Excerpt from The History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham; Comprising a Condensed Account of Its Natural, Civil, and Ecclesiastical History, From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Vol. 1: Its Boundaries, Ancient, Parishes, and Recently Formed Parochial Districts and Chapelries, and Parliamentary and Municipal Divisions; Its Agriculture, Mineral Products, Manufactures, Shipping, Docks, Railways, and General Commerce

Robert Surtees was born at Durham, in the street called the South Bailey, in April, 1779. His child hood was, however, passed for the most part at the hereditary family seat at Mainsforth, where, being an only child, and of delicate constitution, he was care fully educated under the eye of his parents. The elder Mr. Surtees, the father of the county historian, was a man of happy tastes. He was an excellent gardener as well as agriculturist, and had talents for drawing and painting, which he cultivated not without success.

In these pursuits his son was soon and happily initiated; and to his preference for the fine arts he early added a strong taste for antiquarian research, which manifested itself in his boyhood. His parents were in the habit of spending a part of the winter at York, which was then a sort of northern metropolis for those to whom a journey to London seemed too great an enterprise. On these occasions the young Surtees was wont to visit all the market gardeners, and with his pocket money to buy the ancient coins (mostly Roman) so frequently turned up in this vicinity, so long a principal station of the Roman empire in Britain.

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