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.

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.

Oldest Holiday Resort? (NZ297471)

Finchale Priory is a somewhat isolated, ruinous affair tucked away in a bend of the River Wear about four miles north of Durham City. It has, rather curiously, been used as a holiday resort by one section of society or another for around 800 years.

Its roots lie in the twelfth century when it was the base for Saint Godric, a merchant-cum-sailor-cum-monk, who eventually ensconced himself there as a hermit. It is said that he lived to be more than 100 and to have sat out the last six decades of his life at Finchale. Needless to say, by the time he passed away in 1170, he had become something of a celebrity, having enjoyed many visits from the great and the good.

Soon afterwards, the little collection of hermit-like buildings at this quiet spot in the countryside was ‘developed’ by successive Priors of Durham into a Benedictine outpost of the mighty mother church down the road. For the next three hundred years or so the complex at Finchale slowly grew – though, in all honesty, it was never overly utilised.

The newly-formed Finchale Priory survived as a religious house until 1535 and the Dissolution. For much of its history during 13^th-16^th centuries it was effectively used as a holiday retreat for monks from nearby Durham, who would go there in groups of four for three-week periods and where they would ‘enjoy’ a slightly more relaxed timetable for the duration.

These days much of the surrounding countryside is taken up with the long-established ‘Finchale Abbey Caravan Park and Eco Village’ – see here.

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The Scattering of Gisborough Priory (NZ618161)

(with thanks to Nez202 at Wikipedia)

After Henry VIII had finished with his Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s, there was a fair bit of unclaimed worked masonry lying around the countryside. Though not all of the nation’s monastic concerns were demolished and recycled, over time a fair few were. Gisborough Priory is fairly typical in this respect.

Formally ‘dissolved’ in April 1540, it was not properly surrendered to the king’s men until December of that year, making it one of the last institutions of its kind to be handed over. There was a plan of sorts to convert the old place into a secular college, but it never came to fruition – and the buildings were almost completely flattened soon afterwards. A certain Thomas Legh was given permission to do so and the pieces “carried away”.

The Chaloners eventually bought the site, moving into what was left of the complex before relocating to their new mansion, Old Gisborough Hall, in the late 17^th century. The site underwent further clearance work at this time, and the grounds redeveloped as formal gardens for the Chaloners’ new home.

Victorian historian John Walker Ord lamented the loss of the old priory and the way in which it was carelessly recycled in and around the nearby town:

I have seen with my own eyes broken pillars and pedestals of this august pile desecrated to the vile uses of gateposts, stands for rainwater casks, and stepping-stones over a common sewer. A richly ornamented doorway of the venerable priory forms the entrance to a privy. I have beheld with sorrow, shame, and indignation, the richly ornamented columns and carved architraves of God's temple supporting the thatch of a pig-house.

Other fragments found their way into a folly at Hardwick Hall estate, near Sedgefield – quite a distance – and goodness knows where else if the truth be known…

  

Mead: the Mother of Booze (NU126418)

The ancestor of all fermented drinks, antedating the cultivation of the soil.
Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, historian.

One of Lindisfarne’s most noticeable commercial concerns is St.Aidan’s Winery, producers of the famous Lindisfarne Mead. But what exactly is this strange concoction? Well, basically, it is a mixture of honey and water, fermented with yeast so that the sugars in the honey turn to alcohol. And as for its history, well, it is very likely the oldest alcoholic beverage in the world.

Lindisfarne may well be England’s ‘Cradle of Christianity’, but it can make no such claim when it comes to the old tipple. For mead has been around – in all the major centres of civilisation – for many thousands of years. Earliest references stretch back to around 7,000BC to (very) ancient China; and Africa, too, can claim a lengthy heritage. Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss argued that the invention of mead marked the passage of man’s development “from nature to culture”. In Europe, the drink probably arrived with the Beaker people around 2,000BC; and Aristotle and his pals were known to have indulged in the heyday of Ancient Greece. The Germanic tribes of northern Europe (the Vikings included) helped make mead very much as popular as ale in the Dark Ages, and this is when it entered our own culture big-time. The word ‘honeymoon’ is derived from the Norse custom of having newly-weds drink the stuff for a whole moon in order to increase their fertility. So I guess it was considered an aphrodisiac.

So quite why the religious houses of Dark Age England took to brewing and drinking mead I shudder to think. Anyway, the monks of Lindisfarne were especially keen, it seems, though they would have probably claimed it was nothing more than a little side-line of their beekeeping hobby. As you can imagine, during its long and colourful history, mead has developed countless variants. Different strengths, the inclusion of fruits, spices and herbs (and sometimes hops), differing maturing periods – and even, recently, the development of carbonated and sparkling versions, as well as dry, semi-sweet and sweet mixes – all helping to enrich the world of the mead aficionado.

Mead has enjoyed its good times and bad. Its popularity waned as the Middle Ages progressed, taxation and strict regulation taking their toll. And when cheap sugar imports began to arrive from the West Indies in the seventeenth century, beekeeping and honey production took quite a knock – and so, then, did mead production. But hang on it did, especially in areas in which grapes could not be grown for the production of wine – and for that we have the monasteries to thank.

So say what you will about these religious types, but on this score, at least, they seem to have got their priorities right.