The Whartons have also resided near to Durham for a good many centuries. They descend from the Whartons of Wharton in Westmorland, and their armorial insignia is interesting both in its origin and as illustrating the close alliance often existing between families bearing similar arms. Amongst the Normans who settled in this country after the Conquest was a family named Flamanville, often abbreviated into Flamville, who took their name from their lordship of that name in the province of La Manche in Normandy, and gave it as a suffix to their new Leicester estate of Aston. Their coat of arms was simply _la manche_, the sleeve, and so the name originally applied to the curious geographical shape of a peninsula came to be a familiar term in English heraldry. They intermarried with the Conyers and the Hastings, and both these families adopted the _manche_ as their emblem. An heiress of the latter family married a Wharton, and to this day a silver _manche_ or _maunch_ on a black field is the Wharton arms. Dr. Wharton of Old Park, a lineal ancestor of the Dryburn family, is celebrated as one of the courageous physicians who continued to visit the sick during the Great Plague of London. One of his descendants, Dr. Thomas Wharton, was the friend of the poet Thomas Gray, who visited him at Old Park. The name of Burdon is an old one in the county, and probably derived from one or other of the local villages of that name. There were Burdons at Helmdon centuries ago, and for a number of generations Burdens have owned Castle Eden. The curious articles on the family arms, described by some writers as organ-pipes, are said to be in reality palmers’ staffs, and are so used by the present family. One branch of the Ords, who are a Northumbrian, or more correctly a North Durham, family, must not be passed over. In the reign of James I. John Ord acquired property at Fishburn, and founded the house who have for so long dwelt at Sands Hall, beside Sedgefield. Another family of Northumbrian extraction are the Blenkinsopps of Hoppyland, who are, however, in the male line descended from the Leatons or Leightons of Benfieldside. Hoppyland was purchased from the Blacketts in 1768 by William Leaton of Gibside, agent to the Bowes family. The Blacketts, who now reside at Wylam in Northumberland, held Hoppyland for several generations. Their ancestor, Edward Blackett, of Shildon, married for his second wife a daughter of the famous Lilburne family of Thickley-Puncharden, and a near relative of "Freeborn John." The Baronet family, who now own the old Conyers estate of Sockburn, are also descended from this Edward, and are rather curiously derived from the latter family. The first baronet’s wife was a daughter of Michael Kirkley of Newcastle, whose wife’s grandmother, Marion Anderson, was a lineal descendant of William Conyers of Wynyard.[31]