REPORTS OF MEETINGS FOR 1909 17 



its incumbents in succession, if the succession was maintained, 

 have been long forgotten. On the authority of an eye-witness 

 in the middle of the 18th century, however, the chapel was 

 small and ruinous ; the " altar window " was in preservation ; 

 and a basin occupied a niche in the South wall. On the 

 North side the foundations of the minister's house were also 

 very conspicuous. Sir Thomas Grey, the younger, of Heton, 

 to whom we are indebted for Scala Chronica, records that 

 a vicar of Tillmouth blossomed into authorship in the com- 

 pilation of a histoiy entitled Historia aurea ; but whether 

 such testimony is reliable or not, it is clear that the priest 

 of Tillmouth, being without a cure of souls or parochial 

 responsibility, had it in his power at least to become an 

 author, if so inclined. His house and chapel were at a 

 distance from the village — " sonantes inter equas nemorumque 

 noctem " ; and many a man has become a poet even under less 

 provocation ! The present roofless chapel, with its pointed 

 windows and division wall, \yas built by Sir Francis Blake 

 in the 18th century on the site of the former one dedicated 

 to St. Catherine, much of the ancient masonry being incorporated 

 in the present structure. In its immediate neighbourhood, at 

 no very distant date, there lay a stone coflin of a peculiar 

 shape, regarding whose employment in the removal of the body 

 of St. Cuthbert from Melrose to Tillmouth a legend has been 

 preserved by Sir Walter Scott : 



Not there his relics might repose : 

 For wondrous tale to tell ! 



In his stone coffin forth he rides 



(A ponderous bark by river tides) ; 



Yet light as gossamer it glides 



Downward to Tillmouth cell." * 



The origin of this story, however, has been attributed to Rev. 

 Mr Lambe, vicar of Norham ; for though it has been proved 

 on hydrostatical principles that the coffin in question, even 

 when enclosing a substance of twelve stones in weight, could 



* Marmion ; Canto ii,, Section Xiv, 

 P 



