The New Murrey and Blue blog

The mysterious castle at Streetlam….

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On 21st February 2021 the Darlington & Stockton Times published at article about the puzzling inclusion of a Streetlam Castle in an 1803 map. See this article. No one knew anything about a castle at Streetlam, and it was believed the inclusion in the map was a cartographer’s trick, to expose others who might copy his work.

Then, on 7th March 2021, the newspaper published a follow-up articlein which they stated there may after all  have been a Streetlam Castle. There is a farm, called Streetlam Castle Farm and “….The farmhouse was fortified by Sir Richard Conyers in the late 15th Century – he was knighted for fighting with Richard III in Scotland, and turned his farmhouse into a stronghold to keep the Scots out….”

So read both articles, which are interesting, and learn what is now known of Streetlam’s enigmatic castle.

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  1. amma19542019 Avatar
    amma19542019

    Love this stuff! Viscountessw, any Conyers is going to be fun and sure enough this one, Sir Richard, has to be Sir John Conyer’s brother – all the other (many) Richards’ are not knights or they have the wrong dates or definitely not from South Cowton! What I found most interesting about THIS Richard (he must have been knighted during the 1482 Scottish campaign, not while Richard was king) is that Conyers lost a son-in-law, Sir Robert Danby of Yafforth, who was killed with Richard at Bosworth. Horrox mentions a “Richard” (Conyers) with King Richard in his household, but that gets confusing as “another (Conyers) was described as a King’s servant and three more received royal grants” (p.267) …
    Sir Richard, and his daughters (Margery, Margaret, possibly Eleanor) were all buried at St Marty’s Church, shown in the article’s photo) and the gentry names of the extended families they all married into is a who’s-who of the North (that most of us are very familiar with): Medcalfe/Metcalfe, Lassells, Bowes, Wycliffe, Danby, Clifford …

    Woodville nothing, meet the Conyers if you want to find a sibling under every bush and around every tree!

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  2. viscountessw Avatar
    viscountessw

    Good heavens, you know your Conyers!

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  3. amma19542019 Avatar
    amma19542019

    Au contraire , if only! When I was done with grad school and seriously back to Richard first thing I did was dive into Horrox’s Study in Service (I wish she would update that, so much of her commentary sounds a bit archaic to my ears – I know I know, sacrilege!) but it was a good intro to the whole ‘OMG were there only 10 families in all of Yorkshire’? Basically, yes! Haha, and they only occasionally married into the wildlands of Durham, or elsewhere! I’ve been trying to learn a few tricks from my daughter – she has been tirelessly hunting down the family genealogy (nowhere to go on my side but her dad’s is quite fruitful, the Williams link has gotten her all the way back to the mid 1500’s in Biddulph, Staffordshire – name is now Rowley, but there are still lots of the Williams from her dad’s father’s side living there, one in particular, Olwyn, for whom she was supposed to be named – although we went with Diana after the Princess – what can I say, her dad was much enthralled with Lady Di – I’ve told that if she gets much closer to 1500 or so WE will be talking!
    Diana uses the Mormons and ancestry.com, whereas I like the Geni.com site and I cross reference everything with other sources – a starting point may be Horrox but her material is well, disorganized for my purposes. The Conyers DO seem to be everywhere Viscountessw, literally, no matter what you read, from H6 onward, there they are, and whatever was in the water in the North made for some formidable fertility and durability!

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