Gray 2

THOMAS GRAY (1716 - 1771)

The celebrated poet and scholar is one of the best letter-writers in the language. He used to visit his friend Dr Thomas Wharton at Old Park, a farm on the Wilmington Road three miles north-east of Bishop Auckland. Wharton's experimental farm and gardens were an attraction for the tourist of his day. In July 1765, Gray wrote to Dr Wharton:

I have been for two days at Hartlepool to taste the water, and do assure you that nothing could be salter and bitterer and nastier and better for you... I am delighted with the place; there are the finest walks and rocks and caverns and dried fishes, and all manner of small inconveniencies a Man can wish.

A few weeks later, he wrote in greater detail:

The rocks, the sea and the weather there more than made up to me the want of bread and the want of water, two capital defects, but of which I learned from the inhabitants not to be sensible. They live on the refuse of their own fish-market, with a few potatoes, and a reasonable quantity of Geneva [gin] six days in the week, and I have nowhere seen a taller, more robust or healthy race: every house full of ruddy broad-faced children. Nobody dies but of drowning or old-age: nobody poor but from drunkenness or mere laziness.

Gray writes to Wharton on 26 August 1766 from the south coast:

Whatever my pen may do, I am sure my thoughts expatiate nowhere oftener and with more pleasure than to Old Park... The coast [here] is not like Hartlepool, there are no rocks, but only chalky cliffs of no great height, till you come to Dover.

On 21 June 1767, Gray writes: 'The Monday following we go to York to reside, and two or three days after set out for Old Park, where I shall remain upon your hands; and Mr Brown about the time of Durham races must go on to Gibside... ' One letter, dated 12 August 1767, is headed Old Park, Nr Darlington, Durham. Another, to Wharton, dated 28 December 1767 speaks of a certain cargo: .

.. that I sent to Miss Wharton and Miss Peggy, directed to the former, to be left at Mr Tho. Wilkinson's in Durham. This went by the Newcastle wagon about the 6th of December, and contained twelve flower roots... For these you must get glasses from Newcastle,

Gray mentions Christopher Smart and Charles Avison (qq.v.) in letters of 1753 and says of Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination: 'Above the middling and now and then (but for a little while) rises even to the best, particularly in description.'

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
THOMAS GRAY (1716 - 1771) The celebrated poet and scholar is one of the best letter-writers in the language. He used to visit his friend Dr Thomas Wharton at Old Park, a farm on the Wilmington Road three miles north-east of Bishop Auckland. Wharton's experimental farm and gardens were an attraction for the tourist of his day. In July 1765, Gray wrote to Dr Wharton: I have been for two days at Hartlepool to taste the water, and do assure you that nothing could be salter and bitterer and nastier and better for you... I am delighted with the place; there are the finest walks and rocks and caverns and dried fishes, and all manner of small inconveniencies a Man can wish. A few weeks later, he wrote in greater detail: The rocks, the sea and the weather there more than made up to me the want of bread and the want of water, two capital defects, but of which I learned from the inhabitants not to be sensible. They live on the refuse of their own fish-market, with a few potatoes, and a reasonable quantity of Geneva [gin] six days in the week, and I have nowhere seen a taller, more robust or healthy race: every house full of ruddy broad-faced children. Nobody dies but of drowning or old-age: nobody poor but from drunkenness or mere laziness. Gray writes to Wharton on 26 August 1766 from the south coast: Whatever my pen may do, I am sure my thoughts expatiate nowhere oftener and with more pleasure than to Old Park... The coast [here] is not like Hartlepool, there are no rocks, but only chalky cliffs of no great height, till you come to Dover. On 21 June 1767, Gray writes: 'The Monday following we go to York to reside, and two or three days after set out for Old Park, where I shall remain upon your hands; and Mr Brown about the time of Durham races must go on to Gibside... ' One letter, dated 12 August 1767, is headed Old Park, Nr Darlington, Durham. Another, to Wharton, dated 28 December 1767 speaks of a certain cargo: . .. that I sent to Miss Wharton and Miss Peggy, directed to the former, to be left at Mr Tho. Wilkinson's in Durham. This went by the Newcastle wagon about the 6th of December, and contained twelve flower roots... For these you must get glasses from Newcastle, Gray mentions Christopher Smart and Charles Avison (qq.v.) in letters of 1753 and says of Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination: 'Above the middling and now and then (but for a little while) rises even to the best, particularly in description.'
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