Page:History and characteristics of Bishop Auckland.djvu/207

 180 HIST0R7 OF BISHOP AUCKLAND. Cap and Needless, along wiUi the halls, were bought by the Bnssell family, and subsequently became the property of Sir Grordon Drummond At the time of Bacon's death he had a wife and family, but, loosing their possessions, they left this part of the country, and their beautiful park and grounds went to wreck and ruin, the woods were cut down, and their half finished mansion became the residence of owls and bats. The estate afterwards descended to Lord Effingham, who sold it a few years ago to Messrs. Backhouse, Stobart, antl Co., the owners of the Newton Cap Colliery. These gentlemen, living in a utilitarian age, pulled down the partly erected new hall, and used the materials in building coke ovens and for other colliery purposea tempera I mores/ Along the ridge of the hill on which stood those two buildings, and continuing along the side of the Beechbum, was originally a carriage drive, boimded by some of the finest beech and chesnut trees that could be found for miles aroimd. The old gardens belonging to the hall were also much celebrated in former times for the richness of the fruits grown therein. They were thrown open to the public on Sunday afternoons, and were much frequented in the summer season by the young folks of Auckland The woods of Birtley, which adjoin Newton Cap, and extend along the northern banks of the Wear as far as Himwick and Helmington, were a few centuries ago a forest, and formed one of the himting grounds of the Bishops of Durham, being frequently referred to in the records of the Castle of Auckland In 1730, Ralph Trotter was keeper of Birtley woods, and in all probability lived at Helmington, for we find, according to the registers of St. Andrew's, that that place was occupied by a family named Trotter a few years previous : — 1673. — March 28. — Jobnanis filius Oilberti Trotter, de Hdmden, sepnL 1675 — Angst. 3. — Francisca filia Gilbert! Trotter, de Helmden, gen. 1675. — ^Dec. 15. — ^Anna, filia Gilbert! Trotter, de Helmden, gen. There are evident signs in many places in this locality of the coal having been worked in early times ; and in some of the workings of the Newton Cap Coal Company an old drift was entered in which some tools, evidently left by the " old man," were found. Digitized by Google