The second son, Robert Surtees of Ryton, added to his inheritance by marrying an heiress of the Hauxley family. He purchased Mainsforth and founded the two families now owning that seat and Redworth, and amongst his descendants was Robert Surtees the historian, to whom his native county owes an everlasting debt. The Surtees of Hamsterley Hall trace their descent from a Cuthbert Surtees of Ebchester who died in 1622, and whose relationship to the Ovingham family is not at present clear. His son Anthony, however, held the Hollins in Ovingham parish in 1629, and that property in 1586 was in the possession of Rowland Surtees, who died the following year, and who was brother of William Surtees, ancestor of the families already mentioned. Hamsterley descended to Robert Smith Surtees, the author of some well-known sporting novels. The Edens are almost certainly an indigenous family, for there can be but little doubt that they derive their name from the village of Eden, now called Castle Eden. The family for a number of generations resided at Preston-on-Tees, [Illustration: HOPPYLAND PARK.] where lands were held by Robert de Eden in 1413. A succession of Thomases and Williams bring the pedigree into the sixteenth century, when John Eden married an heiress of the Lambtons. After the heads of the house successively increased the family patrimony by marrying heiresses of the Hutton, Welbury, and Bee families, John Eden’s great-great-grandson, Robert by name, followed his ancestor’s example by marrying another Lambton heiress. He was Member for the county and was created a Baronet in 1672. Sir Robert Eden, the third Baronet, had a large and distinguished family. His second son Robert was Governor of Maryland, and created a Baronet in 1776. He was ancestor of the present Sir William Eden, who succeeded also to the inheritance of the first-named Sir Robert’s eldest son, and is thus doubly a Baronet. The Governor’s next brother, Sir Robert’s third son, was the distinguished statesman, William Lord Auckland, and the fifth son, Sir Morton Eden, an eminent diplomatist, was created Baron Henley, and was ancestor of the present peer. One of the sisters of this talented trio married John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and another married the Rev. Richard Richardson, Chancellor of St. Paul’s. Several old families have for many generations dwelt in the Valley of the Derwent, and were all more or less intermarried with each other. Thomas Hunter, about the end of the fourteenth century, married Margaret Layton, heiress, through her mother, of the family of Alanshields of Alanshields. A century later quite a small clan of the Hunters were resident up and down the valley, but principally at Medomsley. Here in 1675 was born Dr. Christopher Hunter, the celebrated antiquary; and here nearly a century later, in 1757, General Sir Martin Hunter, G.C.M.G., first saw the light.