REPORT OF MEETINGS FOU 1904 139 



In spite of its age and long exposure to the weather, the 

 masonry shows little sign of wear, the sandstone of which 

 it is composed possessing manifest durability. The 

 exact date of this Saxon building cannot be fixed 

 with any certainty, though Bates attributes to Egred, 

 bishop of Lindisfarne, the erection of a church at Whit- 

 tingham between the years 831 and 847. In the year 1090 

 the tithes of Whittingham were granted to the monks of 

 Tynemouth, but early in the next century Henry I. conferred 

 the church there on his chaplain for the use of the Priory 

 of Black Canons, which he had founded at Carlisle, in 

 consequence of which the patronage of Whittingham 

 remains to the present day in the gift of the Dean and 

 Chapter of Carlisle. It is of interest to note that during 

 the Cooimonwealth a Presbyterian minister, named Abraham 

 Hume, a native of the Merse, and chaplain to the Countess 

 of Home, was presented to the living, and continued to 

 hold office till St. Bartholomew's Day 1662, when, refusing 

 to conform to the Church of England rites and form of 

 government, he was forced to resign and betake himself to 

 London, where he ministered to a congregation of Non- 

 conformists in Drury Lane, till his death, 29th January 

 1706-7. From what remains of the ancient building it is 

 possible to form some idea of its outline. It would 

 probably consist of a chancel, a nave 17 feet wide and 

 lofty in proportion to its width, having a heavy round- 

 headed chancel arch and round-headed windows of a single 

 light, with a square tower at the West end. The ground 

 plan of this tower is only of small dimensions, the 

 chamber in the basement, now used as a vestry, being 11 

 feet square. During the twelfth century a North aisle was 

 added by an arcade of four Norman arches, which unfor- 

 tunately were deemed unworthy of preservation during 

 the restoration of the church in 1840. These are now 

 replaced by an arcade of four pointed arches corresponding 

 with the original Early English one on the opposite side, 

 which was erected in the thirteenth century, when the South 

 aisle was added. The window next the pulpit in the North 

 transept contains an interesting fragment of old English 

 architecture, the upper portion of the light being formed 



