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Durham.. Until the year 1719, it was a township in the parish of Bishopwearmouth, from which it was then severed by an Act of Parliament.

It is bounded on the south by the township of Bishopwearmouth, on the west by the townships of Bishopwearmouth and Bishopwearmouth Panns, on the north in part by grounds, &c. in the township of Monkwearmouth Shore and in part from or near the west end of the Potatoe Garth to the western boundary adjoining the township of Bishopwearmouth Panns, by the midstream of the ancient channel of the river Wear, the ground of which ancient channel, lying between the ancient low water marks, including the site of the north pier and grounds adjoining, extending about 380 feet in breadth when measured in a northerly direction from the west end of the pier, is the soil

Lady the Queen, assigned to keep the peace of our said Lady the Queen, in the said County, and also to hear and determine divers Felonies, Trespasses, and Misdemeanors done and committed in the said County.

WHEREAS, by a statement in writing, under the hands of Andrew White, Joseph Simpson, Richard White, Walker Featherstonhaugh, Ralph Carr, Richard Spoor, Richard Pemberton, and Edward Backhouse, Esquires, eight of her Majesty's Justices of the Peace of and for the said County, bearing date the fifteenth day of June last, and laid before the Justices of the Peace assembled at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the said County, on Monday, the 28th day of the same month of June, the said eight Justices did, under and by virtue of an Act of Parliament made and passed in the ninth year of the reign of his late Majesty King George the Fourth, intituled "An Act for the better regulation of Divisions in the several Counties of England and Wales," state their opinion that the following Parishes, Townships, and Places would form together a

and freehold of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (in right of the Jura Regalia of the County Palatine of Durham), who are entitled to nearly the whole of the North Dock tidal basin, and a portion of the S.W. corner of the dock, parts of two shipbuilding yards on the north side of the Potatoe Garth, and a part of the south-east and east sides of the Ham Sand; all of which were parcel of the navigable channel of the Stell, as will be seen on comparing Mr. Fawcett's Plan of the Mouth of the River in 1719 with one published by John Murray, Esq., C.E., in 1846. This river called by the Romans "Vedra,' and by Beda "Wiri" rises in Weardale in the same county, whence running in a wiry or circuitous manner convenient and a proper Division, within and for which Special Sessions should thenceforward be held, viz:—

Parishes, Townships, and Places | In what existing Division the proposed by the said statement same were situate or deemed to be.

to form a new Division.

Bishopwearmouth

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Bishopwearmouth Panns

Burdon

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And the said Justices did thereby declare and set forth that the following Division (that is to say) the North Division of Easington Ward, in the said County, would be altered by such proposed new Division; and further, that the following Justices of the Peace for

eastward, it receives the Kellop, Burnhope, Lynburn, Gaunless, Browney and other tributary streams in its course to the German Ocean, which forms by its ancient low water mark the eastern boundary of this parish.

The following table exhibits the area of the parish, according to a survey made by Mr. Joseph Wilson and other officers of Her Majesty's Board of Ordnance in 1855, previous to the last perambulation on the 3rd June, 1856, when, as will be noticed hereafter, an extension of the north and south boundaries was claimed from the townships of Monkwearmouth Shore and Bishopwearmouth. The latter township has acceded to the claim of Sunderland Parish. We may observe that neither of the extended boundaries (including an area of upwards of twentyseven acres of ground &c. on the north side of the river) are included in the Ordnance Survey of the East Ward. Area of the Parish of Sunderland, shewing the content of each Ward in such parish, also the quantity contained in each, dock, river, &c., &c.

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the said County, were then usually resident or acting as such within the boundaries of the said proposed new Division (that is to say),

* It will be seen from the above measurements that the water area of the tidal harbour, half-tide basin, and the Sunderland part of

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It was a general custom formerly, says Bourne, and is still observed in some country parishes, to go round the bounds and limits of the parish on one of the three days before Holy Thursday, or the Feast of our Lord's Ascension, when the minister accompanied by his churchwardens and parishioners were wont to deprecate the vengeance of God, beg a blessing on the fruits of the earth, and preserve the rights and properties of the parish.*

"That ev'ry man might keep his owne possessions,
Our fathers us'd, in reverent Processions,
(With zealous prayers, and with praiseful cheere),
To walke their parish-limits once a yeare;
And well-knowne markes (which sacrilegious hands
Now cut or breake) so bord'red out their lands,
That ev'ry one distinctly knew his owne ;

And many brawles, now rife, were then unknowne,"
Withers' Emblems, fol. 1635, p. 161.

Bourne cites Spelman (Gloss. v. Perambulatio) as Sir Hedworth Williamson, Baronet; the Reverend George Stephenson, clerk; John Davison, Addison Fenwick, Robert Reay, Ralph Carr, the dock, considerably exceeds the area of tidal water of the river Wear in the parish of Sunderland; showing that that magnificent work of art, the dock, for the possession of which the town of Sunderland is under the deepest obligations to George Hudson, Esq., M.P., has conferred greater advantages upon it than was given to it by

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deriving this custom from the times of the Heathens, and that it is an imitation of the Feast called Terminalia, which was dedicated to the God Terminus, whom they considered as the guardian of fields and landmarks, and the keeper up of friendship and peace among men. The primitive custom used by Christians on this occasion was, for the people to accompany the bishop or some of the clergy into the fields, where Litanies were made and the mercy of God implored, that he would avert the evils of plague and pestilence, that he would send them good and seasonable weather, and give them in due season the fruits of the earth.

The Litanies or Rogations then used gave the name of Rogation Week, to this time. They occur as early as the 550th year of the Christian era, when they were first observed by Mamertius, Bishop of Vienna, on account of the frequent earthquakes that happened, and the incursions of wild beasts, which laid in ruins and depopulated the city.

By the Canons of Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, made at Cloveshoo, in the year 747, it was ordered that Litanies, that is Rogations, should be observed by the clergy and all the people, with great reverence, on the seventh of the Calends of May, according to the rites

Richard Spoor, Richard White, Andrew White, Thomas Wilkinson, Joseph Simpson, Edward Backhouse, Walker Featherstonhaugh, and Richard Pemberton, Esquires; which said statement has been duly published as required by the said Act.

Now upon full consideration of the said statement, and upon due proof adduced before this Court, that for two years last past there have been, and that at this time there are, at the least, five Justices of the Peace residing in or usually acting within the boundary line

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