St Mary's vicars - Stuart & Commonwealth Era
A century of official and unofficial ministers, including those priests removed during the Commonwealth, and then Commonwealth "intruders" ejected as Charles II restored Anglican clergy to their livings.
Stuart & Commonwealth Era
1587-1614 – Michael Walker. A non-conforming radical preacher named in legal documents as minister and curate. Walker was in dispute with the officially licensed curate of St Mary’s. His will specified that he was to be buried without “vain and superstitious ceremonies“.
1614-19 – Jerome Williams
1621 – John Shering (Shearinge/Shiring)
1619-1626 – Robert Burrell MA, preacher, and Giles Foster, preacher and curate [possibly unlicensed and ‘unofficial’ ministers]
1628-44 – John Lively, vicar of Gainford – ejected 1644 [Commonwealth period]; died at Kelloe.
1634 – Giles [Gyles] Fo(r)ster, curate – ejected 1645. Foster continued living in the town in the 1650s but died in 1661 and was buried at Hamsterley in Weardale.
1644-60 – John Rogers, “an intruder priest”, appointed by Parliament. After the Restoration of Charles II, Rogers was forced to surrender Barnard Castle, and unwilling to submit to the Act of Uniformity (1662) he resigned paid ministry and became a congregational preacher at his own house near Barnard Castle but also evangelising around Teesdale and Weardale. Rogers was buried at St Mary’s, and he and his wife Grace’s sons who died in infancy were commemorated by a brass plaque in the chancel (now in St Mary’s entrance porch).
Jonathan (d. 8th November 1650):
Hee peep’d into the World, where hee could see,/Nought but confusion, Sinne and misery,
Thence scap’d into his Savors armes thus hee/Gott Heaven, for fourteene days mortality.
John (d. 30th August 1652):
Bless’d Soule, Thy name did mind of Gods grace/Thou wast his gift, whose love shewd us thy face
But hee that gave did take in 7 moneths space/Thou foundst in Fathers armes a resting place.
1662-68 or 1671 – William Bickerton. Born Hamsterley in Weardale, Bickerton had been Vicar at Wolsingham during the Commonwealth, and after his time at St Mary’s he became curate at All Saints, Newcastle where he was renowned for preaching.
1668/71? – 1682 John Brokell/Brockell/Brockett. Born 1644, Brokell was curate possibly from the age of just 24, and he died aged 38. During his time at St Mary’s, a silver chalice and paten for communion was presented to St Mary’s by Maxtona Dawson, daughter of Thomas Bowes of Streatlam, after the safe delivery of her first son, George. The chalice is still used weekly in celebration of the Eucharist (Holy Communion).
1682-1694 – John Chapman. Chapman wrote down his ‘observations’ concerning St Mary’s:
Bernard Castle (tho’ nominally, a chappelry) hath all Parochial Rights. The Mother Church is Gainford, and that of ye poet maybe apply’d with relation to both: O Matre Pulchra Filia Pulchrior. The Chappel of Bernard Castle is spacious and convenient. The several alleys of ye Chancell are laid with large blew marble stones, there is a very fine and capacious Marble Font with some letters and hieroglyphicks writ about it (of wch. no Antiquary that I have met wth can make anything but conjectures) under ye south window of ye Cross Isle where is ye Burying Place of ye Family of Streatlam-castle (whose Escutcheons and other ensigns are stil hanging up) there is a very large marble stone wthout any inscription, rais’d about two foot from ye ground and (as ’tis said) a’ vault under it. There is also near thereto the effigies of some ecclesiastique (as appears by ye habit) cut at length in course stone, and by ye inscription on one side wch is in dim Saxon characters. It is said to have been one Richard, Vicar of Gainford. Dugdale in his Monasticon. Anglicanum, vol. 3, page 203, mentions a Collegiate Church founded at Bd. Castle by Richard, Duke of Gloucester.…”
1694-1725(?) – Alexander Swinton, a “Scot”. Swinton’s death and will/testament is registered to him as “minister at Barny Castle, in South Britain”
