This ceremony was last performed in April, 1826, when the steward of Sir Edward Blackett, the Lord of Sockburn Manor, met, on Croft Bridge, Dr. Van Mildert, the last Prince-Bishop of Durham. The tenure is mentioned in the inquisition post-mortem held on the death of Sir John Conyers in the year 1396. The falchion was formerly kept at the manor-house of Sockburn: the blade is broad, and 2 feet 5 inches long, and on the pommel of the weapon, which is of bronze, are two shields; on one side are the three lions of England, as borne by the Plantagenet monarchs from John to Edward III., and the eagle displayed on the other side is said to belong to Morcar, the Saxon Earl of Northumberland. This relic was also represented on one of the stained-glass windows of Sockburn Church. On a marble monument, placed to the memory of an old member of the Conyers family, the serpent and falchion were sculptured. _The Pickled Parson._ The present rectory house at Sedgefield, erected by the Rev. George, Viscount Barrington, was preceded by a castellated edifice, which, after serving the purpose of a rectory house for some years, was burnt down in 1792. During a lengthened period previous to the destruction of the old house the inhabitants of Sedgefield appear to have been greatly disturbed by the visits of an apparition known as the "Pickled Parson," which, it was confidently declared, wandered in the neighbourhood of the rector’s hall, "making night hideous." Whose wandering shade the ghost was supposed to have been is explained as follows: A rector’s wife had the ill-luck to lose her husband about a week before the farmer’s tithes fell due. Prompted by avarice, she cunningly concealed his death by salting the body of her departed spouse, and retaining it in a private room. Her scheme succeeded, she received the emoluments of the living, and the next day made the decease of the rector public. _The Picktree Brag._