Norton Conyers, nearer view from Park

Slide 2 – The fine old mansion is for the most part Elizabethan, and was the ancient home of the Norton’s, famous for their share in the “Rising of the North” in 1569. They were ardent in the cause of the “old religion” and of Mary, Queen of Scots. Wordsworth in his “White Doe of Rylstone“ accepted the old ballad: “Thee, Norton, with thine eight good sons, They doomed to die, alas, for ruth!” However, only one of the sons suffered execution. Old Richard Norton with several of his sons, escaped to Flanders, but their subsequent career is obscure. The Norton Conyers estates were however, confiscated, and bestowed on the Musgraves and from that family they were purchased by an ancestor of the present possessor, Sir Reginald Graham, Bart. The Graham family were devoted Royalists, and about the old hall are many associations with the Civil War period. It was Sir Richard Graham who was “The gallant cavalier, Who crossed the moat at Markington When Rupert’s call rang clear” The tradition is that, feeling himself mortally wounded, and finding all was lost at Marston Moor, he galloped to his home at Norton Conyers.