• General Notes

  SOCKBURN township has an area of 601 acres, and is intersected by the Tees, which here flows in a very winding course. The portion situated on the north side of the river contains Sockburn Hall, one farm, and the old parish church; and that on the south side one farm and the church and parsonage. But, though thus divided, the whole township is included in the county of Durham. The gross estimated rental is £886, and rateable value, £802. Sole owner, Sir Edward William Blackett, Bart., who is also lord of the manor.
  
  Sockburn is supposed to be the Saxon Soccabyrig, where Higbald was consecrated Bishop of Lindisfarne, in the year 780. If the supposition be correct, Sockburn must have had a church at that early period, In the time of the Danish King Canute, Snaculf, the son of Cykell, gave to the Prior and Monks of Durham, Socceburg, Grisbi, and other places. Some time after the Conquest, Sockburn came into the possession of the Conyers, a distinguished Norman family, to whom William de St. Barbara, Bishop of Durham, granted the hereditary constableship of Durham Castle. The manor continued in the possession of this family until the reign of Charles I., when William Conyers, of Sockburn, Esq., died leaving two daughters co-heiresses. The younger, Anne, who eventually became possessed of the whole manor by the death of her sister, conveyed it in marriage to Francis Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, by whom it was sold to Sir William Blackett, a wealthy merchant of Newcastle, from whom it has descended to the present proprietor.
  
  Every trace of the ancient home of the Conyers has disappeared, and in its place Sockburn Hall, a modern mansion, in the domestic Gothic style, was erected in 1835. This is now unoccupied. Near the hall are still standing a few of the ruined arches of the old parish church, which was partially demolished in 1835, after the erection of the new church on the opposite side of the river.
  
  Sockburn has its legend, one of those interesting dragon stories which enrich our northen folk lore. It is thus told in the Bowes MSS., p. 57 "Sir John Conyers, Knt., slew yt monstrous and poysonous vermine or wyverne, and aske or werme, wh overthrew and devoured many people in fight, for yt ye sent of yt poison was so strong yt no person might abyde it. But before he made this enterprise, having but one sonne, he went to the church of Sockburn in complete armour, and offered up yt his onely sonne to ye Holy Ghost. Yt place where this great serpent laye was called Graystane; and this John lieth buried in Sockburn church, in complete armour, before the Conquest." This story differs but little from those of the Lambton Worm and the Laidley Worm of Spindlestone Heugh. It is said to have preyed on man and beast, and to have devoured, nightly, the milk of a certain number of cows; the slayer of the horrid creature, too, like the hero of the Lambton encounter, is said, by tradition, to have been covered with razors.
  
  This story, as handed down by tradition, is very much out of harmony with the recorded facts of chronology. The ancestors of the Conyers came to England in the train of William I., at the time of the Conquest, and an effigy, said to be that of Sir John Conyers, the hero of the Worm story, now in Sockburn Hall, whither it was removed at the demolition of the old church, represents a crosslegged knight of the 13th century, clad in chain armour, with his feet resting on a lion engaged in a deadly conflict with a winged worm or griffin. But the exploit, according to the tradition, occurred before the Conquest. The Grey Stone beneath which the monster was buried, is still pointed out in a field near the ruins of the church.
  
  http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/NRY/Sockburn/Sockburn90.html
  
  Wapentake and Petty Sessional Division of East Hang - Poor Law Union of Leyburn - County Court District of Northallerton - Rural Deanery of Catterick East - Archdeaconry of Richmond - Diocese of Ripon.
  
  This parish comprises the townships of Hornby, Anderby-Myres-with Holtby, and Hackforth, and parts of Hunton and Arrathorne. The areas of the latter have not been ascertained apart from the townships to which they belong, and consequently, the superficial extent of the entire parish cannot be given. The total area, exclusive of the portions of Hunton and Arrathorne above mentioned, is 3,882 acres, and the population, 321. Hornby township contains 1,591 acres, chiefly the property of the Duke of Leeds, whose principal seat is situated here. The surface is pleasingly varied and embellished with woodland, and the soil loamy and gravelly. The usual cereals with beans and potatoes form the chief crops. It is valued for rating purposes at £1,996.
  
  The manor anciently belonged to the family of St. Quintin, whose ancestor had accompanied the Conqueror to England, and was rewarded with these lands. They erected a castle and resided here until the extinction of the direct male line, when the estate passed, by the marriage of the heiress, to a branch of the noble family of Conyers, one of whom, William Lord Conyers, rebuilt a large portion of the castle. About the close of the 16th century, the castle and estate were conveyed in the same manner to the Darcys, who assumed the additional surname of Conyers, and were created Earls of Holderness and Barons Conyers in 1644. Robert Conyers Darcy, the last Earl, left a daughter and heiress who married Francis Godolphin Osborne, fifth Duke of Leeds and Marquis of Caermarthen, whose son, George William Frederick Osborne, succeeded to the Barony of Ccnyers, in right of his mother in 1784, and to his father's titles and estates in 1799. He married the sixth daughter of
  the first Marquis of Townsend, and died in 1838. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Francis Godolphin D'Arcy-Osborne, who had been summoned to the House of Lords during his father's lifetime as Baron Osborne. He married the third daughter of Richard Caton, Esq., and widow of Sir F. E. B. Hervey, Bart., and dying in 1859, without issue, the titles and estates devolved upon his cousin, George Godolphin Osborne; the second Lord Godolphin, married Mrs. Harriette-Arundel Stewart, and at his death in 1872, was succeeded by his son, George Godolphin Osborne, the present Duke.
  
  The Castle, the chief seat of His Grace the Duke of Leeds, occupies a commanding situation in a spacious and beautiful park, covering about 700 acres. The style is a mixture of Gothic and late domestic Tudor. Some of the interior walls belong to the castle erected by the St. Quintin's shortly after the Conquest, but all the exterior portion was rebuilt and enlarged about the middle of last century. Each corner is flanked by a square tower, and in the centre of the intervening spaces is a five-sided bay or semi-turret, which relieves the baldness. Several of the rooms are remarkable for their spaciousness, and the rich and elegant style of the furnishing. There is a large collection of pictures, many of them by the great masters. The grounds are tastefully laid out, and from their elevated position, command varied and pleasing prospects of the rich vale of Bedale stretching as far as the Western Moors.
  
  http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/NRY/Hornby/Hornby90.html
  
  http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=stolp&id=I14921&style=TABLE

Details of John's family with Margaret Saint Quintin