The Doorway, West Rainton Hall.
Kibblesworth Hall, a few miles south of Gateshead, is a solid Jacobean brick house, with stone-mullioned, square-headed windows. It has a fine oak staircase, and some of the fireplaces and cornices are of contemporary date. The house has been let in tenements to the pitmen of the adjoining colliery, the stables turned into cottages, and the gardens into allotments. Another old house that has undergone a similar fate is West Rainton Hall, erected about 1690 by Sir John Duck, Bart. It stands on the main street of the village, shorn of the battlements mentioned by Surtees, but still retaining a fine old doorway, reminiscent of its better days.
There are also in this district several other old houses dismantled and in tenements, betokening the scattering of their once owners to many far lands. It is a pleasure to turn from these to a few houses still in good condition. The Hall,[18] Houghton-le-Spring, was perhaps erected by Robert Hutton, Rector of Houghton, between the years 1589 and 1623, although its erection is more popularly attributed to his grandson and namesake. This later Robert Hutton was Captain of a troop of horse in the Parliamentary army, and, like Dobson of Harlow Hill,
" ... went to Dundee
And when he came back
held his head hee."
With the proceeds of this expedition he is supposed to have built the house in which his descendants dwelt for many generations. To satisfy some scruple of his conscience, or, according to another story, to lie near a favourite horse, he was buried in his garden under an altar-tomb, inscribed:
"Hic Jacet Robertvs Hvtton armiger qvi obiit Avg die nono 1680. Et moriendo vivet."
Stella Hall, a picturesque Elizabethan structure, situated close to the River Tyne, was erected by the Tempests on the site of a nunnery, and still contains some tapestry representing the story of Hero and Leander.
Scattered up and down the dales are many other old homes that a writer dealing with his homeland would love to touch upon, but space forbids. Even these short notes are all too short. The old mansions of our countryside are a much neglected feature of archæology, and each house in itself demands photographs and drawings and a chapter quite as long as this.