Six north country diaries - The MAN & Other Families

auuuiii ill Yorke-sbire. Hee, having received his education t'lum his
grandfather, a man given to licentiousnesse iind excesse of drincking,
did partici|>ate of his vic^3s, and having then surchardged hiiuselte
with carowsiiig, amidst liis exercise and ryding of his horse, pulled
him in his advancing backwards upon him, and received such a bruise
as the next day ended his life, and begun his widdow mother's sorrows,
wlio was a vertuous gentlewoeman, and lived near the place where
I was lodged in Yorke.
[April] 27. I went from Yorke the 27th of Aprill, being Saturday,
on which daj- there fell aboundanoe of raine, and made foule travelling
over the forrest of Gawtrie which lies betweene Yorke and Topcliffe
where I baited, being 17 miles from Yorke, there runns the river
called Swale. That night I came to North Allerton, 7 miles further,
and there lodged all night in a poore house, the towne beeing filled
with troupers before mee. Yet I found indifferent accommadacion
both for my selfe and horses, good meate for Gd. ordinaiy, and good
provender beanes and oates for Sd. a peck. The dearest provision was
beere at id. a small tiaggon, not a wine quart. But there had beeno
all the foote (in their passage) quartered before us, w'hich occasioned
that scarcity of drincke.
[April] 28. The next day beeing Sonday, I passed over the river
Teeze at a foord which divides York-shire from the Bishoprick at a
little villadge called Neesom.
Then I came to Dar[l]ington, 10 miles from Northallerton, where
I baited and found the price of drincke encrease upon mee, Sd. for a
riaggon not much greater than the former. This is a pritty market
towne seated upon a hill over the river Skerne : hence I went to a
small villadg 3 miles further, called Cottam, where I lodged all night
in a meane house.
[April] 29. The next day beeing Monday, I came to Durham
(11 miles), the bishop's sea of that diocesse, where he hath a goodly
auncient castle for his habitation which was now taken up for the
king, who came that same night to towne. ^^ The towne is pleasantly
seated and environned with the river Weere, especially that part
where the castle, cathedrall and prebends' houses stand, which
resembles a horse shooe, beeing seperated from the rest of the towne
(as it were) with the river, save onely one space to goe to those
buildings like the distance betweene the two ends of the horse shooe.
In this towne are much gentiy, it beeing the London (as it were)
of those north parts, which extend as farre as Barwick. The cathedrall
church is very lardge, and by some ^equalled to Yorke, but more out
of affeccion than truth, there beeing noe comparison, this comming
farre short of Yorke for beauty and state, the two vast (i.e. too vast)
pillars it hath serving better for pei^petuity than comeliness in
architect, yet I believe the softness of the stone (beeing a red greets)
" Not on the 1st May as stated by Gardiner, Fall of the Monarchy oj
iJharle.'i I., vol. i. p. -213.