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This part of the "New Town" remained waste and unoccupied until the year 1780, when Mr. John Thorn hill commenced to deposit stones upon it delivered at his wharf. After this had been practised for a few years, he enclosed it with a wall; and about the year 1800, he sold it as his freehold for building sites to Messrs. Robert Tulip, lime burner, Richard Wray, and others; and it is now (1857) covered with houses and shops, numbered 116, 117, 118, 119, and 120, High Street, and blacksmith's shop occupied by Mr. William Kerss, Long Bank, Sunderland.

Besides the priory of Finchale and the chantry before spoken of, the following religious houses held property in Sunderland at the time of their dissolution, namely, แ Kepier Hospital,* near Durham, whereof William

to the Gentleman's Magazine as his authority. There was a Nicholas Taylor elected one of the first vestrymen of Sunderland church, who may have been the author of the letter in question, but whose name certainly does not appear in the pages of the veteran Mr. Urban.

The foregoing memorials comprise all the information we have been able to obtain of the parties said to have been named Odd Friends, who were all attached to the principles of the glorious Revolution of 1688, and opposed to the pretensions of the house of Stuart. Messrs. Russell, Ayres, Maling, Inman, Craggs, Carr, Donnison, Wilkinson, Ferrabee, and Hodgshon, were members of the church of England. Mr. Mark Burleigh, and Mr. Warren Maude, belonged to the Society of Friends, which society his son Mr. Jacob Maude left, previous to his marriage with his first wife, a member of that society, who "disowned" her for that offence against their rules upon the death of this lady Mr. Maude married another fair friend, whom the society also "disowned" for what is termed "marrying out."

* Kepier Hospital, which stands on the banks of the Wear, in the parish of Saint Giles, about one mile N. E. from Durham market-place, was first founded in the year 1112, by Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, from 1099 to 1128, for a master

Frankeleyn, clerk, was master, a cottage in Sunderland, of the yearly value of four shillings."*

and brethren, and dedicated to Saint Giles. He endowed it with the vill of Caldecotes, and a mill upon Milburne, with two sheaves of corn from his demesne lands in the vills of Newbottle, Houghton, Wearmouth, Ryhope, Easington, Sedgefield, Sherburn, Quarrington, Newton, Chester, Washington, Boldon, Cleadon, Whickham, and Ryton. The application of the revenues is only generally directed "for the salary of the clerk officiating in the church of Saint Giles, and the support of the poor who shall abide in the hospital house which I have provided."

The hospital had a second founder in the magnificent prelate, Hugh Pudsey, who rebuilt the hospital which had been burnt down within thirty years after its foundation by the soldiers of William Cumin, the Scottish intruder on the see of Durham. It is evident that Pudsey intended his monks should labour as well as pray. He ordains that the house of Kepier should consist of a master and thirteen brethren, who shall make profession of charity, of obedience to the superior, and of renunciation of worldly goods. Of the thirteen, six shall be chaplains, bound to pray for the souls of the Bishop Hugh, and of Ralph, sometime bishop, the first founder of Kepier. The seventh brother shall be steward or larderer; the eighth keeper of the tan-yard; the ninth shall be the baker; the tenth the miller; the eleventh, granger and keeper of the carts and wains; the twelfth, keeper of the stock wheresoever it may be; and the thirteenth, receiver and attorney general for transacting all matters of the house at home and abroad. Pudsey granted to his restored house at Kepier, by a separate charter, free borough in their street of Gilesgate, with exemption from toll on import and export, and services, and all secular exaction, with pasture for their cattle within and without the; wood for fuel and building, and pannage of mash and acorn for their hogs in his forest. He gave them a toft in each of the townships, where Ralph Flambard had granted them sheaves of corn to draw their tithes to; the manor of Whiteleys and Swineleys, in Weardale; a lead mine to cover their church of Saint Mary and All Saints, and their infirmary; an iron mine in Rookhope to supply the iron work of their carts and wains, and pasture for all their cattle, with leave 'that their dogs there and at their vaccary in Weardale, shall not have their forefeet amputated (a barbarous point of the Norman Forest Laws, that every dog kept in chase or forest, shall have the forefeet maimed, to prevent his chasing the game); but only the shepherds shall lead them in leashes to guard their cattle from the wolves.' He added the toft of Laundene, the tithes of Bradwood and Besanskeldes, as far as Wythsels, a thrave of corn from each carucate in Weardale, and the tythe of every new assart, that is, of each plot of land thereafter to be brought into cultivation.

Valor Ecclesiasticus, vol. V., page 308.

The " Chantry or Guild, at Houghton-le-Spring,* dedicated to the Holy Trinity, whereof John Saunderson was chaplain in 1535, held two cottages in Sunderland, of the

Lands and livings from successive benefactors were continually swelling the revenues of the hospital; but a second Scottish storm awaited them, and during the period when Robert Bruce avenged the long injuries of Scotland by repeated successful invasions of the bishoprick, the hospital of Kepier was burnt on the morrow of Saint Brandon the abbot, 1306.

