BARNARD CASTLE, a market and manufacturing town and parish in the county of Durham, on the banks of the Tees, 246 miles from London. It consists of one main street, about a mile long, with a number of smaller ones branching off on each side. The principal building in the high street is the town-hall, an octagonal structure dating from 1747. St Mary’s church, built in the 12th century, and restored in 1871, contains some curious monuments; but the building of chief interest is the castle, from which the town derives its name, and which is the principal scene of Scott’s Rokeby. This ’ was founded in 1132 by Barnard Baliol, an ancestor of the competitor with Bruce for the Scottish crown, and was reduced to a ruinous condition by the siege of 1569, when it was defended for Queen Elizabeth by Sir George Bowes of Streatlam. The remains still extend over a space of more than six acres. A remarkable building, known as the Bowes’ Mansion and Museum, was in 1874 bequeathed to the town by a descendant of the gallant knight. It contains a valuable collection of works of art, and is one of the finest edifices of the kind in the kingdom. The principal manufactures of Barnard Castle are carpets, woollen cloth, and shoe-thread. The com-market is one of the largest in the north of England. A line joining the North-Eastern and the London and North Western Railways passes immediately to . the north of the town.. In the neighbourhood are Rokeby, Egglestone Abbey, Raby Castle, and Lartington Hall. (See Sir Walter Scott’s Rokeby, and Atkinson’s Handbook of Barnard Castle, 1874.)