spectator from the terraced slopes of the 

 Rector garden, carried over the broad bed of the classic Tyne, 

 and the verdant haugh beyond intersected by the line of the 

 Newcastle and Carlisle railway, the prominent object in the 

 landscape was the ruined castle of Prudhoe, once the lordly seat 

 of the IJmfrevilles, standing proudly on the opposite height, 

 flanked by hanging woods clothing the adjacent slopes, as it 

 were asserting the supremacy of its owner over the adjoining 

 lands. The Rectory itself stood on the edge of the river, but 

 high above, out of the reach of winter floods, (Tyne is sometimes 

 a tyrant!) facing southwards, an ancient picturesque house with 

 gardens terraced to the river's edge, and a group of tall ancestral 



