Page:History and characteristics of Bishop Auckland.djvu/204

NEWTON CAP AND ITS BRIDGE. Thou craggy bank of Newton Cap, Should fortune give a home to me, There's not a spot on Nature's lap (For auld lang syne) Fd choose but thee. Sweet Newton Cap 1 I mind thee still. Thou garden of my school-boy days ; How oft upon thy bushy hill Fve scratch'd my hands and torn my claes. — R. Gibbon. Whoever has wandered westward from the town of Bishop Auckland must have observed, on emerging from that extremity, the beautiful little picture there presented to the eye of the beholder. To the left may be seen the woods of Newton Cap and Needless, with the river Wear meandering and bordering with a silver fringe their deep green verdure. To the right are the woods of Binchester, in the midst of which, not many years since, stood Binchester Hall, once the residence of the Wren family, and said to have been designed and built by the celebrated Sir Christopher Wren, the builder of St. Paul's Cathedral Crowning the centre of the view stand the ruins of Newton Cap Hall, formerly the residence of a branch of the Wren family above mentioned, and, in more recent times, of the Bacons, who are said to have been a very learned^ as well as a very ancient family. In the foreground we have the bridge, which, as the local muse has sung, " Proudly rears its battlements above the streams of Wear." This stately old fabric consists of two arches, one of a circular form, 101 feet span, the other a pointed arch of 90 feet. The bridge was built by Bishop Skirlaw in the year 1388, and though it has stood nearly five hundred years, and bears the impress of time on its grey and moss-covered walls, yet it does not show the least sign of decay. Upon a stone on the west parapet^ near the centre of the north arch, is the following inscription : — Edward Palfrey's Leap, 1744. This inscription alludes to a man of that name, a native of the town^ who is said to have either fallen or leaped from that part of the bridge, and escaped unhurt The story appears to be nearly as foUows : — ^Edward Palfrey, or, as he was better known, " Nedd/' Palfrey, was one of those headstrong individuals, found in almost every town and village, whose deficiency of good practical common sense is made up by a certain dogged, determined recklessness of character, which places them at the head of every lawless mob. He was, moreover, a great pugilist — a circumstance sufficient to make him a popular character amongst the lower classea In his encounters he did not strictly confine himself to his own species, but would fight with bulls or dogs. It was whilst on one of these fighting expeditions that Neddy made his wonderful leap from the bridge. He is stated to have proceeded, in a state of inebriation, to the field adjoining the north end of the bridge, with a motley crowd at his heels, to fight a bull ; but the animal was either not there, or he was not in a fighting humour, for, to use a ring phrase, " the fight did not come off." Neddy, no doubt, thought it a pity to bring the folks all the way there for nothing, so in lieu of the fight he determined to show them a few antics upon the parapet of the bridga Accordingly, he mounted, and, it would appear, cut his capers rather too fine, for he fell (some say leaped) over the bridge, and alighted in the middle of the stream unhurt The probability is the river was a little swollen at the time, which saved him, for he recovered himself, ran out of the water up the bank side, and dared the best man there to follow his exampla Though Neddy's feat called forth the plaudits of the crowd, yet we do not hear of any one being so fSur fired with the spirit of emulation as to imitate him. Digitized by Google