inscription, mistakenly supposed Piersbridge to be the Condate of the Itinerary. Near the bridge are some remains of a chapel, founded by Baliol, King of Scotland. During the Civil Wars, a skirmish occurred here between the Royalists, under the Marquis of Newcastle, and a party of the Parliament's forces, in which Colonel Howard, and many of the lower ranks, were killed.

The road between Piersbridge and GAINSFORD includes many beautiful prospects. The latter village is situated in a delightful valley, watered by the Tees; the buildings form a square, inclosing a green. The manor is extensive, and mentioned by ancient writers, as comprehending great part of that side of the county. It was given to the See of Durham by Egfrid, Bishop of Lindisfarne; but afterwards resigned, with other townships, to the Earls of Northumberland, for support against the Danes. In the time of Edward the First, it came into the possession of the Baliols, by the marriage of Hugh Baliol with Agnes de Valencia, who, as appears from an inquisition taken under the statute Quo Warranto, in the year 1293, had free warren here, and other privileges of a royal franchise. BOLAM, in this parish, gave birth to SIR SAMUEL GARTH, some of whose family have monuments in the Church. This gentleman became Fellow of the College of Physicians, and obtained much celebrity for his conduct during the contention generated by the edict passed in July, 1687, for giving gratuitous advice to the neighbouring poor. On this occasion, he published his celebrated poem of the Dispensary, which being well calculated to accord with the state of the public feeling, obtained much applause. His influence in the establishment of Dispensatories, indeed, redounds greatly to his praise, and, together with his active benevolence, and extensive charities, deserved, as it has received, the grateful acknowledgments of posterity. He died in January, 1717-18, and was buried in the Church of Harrow on the Hill, near London. "His death," observes Pope, in a letter written shortly after, was unaffected enough to have made a saint or a philosopher famous: if ever there was a good Christian, without knowing himself to be so, it was Dr. Garth," SELLABY

Britannia Romana, p. 296.

SELLABY HALL is a beautiful villa of free-stone and blueslate, rebuilt by the late Earl of Darlington, by whom it was purchased of the Freemans. The grounds are disposed with great taste and judgment, and afford a singular diversity of pleasing views: the stables are well arranged, lofty, and embattled. The view, on leaving the high road at Grandbank, on the way to Sellaby, is uncommonly rich and extensive. It comprehends nearly the whole Vale of Teesdale, from this point to the cloudcapt blue mountain of Cross-fell, in Cumberland.

WINSTON, a manor which belonged to the late Duke of Bridgewater, was, in the reign of Henry the Fifth, parcel of the estate of the Scroops of Masham, of whom Henry, Lord Scrope, was beheaded for treason against that Monarch. The village occupies the ridge of a hill rising from the Tees, over which is a noble stone Bridge of one arch, erected in the year 1764, from a design by the late Sir Thomas Robinson. The span is 111 feet. Here the Tees quits the romantic scenes which had accompanied it from its source, and, instead of hurrying its waters over craggy rocks, and thickly wooded banks, flows into a level country, and assumes a more placid, though scarcely less beautiful, character. The view from the Rectory-House is extremely fine: from this peaceful recess, Dr. Burgess has been lately promoted to fill the Episcopal Seat at St. David's.

STUB HOUSE, the seat of Harrison, Esq. is a respectable modern building; the grounds are pleasant, and ornamented with some thriving plantations. Mr. Harrison has in his possession a bird's next, curiously petrified, from a petrifying spring on the north bank of the Tees, opposite Wycliffe.

STAINDROP,

An ancient town, seated in a beautiful vale, was originally a Royal ville, as appears from Canute granting his mansion-house here to the monastery of Durham, together with many other manors, as an offering at the holy shrine of St. Cuthbert. Bishop Flambard, indignant that the monastery should possess such a rich VOL. V.

P

gift,

gift, seized the possessions into his own hands, but restored them on the approach of death. Soon afterwards Algar, the Prior, granted Staindrop, and Staindropshire, to Dolphin, great grandson of Uchtred, and ancestor to the Nevills, to be holden of him in capite, with a reserved rent of four pounds. In the year 1343, Ralph de Nevill, of Raby, obtained a grant from Prior Fossour, and the convent, to found three chantries in Staindrop Church. Ralph Nevill, Earl of Westmoreland, was empowered by Bishop Hatfield, in 1378, to erect a College for a Master or Warden, eight Chaplains, to be continually resident, four secular Clerks, six Esquires, six decayed Gentlemen, and six other poor persons. The indiscriminating hand of dissolution completely overturned this excellent establishment: it was bereaved of its possessions, and is destroyed to its foundations. Its revenues were estimated at 1701. 4s. 6d. annual value. Leland describes the College as "set on the north side of the Church, and stronly buildid al of stone." By a charter from Bishop Hatfield, of the same date as the above, John de Nevill, Lord of Raby, was privileged to hold a weekly market at Staindrop: of late years this market has been revived, to the great advantage of the inhabitants.

66

The Church is an ancient fabric, with an embattled tower at the west end: it consists of a nave, side aisles, and chancel. "In the south aisle, as I heard," says Leland, was buried the grantfather and grandedam of Rafe Raby, and they made a cantuarie there. In the waul of this isle appere the tumbes and images of S ladys, wherof one hath a cronet, and a tumbe of a man child, and a flat tumbe varii marmoris. Ther is a flat tumbe also, with a playne image of brasse and a scripture, wher is buried Richard

sun

*The licence granted by the Bishop did not restrict the founder, either to numbers, or condition; the expression therein being nec non certis pauperibus generosis et aliis pauperibus; and it is most probable, that the Earl intended this house for the reception of his military retainers, or those servants most immediately about his person, (sex vallectorum,) who should be reduced by misfortunes, or otherwise disabled; and in that sense, the appeilations of armigerorum and vallectorum will have the most proper application. Hutchinson's Durham, III. 259.