Muggleswick Grange (NZ044500)

© Copyright Oliver Dixon and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

A surprisingly substantial ruin lies in the grounds of the present-day Priory Farm on the northern edge of the hamlet of Muggleswick, Co.Durham, very near to the Northumberland border. It is in one very real sense a bit of a rarity, yet in another quite frustrating way an almost complete mystery.

It has come to be known as Muggleswick Grange, though that in itself is a bit of a guess – and, hey, we have to call it something. But the fact is that this feature in the landscape has been called many things over the years: a monastery, a grange, a hunting lodge and the curiously named ‘prior’s camera’. Now, I suppose, it is a farmyard folly.

Unlike its modest status today, Muggleswick was clearly once a very important place indeed. Its place-name suggests an ancient founding, certainly; and it is mentioned in the 1183 Boldon Book. It had been owned by the Bishop of Durham, but by 1183 was the property of the Prior of Durham – though the Bishop still retained local hunting rights, as well as much of the surrounding countryside.

Brother William of the priory built a ‘large house’ (possibly of timber) sometime before 1229; then Prior Hugh de Derlington erected what was described as a ‘camera’ (a large vaulted stone building) either next to or on the site of William’s house in the1250s/60s. It is the remains of this construction that we see today. The prior’s influence seems to have grown over the years, and the burgeoning estate would have been managed from this building – essentially amounting to a sprawling animal ranch to support the Prior of Durham, as well as providing a hunting ground, of course, for various high-ranking officials.

A 1464 document lists a hall, chapel, grange and dairy at Muggleswick, though they seem to have been in a state of decay. And so the decline, we assume, continued until the Dissolution, and thereafter through the reuse of much of the masonry for nearby stone buildings. There is little in the way of documentary evidence to enable us to accurately chart its long and gradual decline into what we see today – but it remains a very rare example of its kind: a substantial ruin of a monastic grange from the medieval period. It is Grade I Listed.

Holystone: Lies & Legend (NT952029)

© Copyright Andrew Curtis and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

Scarcely can an ancient site have attracted so much in the way of historical speculation than that of the Lady’s Well, a little to the north of Holystone, Northumberland. For such a well-known site, incredibly little is known of the origins of its fame, save that it has been there for a very long time and that folk never tire of making up tales about the place.

Essentially, of course, it is a natural feature of the landscape: a spring. And it is an abundant one at that, issuing forth an astonishing 560 gallons per minute. Clean, fresh water being such a precious commodity in the old days, these sorts of places were very important to our ancestors. This particular spot has gone by a number of names in its time: St.Ninian’s Well, Paulinus’ Well and (Old) Lady’s Well being the best known. It has given rise to all sorts of stories over the centuries, too, the most famous being that the early Christian missionary, Paulinus, baptised King Edwin and 3,000 of his followers there in 627AD. A flat stone which once lay near the spring was even said to have been the platform upon which the mass ceremony was conducted.

Nobody even seems to know the sequence of events which took the originally natural site through to its present look. Circumstantial evidence would suggest that it was revered from the earliest days of human habitation of the region. The Roman road that passes almost over the spot would suggest that the invaders made much use of the watery facilities, too, in the early centuries AD (the NE-SW orientation of the pool matches the course of the ancient road). It may well have been the Romans who tidied and paved the area, and it probably acted as a shrine of some sort, too, to the passing legions.

There can be no doubt that the early Christian leaders thereafter made use of the spring, though any links to the likes of Paulinus and St.Ninian are purely speculative. However, when the nearby nunnery (originally Benedictine, then Augustinian) was built at Holystone around 1124 the legends came crawling out of the woodwork – an attempt, of course, to attract attention and funds to the impoverished institution. In all likelihood, the legend of Paulinus and the baptising of the 3,000 probably took place in York, in fact.

By the time the nunnery was dissolved in the days of Henry VIII the lies and legend surrounding Holystone’s Lady’s Well had become well established ‘fact’. The local catholic gentry in particular latched on to the stories and propagated them in the ensuing centuries. Then, at some point in the 1780s, the site was restructured along the lines we see today, supplemented by a little Victorian tinkering during 1861-2 (when the statue of St.Paulinus was moved and the cross erected to replace it).

