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Four
generations of the Robinson family of Rokeby, Yorkshire were buried at St
Mary’s between 1675 and 1777. The first two monuments are in the chancel.
The earlier is to Grace, wife of Thomas Robinson of Rokeby, who died 1676
aged 25. Beside her lie the remains of her father, Sir Henry Stapylton of
Myton, Yorkshire, who died in 1679 aged 63.
The
Stapyltons were a family of some distinction. They take their name from
Stapleton Hall on Teesside, where they appear before the Norman Conquest,
when one Herman held the manor of Stapylton as early as 1052. He was the
father of Alan de Stapylton, living in 1080. Sir Miles Stapylton was one of
the original Knights of the Garter. Sir Bryan (another KG) fought and
killed a Saracen before King Edward III, for which he was granted the crest
of a Saracen’s head which appears on his descendant’s monument on our
chancel floor.
Henry Stapylton’s daughter Grace, who died at such a tragically young age,
married into another Yorkshire family, the Robinsons of Rokeby, who also
owned Merton Abbey. Situated on the south side of the River Tees, Rokeby is
perhaps best known from Sir Walter Scott’s poem. The Robinsons acquired the
estate during the time of Cromwell, when the then owner found himself ruined
by his adherence to the Royalists.
Little
is known of Grace’s son, William Robinson, although the parish register
records his burial at St Mary’s in 1719. His widow, Anne, is commemorated
in a handsome memorial in the North aisle, which tells us she was the
daughter and heiress of William Walters of Cundale, Yorkshire and that she
died in 1730 aged 53.
Their
eldest son, Sir Thomas, whose monument is over the sanctuary, was a typical
Georgian rake. A self taught architect inspired by a tour of Europe in the
1730s, he dissipated his fortune by indulging in extravagant building
projects which were rarely distinguished by their practicality and which he
could not always afford.
In
the 1730s he rebuilt Rokeby Hall at great expense in the Palladian style
which was the fashion of the day. In 1742 he became Governor of Barbados,
an appointment which provided an ideal outlet for his expensive creative
energies. He built a new governor’s residence, armoury and arsenal;
unfortunately, he failed to seek authority in London for any of this, and
had to foot the bill himself. Nothing daunted, his extravagance continued
unabated until the islanders grew unhappy with is capacity for spending
money and he had to be recalled in 1747.
Back
at home, the irrepressible Sir Thomas continued to put all his energy into
building and throwing extravagant parties. His skills were clearly in
demand: he designed the west wing of Castle Howard and undertook a vast
project for Lord Verney at Claydon House, Bucks. During the 1760s and
1770s he built two bridges over the Tees, including a revolutionary single
span bridge at Winston.
Alas,
Sir Thomas’ profligacy eventually caught up with him and he had to dispose
of Rokeby in 1769. He died in 1777 and is buried in St Mary’s.
His
younger brother Richard was more successful. Born at Merton in 1709, he
held several ecclesiastical appointments before becoming Chaplain to the
Duke of Dorset, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in 1751. Through the Duke’s
influence, he became Bishop of Kildare in 1761, eventually becoming Primate
of Ireland in 1765 as Archbishop of Armagh.
Horace
Walpole describes the Bishop as ‘a proud but superficial man’, but the
dramatist Richard Cumberland says he was ‘splendid, liberal, lofty, publicly
ambitious of great deeds and privately capable of good ones.’ He did much
for the Irish church, particularly by building chapels of ease in large
parishes and compelling clergy to reside in their benefices – something
apparently unusual in rural Ireland. In 1777 he was created 1st
Baron Rokeby of Armagh and he died in 1794.
He
left a great deal of money to his nephews (one of whom adopted the name
Robinson), the sons of his sister Grace who is commemorated in a monument
over the North door.
There
is an interesting postscript to this story. The Rev Ernest Murray Robinson,
Vicar of St Mary’s at the turn of the 20th
century, used the arms of the Robinsons of Rokeby, although on what
authority is not clear. These later Robinsons owned the living and we must
assume that there is a family connection. The vicar’s arms can be seen
around the church impaled with those of his rather grand and fabulously rich
wife, a daughter of Lord Inverclyde, Chairman of the Cunard Steamship
Company.
(With thanks to Lorna Cowell for the Parish Register references.)
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