Surtees 1

ROBERT SURTEES (1779 - 1834)

The celebrated antiquary was born in South Bailey, in Durham and lived at Mainsforth Hall, just off the road from Bishop Middleham to Ferryhill. As an undergraduate at Oxford, Surtees dreamed of writing a history of Durham, and it was to this that he devoted his life. He used to drive around the county with a groom in attendance, examining all remains of antiquity, noting inscriptions and other documents. According to his friend John Raine (q.v.) his groom would complain that it was 'weary work' for 'we could never get past an auld beelding'.

Surtees suffered almost continual ill-health, which meant that the great work was written paragraph by weary paragraph. The History of Durham contains an enormous amount of genealogical information, no doubt because his position enabled Surtees to see many family deeds and documents. There is humour too, unexpected in such a work, and fragments of his own poetry.

Surtees was a friend of Sir Walter Scott (q.v.) who visited Mainsforth in April 1809, and passed off a ballad of his own on the great man as genuine. This was 'The Death of Featherstonehaugh'. It even found a place in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border with notes by both Scott and Surtees! He always kept quiet about this to spare Scott's feelings. Surtees also wrote the words of 'Derwentwater's farewell' a favourite with players of the Northumbrian small pipes.

Surtees lived as much as possible in the quiet seclusion of Mainsforth Hall, where he kept an open house for people who shared his interests. He died on 15 February 1834 (Southey was present at the funeral) and his memorial is in Bishop Middleham church. The Surtees Society was founded in the same year to carry on his work. Augustus Hare (q.v.) tells us that Surtees' widow kept up the open house tradition, particularly for students from the University of Durham and 'all the poor clergy of the neighbourhood'. She and her lady companion, Hare reports, had shut out the present ever since Surtees' death. Mainsforth was:

'... a most pleasant old house, thoroughly unpretending, but roomy and comfortable, close to the road on one side, but a very quiet road, with a fringe of ancient trees and a rookery, and on the other looking out on the wide green lawn and broad terrace walk, bordered by clumps of hyacinths and tall turncap lilies.'

Overcome, as Henry Thorold puts it in the Shell Guide, by proximity to Ferryhill and coal, Mainsforth Hall was demolished in 1962. Only the gate piers survive.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
ROBERT SURTEES (1779 - 1834) The celebrated antiquary was born in South Bailey, in Durham and lived at Mainsforth Hall, just off the road from Bishop Middleham to Ferryhill. As an undergraduate at Oxford, Surtees dreamed of writing a history of Durham, and it was to this that he devoted his life. He used to drive around the county with a groom in attendance, examining all remains of antiquity, noting inscriptions and other documents. According to his friend John Raine (q.v.) his groom would complain that it was 'weary work' for 'we could never get past an auld beelding'. Surtees suffered almost continual ill-health, which meant that the great work was written paragraph by weary paragraph. The History of Durham contains an enormous amount of genealogical information, no doubt because his position enabled Surtees to see many family deeds and documents. There is humour too, unexpected in such a work, and fragments of his own poetry. Surtees was a friend of Sir Walter Scott (q.v.) who visited Mainsforth in April 1809, and passed off a ballad of his own on the great man as genuine. This was 'The Death of Featherstonehaugh'. It even found a place in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border with notes by both Scott and Surtees! He always kept quiet about this to spare Scott's feelings. Surtees also wrote the words of 'Derwentwater's farewell' a favourite with players of the Northumbrian small pipes. Surtees lived as much as possible in the quiet seclusion of Mainsforth Hall, where he kept an open house for people who shared his interests. He died on 15 February 1834 (Southey was present at the funeral) and his memorial is in Bishop Middleham church. The Surtees Society was founded in the same year to carry on his work. Augustus Hare (q.v.) tells us that Surtees' widow kept up the open house tradition, particularly for students from the University of Durham and 'all the poor clergy of the neighbourhood'. She and her lady companion, Hare reports, had shut out the present ever since Surtees' death. Mainsforth was: '... a most pleasant old house, thoroughly unpretending, but roomy and comfortable, close to the road on one side, but a very quiet road, with a fringe of ancient trees and a rookery, and on the other looking out on the wide green lawn and broad terrace walk, bordered by clumps of hyacinths and tall turncap lilies.' Overcome, as Henry Thorold puts it in the Shell Guide, by proximity to Ferryhill and coal, Mainsforth Hall was demolished in 1962. Only the gate piers survive.
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