Four Tales of Brinkburn (NZ115983)

Brinkburn Priory, one of Northumberland’s historical jewels, lies cosily on the banks of the River Coquet just off the A697 between Longhorsley and Longframlington. It is a quiet and secluded spot and, save for its low-key ‘dissolution’ in the time of Henry VIII, seems to have troubled the historians little, generally speaking. It does, however, tease us with several woolly tales from the distant past, briefly summarised thus:-

(1) The Battle of Brunanburh was one of the key conflicts in British history, enabling King Aethelstan of England the opportunity to establish his newly-unified nation on the world map. It took place in 937AD, pitching the ‘English’ against a combined Norse-Celtic force – the former emerging victorious. The thing is, no one has a clue as to where the battle was fought. All sorts of sites across the north of England have been mooted – one somewhat unfavoured possibility being a spot on the Great North Road a mile or two from the future Brinkburn Priory. There was (some say) an ancient place in the vicinity called Brincaburch – now long-since gone – which hints at the name of the famous old battle.

(2) At some point during the monks’ residency at Brinkburn (12^th – 16^th centuries – some sources hint at a date of 1419), the raiding Scots threatened to sack the priory. However, because of the thick woods thereabouts, they couldn’t find it and set off once more on their merry way. The brethren expressed their thanks with a hasty bell-peal, an act which caught the ear of the distant Scots and conveniently guided them back onto their target – whereupon they gutted the place.

(3) After the Dissolution of the Monastaries, the bells of Brinkburn were again in the news. Tradition has it that they were recycled by being taken down to Durham by horseback … but were they? Some say they were lost en route (in the River Font, apparently); others concur, but insist they were recovered thanks to a miracle; other tales have them being buried – a fragment turning up under a tree on the riverbank opposite Brinkburn. Some say that the nearby River Coquet hides the bells, having been deposited there by the pesky Scots. And if, by some chance, they did make it to Durham, where are they?

(4) In 1834 around 300 old coins were found in the grounds of the priory during the removal of a burnt-out wooden building. They were discovered under a large hollowed-out stone inside a medieval bronze pot, and amounted to what were known as Rose Nobles from the reigns of Edward III, Richard II and Henry IV. In typical Brinkburn fashion, though, the fine detail of the find seems to have largely disappeared from the history books. A few specimens made their way to the British Museum, the rest disappearing, seemingly, into private hands.

And I haven’t even mentioned the fairies buried at Brinkburn…

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Newminster Abbey, Morpeth (NZ189857)

A little beyond the southern extremities of our region can be found a landscape riddled with the remains of abbeys and monasteries. As one creeps ever northwards they thin out noticeably, and anything north of the Tyne is a very rare specimen indeed (we can thank the Scots and their periodic raids for that). The largest such establishment in Northumberland is thought to have been that on the south bank of the Wansbeck near Morpeth, and was called Newminster Abbey.

This nigh-on forgotten religious house has now been almost completely wiped from the landscape, but it was quite a significant institution in its time. It was, in fact, one of the first daughter houses to be founded by the famous Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire – quite possibly the very first, some say. This all happened around 1137 when the Cistercians were invited north by local noble, Ranulph de Merlay, and his wife, Juliana. ‘Robert of Newminster’ from Fountains was appointed the new abbey’s first abbot, ruling the roost with considerable vigour from 1138 to 1159. A year after its founding the Scots came down and set the place abaze – and as part of the resultant peace treaty with the English pretty much everything north of the Tyne was ruled by the Scots during 1139-57. The monastery slowly recovered under Robert’s enthusiastic leadership, being properly rebuilt by 1180.

Morpeth’s wealthy residents occasionally granted land and possessions to the young institution, and it came to exercise control over much of the land from the Wansbeck to the Scottish border. No one seems to know quite how extensive its influence was, but in time it spawned daughter monasteries of its own at Pipewell (Northamptonshire) and Roche and Sawley (both in Yorkshire). By the late thirteenth century, Newminster Abbey also had two hospitals dependent upon it, at Mitford and Allerburn. This all mattered little come the Dissolution, though, when it was officially sacked in Henry VIII’s first round of plundering in 1537. The Greys came into possession and thereafter began the systematic robbing of its masonry over successive generations. In turn, the Brandlings and then the Ords assumed ownership.

