held in the Literary and Philosophical Institute. On Wednesday the proceedings were brought to a close by visits to Brancepeth Castle and Durham, two as magnificent specimens of mediæval architecture as they had seen throughout the week. The former, the seat of Lord Boyne, is a fine example of a baronial castle of the Middle Ages, fitted up internally in tolerable harmony with its ancient character. It stands on a piece of flat land looking down upon a shallow but picturesque ravine, well wooded and watered, and surrounded by a pleasant and extensive deer park. It shares along with Raby the distinction of having been the ancient home of the Nevilles, though it originally belonged to a Saxon family named Bulmer, whose heiress married one of the companions of the Conqueror. The church, which stands in the park, was first visited, under the guidance of the Vicar of Brancepeth, the Rev. H. J. Swallow, who in describing the building drew special attention to the fine wooden monumental effigies of Ralph, first Earl of Westmoreland, and Margaret, his wife, which adorn the chancel. The Early English tower, the remains of an elaborately carved roodloft or chancel screen, and a chantry chapel now used as a vestry, were duly inspected. In the vestry the party were shown some autograph signatures of Dr. Cosin, sometime vicar of this parish and afterwards Bishop of Durham, whose name is identified with ecclesiastical ritual and post-Reformation vestments. The church is dedicated to an Irish saint, St. Brandon, which renders it highly probable that the commonly accepted derivation of the place from the path of the wild boar or “brawn,” who used to lay waste the country hereabouts, is apocryphal. At the conclusion of the Vicar’s brief address, Mr. Beresford-Hope made a short speech recapitulating the services of Dr. Cosin to the English Church, he being the chief supporter, after Laud, of the Anglo-Catholic tradition which has paved the way for the Oxford movement and for the work of the Cambridge Camden Society. On arriving within the precincts of the castle, Mr. Swallow proceeded to explain the chief features of the structure, which, he said, was built on the site of an earlier Saxon edifice by the Nevilles. It was from this castle that the Nevilles and the rebel army set out to join the fatal rising of the north in the time of Mary Queen of Scots, which led to the deprivation of that great family of both Raby and Brancepeth. For some years after this date Brancepeth was vested with the Crown, but it was sold by Charles I., and after passing through various hands was bought by the late Mr. Matthew Russell, one of the richest Commoners early in the present century, whose granddaughter carried it in marriage to Lord Boyne, an Irish peer, whose son a few years since was created Baron Brancepeth. The exterior of the castle was very expensively and substantially, though perhaps not very tastefully “restored” about half a century ago, when many of its