HERE VNDER THiS STONE LYETH BVRiED THE BODiE OF THE VERTVOUS GENTELLWOMAN IANE BELL, WHO DEPTED THiS LYFE THE . vi. DAYE OF IANVARIE 1593 BEiNGE THE DOWGHTER OF LAVERANCE THORNELL OF DARLINGTON GENT & LATE WYFE TO PARSAVAL BELL, NOWE MAiRE OF THIS TOWEN OF HARTiNPOOELL. MARCHANT whos vertues if thou wilt beholde peruse this tabel hanginge bye which will the same to thee vnfold by her good lyfe learne thou to die. In Haughton-le-Skerne Church there is a curious figure on a brass, representing a lady, who holds a baby on each arm. She was Dorothy, the wife of Robert Perkinson of Whessey, and she died, with her twin sons, in 1592. At Houghton-le-Spring there is a brass to the memory of Margery, wife of Richard Bellasis. It pictures the kneeling figure of a woman with her eight sons and three daughters behind her. The Bellasis coat of arms is on the brass: the date is 1587. In Sedgefield Church there is a rudely engraved, early brass, probably cut about the year 1300. It shows a small female figure, kneeling, and it has a coat of arms on both sides of the figure. From the shape of the two coats of arms, and from the conventional treatment of the features of the face, which is more carefully executed than the rest of the figure, it is believed that this is one of the oldest sepulchral brasses now remaining in England. The tombstone to Dean Rudde, which lies in the floor of the chancel of Sedgefield Church, still carries its inscribed brass. The stone is a very large one. The black-letter epitaph is so much worn by the tread of the feet of many generations that it can only be read with some uncertainty. It seems to run: <f>Orate p aīa [=m]ri Jo[=h]is Rudde in decretis baccalarii quond[=m] decani hui’ loci qui obiit xxix die decēbr’ Anno d[=n]i Mº CCCCº lxxxx cui’ āīē ppiciet de’ amen.</f> This John Rudde gave to the church of Esh the only medieval service-book belonging to any church in the diocese of Durham which is now known to exist. It is in the library of the Roman Catholic College of Ushaw, near Durham.