Sockburn Hall, Darlington: an archaeological ... - English Heritage

three tofts, a mill, an orchard (or three orchards), two (or four) gardens and a dove
house (ZE16/17 1678; ZE18 1678). By 1682, however, this last link to the Conyers
was broken by the sale of the manor and the entire estate to Sir William Blackett of
Newcastle (VCH 1914,451). The deed of sale,covering the property formerly enjoyed
by William Conyers, makes similar references to ‘all and singular messuages, houses,
edifices, buildings, barns, byres, stables, tofts, crofts, cottages, curtilages, dovecotes,
garths and gardens..’ although once again, in typical fashion, without providing details
of the location, appearance or extent of any of these items (ZE19/20 1682).
Sir William Blackett amassed considerable wealth through his Tyneside mines and
collieries and was created a baronet in 1673 (Burke 1889, 135). The Blacketts built
and maintained other substantial houses, notably Newby Hall in North Yorkshire
and Matfen Hall in Northumberland (Waterson 2003, 223; Knowles 1905, 100), and
over successive generations Sockburn served as both a tenanted estate and a family
residence. SirWilliam was succeeded by his son Sir Edward,who held the manor until
his death in 1718. His son and heir, also Edward, died without issue in 1756 and the
title passed to his nephew, another Edward, whose sonWilliam succeeded to the title
of baronet and to the manor in 1804 (Burke 1889, 135).
By this date the fortunes of the Conyers family had undergone a comprehensive decline
in both Durham and Yorkshire. In 1809 Robert Surtees wrote about of fate of Sir
Thomas Conyers, the final inheritor of the title of baronet from his spendthrift nephew.
Sir Thomas, who was then 72 years of age and living as a pauper in the workhouse at
Chester-le-Street, died shortly afterwards, in circumstances somewhat improved by a
public subscription raised on his behalf through the Gentleman’s Magazine (F R Surtees
1887,153). Writing about 14 years later Robert Surtees claimed that‘all are now fallen
and not a foot of land is now held by Conyers in either county’ (1823, 245). Of the
Conyers’ former hall at Sockburn Surtees stated that ‘not one stone is now left on
another’ and that its position was only pointed out by ‘deep traces of foundations of
gardens and orchards’ lying a little to the south of the church (ibid 246). The general
location was not deserted, however, as Surtees also mentioned a‘modern brick house,
better and worse than a farmhold, which it is said the Blacketts,“capti dulcedine loci”
3 had intended for the residence for a younger son’ (Ibid, 246 fn). This building must
be that which is shown a little to the left of the church in Goodhall’s 1830 engraving
of the Sockburn landscape (Figure 12). Although likened to a ‘farmhold’ this building
is clearly not Sockburn Farm, which stands some 200m to the west of Sockburn Hall
- its distinctive high pitched roof and tall chimney stack appearing through a gap in
the trees towards the right hand edge of Goodhall’s picture (Figure 11). Sockburn
Farm was built in the mid-18th century by Thomas Hutchinson, a tenant farmer and
famous breeder of shorthorn cattle, and it is particularly noteworthy as the home of
Mary Hutchinson who later became the wife of William Wordsworth (Pevsner 1983,
411; Surtees 1823, 246; Barker 2000, 150).
3 ‘captivated by the charm of the place’
ENGLISH HERITAGE Sockburn