William Frankleyn, Archdeacon of Northumberland, and master of the hospital at the time of the reformation, surrendered it to the king's commissioners, 14th January, 1515. Only twenty days after the surrender, Henry VIII. granted the hospital of Kepier with its universal possessions, to Sir William Paget and Richard Cock. Sir William Paget had a large share in the rapid changes which marked the period of the reformation. In 1550 he was created a peer; in the following

There were two guilds instituted in Houghton church, one dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and the other to the Blessed Virgin. In the records we find that Robert Hudson of Morton, with Robert Smith of Houghton, and John Pearson, were fined on the 14th November, in the twelfth year of Bishop Laurence Booth, 1468, for attempting to found a fraternity at Houghton, without the bishop's license, contrary to the Act of Mortmain. But the same bishop, in the nineteenth year of his pontificate, 1475, granted license to Henry Gillowe, clerk, rector of Houghton; Henry Radclyff, Esq.; William Burdon, prior of Finchale; Edmund Saunderson, and William Rothom, to found "to the praise of God and honour of the most Holy Trinity, a guild, consisting of themselves and other persons of both sexes, in the parish church of Houghton, and to elect yearly from among themselves a master or custos, and to have a common seal, with power to plead and be impleaded, and to purchase lands, &c., to the yearly value of ten pounds, notwithstanding the Statute of Mortmain." The bishop also granted (in 1475) to Henry Gillowe, clerk; Henry Radclyff, Esq.; William Rothom; and John Pany, "actuated by a spirit of piety and charity, "license to found, to the praise of God, and the honour of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, a fraternity or guild.-Hutchinson's Durham, vol. II., page 542. The endowment of these guilds appears to have been very trivial, that one dedicated to the Holy Trinity holding a cottage at West Rainton, of the value of 4s. 4d.-making, with the property in Sunderland mentioned above, the whole annual revenue only 16s. 4d. The guild of the Virgiu Mary was of less value; its property being certified by the king's commissioners in 1535, as worth no more than twelve shillings a year.— Valor Ecclesiasticus, vol. V., page 325.

yearly value of eleven shillings and eightpence; and the chantry or guild at same place, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, (William Todd, chaplain in 1535,) other two cottages in Sunderland, with certain lands pertaining thereto, of the annual value of twelve shillings."*

year his fortunes fell with those of the Duke of Somerset; he was sent to the Tower on the 9th November, 1551, stripped of the garter, and fined £6000; an enormous sum in those days. It is probable that the grant of Kepier was surrendered to the crown in satisfaction of a part of the fine; for by patent, 23rd May, in the sixth year of the reign of Edward VI, 1552, the king granted to John Cockburne, Lord of Ormeston, the site and chief messuage of the hospital of Kepier, late parcel of the possessions of Lord Paget. The grant is said to have been the reward of Cockburne's services in guiding the Duke of Somerset's army into Scotland through the Merse. The Scot kept Kepier seventeen years, and then sold the hospital and all its dependencies to John Heath, Esq., warder of the Fleet.

The patent to the Lord of Ormeston grants, inter alia, tithes in Washington, Boldon, Cleadon, Whitburn, Bishopwearmouth, Ryhope, Easington, Wharrington, Kelloe, Chester, &c., and messuages and hereditaments in Sunderland, Washington, Boldon, Cleadon, Wearmouth, Ryhope, Easington, &c.

HEATH.

In the tenth year of the reign of Elizabeth, 1568. Fine levied between John Heath of the city of London, merchant, and John Cockburn, Lord of Ormiston, and Alice his wife, of the manor of Kepier, Old Durham, Iveston, Frosterley, Little Kepier, and Tweedmouth, five hundred messuages, as many cottages, as many tofts, ten water mills, ten dovecotes, twenty thousand acres of land, twenty thousand of pasture, one thousand acres of wood, twenty thousand of marsh and moor, and twenty pounds rent in Kepier, Gillegate borough, Old Durham, Durham city, Claxton, Boldonmershe [or Flatts,] Sunderland, Houghton, Washington, Boldon,

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Cleadon, Wearmouth, Ryhope, Easington, &c., &c., &c.

Mr. Heath, as was probably his intention in making so extensive a purchase, alienated several of the distant estates of the hospital, keeping together the mass of the property at Kepier and Old Durham. Some portions of his acquisitions he devoted to the purposes of very rational charity, for with the venerable Barnard

• Valor Ecclesiasticus, vol. V., page 325.

Amongst the "lordships, manors, towns, burgages, lands, and tenements pertaining to the monastery [afterwards the cathedral] of Saint Cuthbert, in Durham," whereof Hugh Whitehead was prior in 1535, we find that that house held property in

"Southwick, of the yearly value of .. £16

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subject, however, to the payment of 2s. 4d. per annum to the lord bishop of Durham, for his [fee farm or] free rent for Sunderland."*

All these remains of ancient piety were swept away at the period of the reformation, one of the greatest events

Gilpin, he became the joint founder of Kepier school, in Houghton-le-Spring, on which he settled the gilley-tithes of Wearmouth, and pensions out of the rectories of Gateshead, Ryton, and Whickham.

The hospital continued in the family of Heath, till 1689, when the mansion house, gardens, orchards, and mills of Kepier, and several closes were sold to Ralph Cole, Esq., of Gateshead. Sir Nicholas and Sir Ralph Cole, son and grandson of the purchaser, resided here till near 1674, when Sir Ralph Cole of Brancepeth, Bart, conveyed the manor of Kepier, the site of the hospital, and a portion of the estate, to Sir Christopher Musgrave, Bart., of Carlisle. (This family's seat is now Eden Hall, near Penrith.)

Another considerable portion of the estate, lying eastwards of the hospital, called the Grange, or East, or Far Grange, was sold by to the Carr's of Cocken, and is now the property of Ralph Carr, Esq. The coal under Carr's portion belongs to Musgrave.-Hutchinson's Durham, vol. II., page 299; Surtees's Durham, vol. IV., page 61.

* Valor Ecclesiasticus, vol. V., page 301-2.

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