Tomb Of Katherine Babington, Wall And Statues Approx 20 Yds West Of Harnham Hall

BELSAY HARNHAM NZ 08 SE

4/62 Tomb of Katherine Babington, wall and statues approx 20 yds west of Harnham Hall

GV ll

Tomb with garden walls and statuary. The tomb is 1670, the walls probably of similar date, the statues C18. The walls are partly random rubble and partly bedrock. The tomb, set in the wall has random rubble facade with ashlar door surround; its interior is cut from the solid rock. Statues sandstone.

Wall, approx 40 yds long and approx 15 fthigh with flat coping and, set on top, three Janus-headed busts.

To left the tomb. The doorway has continuous chamfered surround with rounded shoulders. Interior is tunnel-vaulted and has 2 inscriptions; one, in stone, reads Here lyeth the Body of Madame Babington Who was laid in this Sepulchre the 9th of September 1670 My time is past as you may see I viewed the dead as you do me One day you'll lie as low as I And some will look on thee.

the other, painted on wood, looks later but is recorded in the early C19.

In hopes of future bliss contented here I lie Though I would have been pleased to live, yet was not displeased to die .....

Katherine Babington was a dissenter who is said to have arranged to have the vicar of Bolam pulled from his pulpit, an act for which she was excommunicated and denied churchyard burial.

Mackenzie: History of Northumberland, 1825. Hodgson: History of Northumberland Vol I, Part 2.

Listing NGR: NZ0734980440