Report of the Meetings for 1895. 245 



the Sultan to the Emperor Frederick, Just before the 

 writer's visit to Jerusalem, in January 1896, he had read a 

 paper,* before the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, upon 

 the mansion house and chapel of Chibburn, and he was 

 deeply interested to observe, incorporated in the wall of the 

 church (which was rapidly rising amidst the ruins of the 

 Hospitaller's House) a fine, large, round-headed doorway, 

 around whose arch could be traced the signs of the Zodiac. 

 The following is a letter (somewhat abridged) written in 

 September 1849, by the late Eev. J. F. Bigge, vicar of 

 Stamfordham, and a former President of the Club : it has 

 never been printed, and is extracted from the late Mr 

 Woodman's Collection. 



" On the south side, near the east end, had been the entrance into 

 the chapel, it is now walled np with a drip stone and string course 

 on each side ; over the point of the arch are two shields — on the 

 left hand one with a plain latin cross, on the right a shield with 

 4 quarterings, devices gone. On the west side of the doorway is an 

 ogee piercing through the wall ; inside it is broadly splayed, and 

 terminates in a square-headed trefoil. Above this is a two-light 

 ogee window, cusped with drip stone ; above, under the eve, is an 

 original cornice, which runs along the entire length of the south front, 

 under a modern roof. About half way up the wall runs a string* 

 course ; to the east end of the doorway it is broken by a late inserted 

 window containing two mullions, which have been removed, and the 

 windows lengthened to make a hay loft door; the drip string course 

 stone appears again over the square-headed window now walled up. 

 Below these windows, on the east side of the door, is another ogee. 

 At the S.E. corner a buttress, extending 3 feet 3 inches from the 

 wall, and 2 feet 6 inches broad, runs up nearly to the eave with a 

 set off, under which the string course of the south side is continued 

 and carried over the east window, which has a pointed arch, and is 

 now walled up. The north-east angle and the upper part of the 



* Printed with documents, cuts, and a plate in Arch. Ml., Vol. xvii., 

 pp. 263-280. Opportunity shall here be taken to state that Mr C. J. 

 Bates, than whom we have no more skilled and proficient antiquary 

 in the north of England, dissents from what is there stated. Mr 

 Bates writes : — 



"I regret to have to differ with you about the chapel of Chibburn. 



Indeed I have always wondered how Parker could have 



been mislead into supposing that the chapel had an upper floor, etc., 

 etc. The signs of its conversion into a dwelling are unmistakable, 

 the window openings on the south side are not earlier than the 

 17th century." 



