Gainford St Mary

Parish Notes Durham

Gainford St Mary

[Population 1911: 1,745 incl. 309 persons enumerated in St Peter's School for Roman Catholic Boys]

The Church, dedicated to St. Mary, is supposed to occupy the site of the one mentioned in the grant of Bishop Egfrid; and several fragments of sculptured crosses, &c., are built up in its walls. The erection of the present church is ascribed to the community of St. Mary's Abbey, York, about the middle of the 13th century. It is situated on the south side of the village green, and consists of nave and aisle, chancel, and a square western tower, containing three bells and a good clock. The tower is open to the nave, and is supported by pointed arches, and similar ones, of unequal span, resting on cylindrical pillars, separate the nave and aisles. The chancel opens from the nave under a plain pointed arch, supported by brackets, beneath which are traces of the masonary on which the beam supporting the rood-loft formerly rested. There is a rich sepulchral stone in the floor of the chancel, sculptured with a chalice, and other emblems. A fragment of another sculpture lies near it; there are also several other monumental stones and brasses in various parts of the church and churchyard. There was a chantry in this church, dedicated to the patron saint of the parish; its income was valued at £2 9s 4d. It was of course suppressed at the dissolution of the religious houses; and its last incumbent, John Betson, received a pension of £1 per annum. Guy Baliol, after acquiring the lordship of Gainford, gave its church two ox-gangs of land, and a tenth of the demesne of his manor, with the churches of Stainton, and of Stokesley, in Yorkshire, to the abbey of St. Mary, at York, for the benefit of the soul of King Henry, Henry's father, King William, his mother, Queen Matilda, his brother, King William, and his son, William; as also for his own soul, and that of Dionisia, his wife, Barnard Baliol, his nephew, and of all the faithful departed. After the dissolution, the living of Gainford, including the great tithes of the whole parish, and the advowson of the vicarage, was granted by the crown to Trinty College, Cambridge, the vicar presenting to the dependent chapelries. The parish register commences in 1560. The living is a vicarage in the deanery of Darlington, valued in the Liber Regis at at £36 6s. 0½d.; gross income, £1,020 per annum. Patrons, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; vicar, the Rev. George Macfarlan, M.A. [Whellan's History, Topography and Directory of Durham (and Newcastle) (1856), page 443.]

Gainford St Mary

Church

Townships

Topography

History

The Parish Chest

Non-Parochial Records

Monumental Inscriptions