Memorials of old Durham

by Unknown

Those effigies, or early statues, generally recumbent, and made sometimes of wood, but more often of stone, which were placed in churches from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, are to be found in many places in the county, sometimes decently and carefully preserved in the church, sometimes left to weather and decay in the churchyard, or in the rectory garden. Among the more noticeable of them are the following:

At the west end of Staindrop Church is the "altar-tomb of alabaster," with an effigy of Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmorland, in plate armour, and with figures of his two wives, one on either hand. Surtees, in his History of Durham, describes it as "this noble tomb, which is in the purest style of the best age of sepulchral monuments." Its date is probably about 1425. There is in the same church another tomb with effigies, in wood, of the fifth Earl of Westmorland and his two wives; it is dated 1560.

Barnard Castle Church has an effigy of a priest attired in chasuble, stole, dalmatic, alb, and amice. The inscription is in Lombardic lettering, and reads: "ORATE PRO AIA ROBERTI DE MORTHAM QNDM VICARII DE GAYNFORD." This Robert de Mortham founded a chantry at Barnard Castle in 1339.

At Bishopwearmouth there was formerly the effigy of Thomas Middleton of Chillingham, the founder of the family of Silksworth. It represented Middleton in complete armour, with his hands raised. It bore the inscription: "Hic jacet Thom’ Middylton Armiger — — — MCCC." At one time this statue lay on an altar-tomb in the north aisle of the church; later it was placed upright against the wall of the aisle; later, again, it is recorded that it lay, broken into two pieces, in the porch; to-day it cannot be found.

In the Church of St. Giles, in the city of Durham, there is a wooden effigy in complete armour, which is supposed to represent the first John Heath, of Kepier, who was buried in the chancel of that church in 1590.

The Lumley monuments are a collection of fourteen effigies which lie in the north aisle of Chester-le-Street Church. They were placed there by a Lord Lumley about 1594. They represent the Lords of Lumley from Liulph, who lived in the days of William the Conqueror, down to the John, Lord Lumley, who fought at Flodden Field in 1513. Probably only three of the fourteen monuments are genuine; the others were either manufactured or, more probably, collected from other places.

The old chapel at Greatham was pulled down in 1788. In a recess in the south wall of the transept there was a wooden effigy of an ecclesiastic. During the rebuilding of the chapel a stone coffin containing his bones and a chalice of pewter was found near the foot of the wall.

In the Pespoole seats in the south aisle of Easington Church there is an elegant recumbent figure of a woman, carved in Stanhope marble. On it are carved the three popinjays which were carried on the coat of arms of the ancient owners of Horden. At Heighington Church there are two female effigies, one of which has been very fine, but they are both much weathered and decayed; they are probably of fourteenth-century date. In the same church there is a medieval pulpit, the only one remaining in the county. It is of oak, and on it there is inscribed in black letter: "orate p’ aiabz Alexandri flessehar et agnetis uxoris sue." To commemorate oneself by giving a pulpit to the church seems a practical and useful form of memorial. As this is the only medieval pulpit the county has left, it seems likely that its preservation is due to the inscription it bears.

When Neasham Abbey, in the north of Yorkshire, fell into ruin, two of its effigies were moved over the Tees to the church at Hurworth. One of them was a remarkably fine figure of a knight in armour, his head covered with a coat of mail, his body clad in a shirt of mail, over which there is a surcoat. His shield has "barry of eight, three chaplets of roses." The armour is of the style in use in the early part of the fourteenth century, and the effigy probably represents the Robert FitzWilliam who was Warden of the Marches in the time of the just King Edward I., and who died in 1316.

In Lanchester Church, under an arch in the wall of the south aisle, lies a recumbent effigy of a canon secular, his raised hands clasping a chalice. This is believed to represent Stephen Austell, Dean of Lanchester, who died in 1464. In Monkwearmouth Church, under a canopy which bears the shields of the Hiltons and Viponds, there is a very interesting effigy of a knight in plate armour of the early part of the fifteenth century. This is probably the Baron William Hilton, who built Hilton Castle on the Wear, with its wonderful armorial front. He died in 1435. At Norton, near Stockton, there is a magnificent effigy of a knight in chain armour; over the head there is a rich canopy of tabernacle-work; the hands are raised and the legs are crossed, the feet resting on a lion. It is sometimes assumed that this representation of a knight with his legs crossed one over the other indicates that the person portrayed was a Crusader, but there are many cases where the attitude is used in which it is known that the effigy was that of one who could not have taken any part in those Holy Wars. This monument is further noticeable as it is one of the very few which give us even a slight hint as to the personality of the sculptor; it bears what is believed to be his mark in the shape of a small squiggle, which looks like a short length of chain, in front of which is the letter "I," and it is supposed that this punning rebus means that the effigy is the handiwork of one John Cheyne. It would be very interesting to know who commissioned Cheyne to carve this monument, for another curious feature in it is that the shield of the knight bears six coats of arms—Blakeston, Surtees, Bowes, Dalden, Conyers, and Conyers—which mean that the knight was a Blakeston of Blakeston. But the Blakestons bore these arms in the sixteenth century, probably not later than the year 1587, whereas the armour of the effigy is of the time of Edward I., 1272-1307. Boyle suggests that probably the monument is to one of the De Parks, and that a Blakeston took it, scraped off the De Park arms, and put on his own coat. Whatever its vicissitudes may have been, it remains a noble piece of work.