Page:History and characteristics of Bishop Auckland.djvu/80

 mSTOKY OP BISHOP AVOKJJlSJ). 59 In 1752, Bishop Butler made great improvements in the Park, by levelling and planting. It was his intention to add about one hundred and thirty acres to it, and he began to pale a part of the new enclosure ; but his death happening before the work was completed, the order was cancelleA In 1750, he thus wrote to the Duchess of Somerset : — I had a mind to see Auckland l^ef ore I wrote to your Grace. The place is a ^ery agreeable one, and fully answering my expectations, except that one of the chief prospects, which is very pretty (the river Wear, with hills much diversified, rising above it), is too bare of wood. The Park, not much amiss as to that. But 1 am obliged to pale it anew all round, the old pale being quite decayed. This will give an opportunity, with which, indeed, 1 am much pleased, to take in forty or fifty acres completely wooded ; though with that enlargement it will scarcely be sufficient for the hospitality of the country. These, with some little improvements and very great repairs, take up my leisure time. These improvements were carried on by his successor. Bishop Trevor, who also pulled down the south wall of the garden in 1754. In about the space of four years he expended £8,000 on the Castle and Park, including the purchase of the old Lodge on the south side of the entrance gates. He, also, built the Deer-house, which stands upon a graceful elevation on the western bank of the Gaunless, beneath the walls of the Castle. The building is said to have cost the small sum of £379, and was erected in the year 1757. The Bridge over the Gaunless was, also, built by the same prelate, about three years previously. In 1670, proposals were made to Bishop Cosin to lease the coal royalties in the Park. In a letter of the Bishop's to Mr. Stapylton he thus refers to the matter : — Pall Mall, London, Nov. 1, 1670. — You have sent hither to Sir Gilbert a lease made to him and you, of the colemines in Auckland Parke, &c.« and of the colemines in Goundou and Goundou Grange, &c., wherewith you never acquainted mee before, and Sir Gilbert saith that John Langstaffe put you upon it, But there are 2 reasons which keep me from sealing it. The one is, that Robert Morley hath the lease of Goundou Grange allready, and whether he hath forfeited or given it over or no I cannot tell ; wherein we must be resolved. The otiier is, that it cannot be weU taken by my successor, that I should let away anything within the Parke, which is next to his house, to any persons that might take their liberty of coming into it to dig or sink for coles there, and their workemen to make hov^ or howses wherein they may dwell, with way leifve for carriages to and from those pits, which must needs be very offensive to the Bishop for the time being. And, truly, 1 know not that 1 have any power to let any part or appurtenance of my demesnes without a new Act of Parliament for that purpose. Since Butler and Trevor's time, much has been done by subsequent Bishops to beautify and embellish this magnificent place. " It is no easy task (says Raine) to convey to a stranger a correct idea of the beauties of the Park of Auckland. With respect to the surface of the ground. Nature has done much to create that variety which, apart from any accompaniment of wood and water, would of itself be agreeable to the eye. The surface consists of a continued succession of gentle swells and slopes, mingling with each other in graceftQ undulations, and in the back-ground rising boldly to a considerable height, constituting a varied and harmonious outline of surfaca On the north the Wear, although not admitted within the wall, forms an important feature wherever it presents itself to the eye, and in the Park itself the Gaunless, a stream of sufficient strength and activity to produce picturesque effects in such ground as has been described, manifests those effects more especially at the precise point where they were needed. Within sight of the windows of the Castle, and in the immediate view from its terraces, this stream has worn for itself a deep bed beneath a bold cliff, in which just enough is seen of the strata which it has exposed, to arrest the attention and captivate the eye amid the hanging and tangled brushwood which fringes the precipice, the more graceful because in a state of nature. The ravine of the Coundon bum, which flows through the Park in a more distant direction, abounds with numerous natural beauties. In aid of these surface advantages, if I may so term them, there is timber in luxuriant abundance, in every way befitting a park ; much of it, as it appears, originally planted by a correct hand and eye, and much of it, especially the hawthorns, which are most numerous, evidently the handiwork of Nature. Of the age of many of the latter no account can be given. They have every characteristic of great antiquity, and have apparently sprung up Digitized by Google