d over to Henry VIII. the sum of
L333 8s. 4d. The manors of Eskdaleside and Ugglebarnby, with all 'their
rights, members and appurtenances as they formerly had belonged to the
abbey of Whitby,' henceforward belonged to Sir Richard and his
successors. Sir Hugh Cholmley, whose defence of Scarborough Castle has
made him a name in history, was born on July 22, 1600, at Roxby, near
Pickering. He has been justly called 'the father of Whitby,' and it is
to him we owe a fascinating account of his life at Whitby in Stuart and
Jacobean times. He describes how he lived for some time in the
gate-house of the abbey buildings, 'till my house was repaired and
habitable, which then was very ruinous and all unhandsome, the wall
being only of timber and plaster, and ill-contrived within: and besides
the repairs, or rather re-edifying the house, I built the stable and
barn, I heightened the outwalls of the court double to what they were,
and made all the wall round about the paddock; so that the place hath
been improved very much, both for beauty and profit, by me more than all
my ancestors, for there was not a tree about the house but was set in my
time, and almost by my own hand. The Court levels, which laid upon a
hanging ground, unhandsomely, very ill-watered, having only the low
well, which is in the Almsers-close, which I covered; and also
discovered, and erected, the other adjoining conduit, and the well in
the courtyard from whence I conveyed by leaden pipes water into the
house, brewhouse, and washhouse.'

In the spring of 1636 the reconstruction of the abbey house was
finished, and Sir Hugh moved in with his family. 'My dear wife,' he
says, '(who was excellent at dressing and making all handsome within
doors) had put it into a fine posture, and furnished with many good
things, so that, I believe, there were few gentlemen in the country, of
my rank, exceeded it.... I was at this time made Deputy-lieutenant and
Colonel over the Train-bands within the hundred of Whitby Strand,
Ryedale, Pickering, Lythe and Scarborough town; for that, my father
being dead, the country looked upon me as the chief of my family.'

Sir Hugh had been somewhat addicted to gambling in his younger days, and
had made a few debts of his own before he undertook to deal with his
father's heavy liabilities, and in the early years of his married life
he had been very much taken up with the difficult and arduous work of
paying off the amounts due to the clamorous