Newminster Abbey was last used in 1937 for the 400^th anniversary of its closure. Most of what remains today is hidden underground or under trees. However, a nice collection of photographs from the 1960s can be found here.

Holy Jesus Hospital, Newcastle (NZ251642)

© Copyright Andrew Curtis and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Now cruelly hemmed in by motorway madness and the seventies creation that is the Pilgrim Street Roundabout, the building known universally as the Holy Jesus Hospital sits cheek-by-jowl with all that is bad with the modern-day city.

This curious structure is difficult to find. Like the centre of a maze, you know it exists – and may even be able to see it – but actually reaching it across/under/over the myriad of pathways and underpasses is no mean feat. When you finally get there you may wonder how it escaped demolition at all.

Though most of the present-day building was thrown up in the 1680s, masonry survives from the old Augustinian Friary which occupied the site from the thirteenth century. In time, the old structure found royal favour – though the Dissolution of the Monastaries eventually put an end to that friendly arrangement. It still retained a certain air of importance – including acting as a back-up venue for the Council of the North in the mid- to late-sixteenth century – but eventually fell into disrepair.

Passing out of private ownership and into that of the town corporation, the present ‘hospital’ structure was built during 1681-83 to house retired freemen and their kin. It was (is) built of brick – a fairly new-fangled material at the time of its construction. Amazingly it remained in use as an almshouse until 1937.

The famous ‘Soup Kitchen’ was added in 1880, and served the ‘deserving poor’ for a decade or so. Though the hospital carried on, the various other buildings on the site were used by a variety of private enterprises during the early twentieth century. By 1960, though, the place was a mess.

Whilst all around the hospital was demolished and roads driven hither and thither, the old building somehow escaped the bulldozers and even enjoyed a revamp – re-opening as the John George Joicey Museum in 1970, focussing on the history of the city. Its hopeless situate, however, meant it was little visited and it eventually closed in 1993.

A further renovation saw the building re-open yet again in 2004 – this time as the local HQ of the National Trust’s Inner City Project. It seems, though, that this latest phase in the history of the Holy Jesus Hospital building is set to end soon – and the future remains uncertain.

St.Cuthbert’s Final Resting Place? (NZ273421)

Via Wikipedia (public domain)

As we all know, the mortal remains of St.Cuthbert lie in Durham Cathedral, right? Well, probably. The picture above tells us the official story, but a legend has persisted for centuries that the great saint’s bones actually rest elsewhere – and that the secret location has been passed down to a select handful of clerics still living today.

The history of St.Cuthbert’s remains and all the various relics that went with him is a lengthy one. To cut this very long story down to a manageable size, after his death in 687AD he was shipped from pillar to post for several centuries until he was finally laid to permanent rest within the walls of the newly-built cathedral around the turn of the twelfth century.

He has been disturbed at least thrice since. Once in 1541 when the Dissolution targeted the city, then in 1827 and 1899. The sum of the various investigations carried out at these times seemed to confirm the traditional story of the various shenanigans surrounding his post-mortem adventures – yet a curious rumour persists. Was, in fact, the body switched at some point, and the real remains hidden elsewhere?

The story goes that when Henry VIII and his chief minister Thomas Cromwell turned their eyes to Durham Cathedral in the dying days of the Dissolution, the monks panicked and substituted Cuthbert’s remains for some other nobody – probably a quick body switch during an overnight stay in the desecration process. As it happens, the ‘sacred remains’ – whether genuine or not – were reburied in due course, and remain where you will find them today, duly marked by a dirty big tombstone. Another version has Cuthbert’s genuine remains being desecrated, re-buried, then subsequently switched during 1542-58 for fear the royal commissioners should return for another poke at the same.

If the true remains were ever secreted away – to another spot in the cathedral, or elsewhere – nobody knows. Well, apart from a long, thin line of trusted clerics through which the secret has passed these past 450 years.