Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club. 4321 



Tvneside Naturalists' Field Club. 



Meeting at Bothal. 



The first meeting of the season of the Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club was held, 

 by invitation of the Rev. Henry Hopwood, Rector, at Bothal and Sheepwash, on 

 Monday, June 11th. According to previous arrangements, the party from Newcastle 

 assembled at an early hour at the Central Station. On alighting at Morpeth they 

 were joined by several other members, with whom they proceeded on foot, by the banks 

 of the Wansbeck, to Bothal, and thence to Sheepwash, examining on their way the 

 various objects of interest which came under their notice. On reaching Sheepwash 

 they met with a kind and courteous reception from the Rev. Henry Hopwood, by whom 

 they were most hospitably entertained. After luncheon, the members of the club, with 

 some ladies who were visiting Mrs. Hopwood, having assembled on the lawn in the 

 Rectory gardens, Mr. Sidney Gibson read a paper on the " History of the Church, 

 Castle, and Barony of Bothal," which he had prepared at the request of the Rector, — 

 first remarking that, as it was to be read upon the spot, his (Mr. Gibson's) object had 

 been to give a brief historical sketch, rather than a description of the locality and its 

 architectural remains. 



With regard to the parochial history of Bothal, it would seem that the parish 

 church had not originally nestled under the protection of the castle, but had been 

 situated at Shipwash, much lower down the river. The tradition was that the church 

 formerly standing at Shipwash (which was dedicated in the name of the Holy Sepul- 

 chre of our Lord), was the mother church of the parish of Bothal ; and it continued 

 to be a separate benefice until the year 1615, when it was annexed to the rectory of 

 Bothal. From the dedication being in honour of the Holy Sepulchre, and from the 

 fact that the Templars had a Preceptory at Chibburn, Mr. Gibson was disposed, how- 

 ever, to attribute the church to a period not earlier than the first Crusade, and to con- 

 nect it with that illustrious order of military monks. At all events it was probable, 

 he thought, that a church was erected on the site of the existing church of St. An- 

 drew, at Bothal, soon after the reign of Henry I., when the Bertram family acquired 

 those extensive domains. But there was reason to believe that a parish church 

 existed at Bothal before the Conquest, inasmuch as the tithes were amongst the dona- 

 tions made by Robert de Mowbray, the great Norman Eari of Northumberland, to the 

 monastery of Tynemouth. The present church of Bothal was dedicated under invo- 

 cation of St. Andrew, who seems to have been the favourite saint of the great Wilfrid, 

 in whose footsteps so many edifices of religion rose ; but this circumstance alone (Mr. 

 Gibson remarked) would not support a claim of such high antiquity for the church of 

 Bothal. If any church existed here before the time of Athelstan it was probably 

 destroyed by the Danes, and there was reason to believe that it was in ruin at the time 

 of the Conquest. In glancing at the Anglo-Saxon period, Mr. Gibson shortly 

 described the wanderings of the monks with the remains of St. Cuthbert, which had 

 traversed part of the parish of Bothal on the flight from Durham to Lindisfarne in 

 1069, the monks having passed the Wansbeck at the ford of Shipwash, and rested at 

 a spot in the chapelry of Hebburn, where the chapel of St. Cuthhert was afterwards 

 founded. As regards the fabric of the existing church it appears to have been rebuilt, 

 wholly or in part, early in the thirteenth century, and the chancel is of first pointed 



xiii. 2 p 



