Christ was discovered to be hollow, and to contain two ancient
parchments, written in monkish Latin and scarcely legible. One of them
was a charm, addressed to 'ye elves, and demons and all kind of
apparition,' who were called upon in the name of the Trinity, the Virgin
Mary, the Apostles, Martyrs, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, and the
elect generally, to 'hurt not this servant of God, Adam Osanna, by night
nor by day, but that, through the very great mercy of God Jesus Christ,
by the help of Saint Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, he may
rest in peace from all the aforesaid and other evils.'

Another intensely interesting relic of the great priory is the
altar-tomb, believed to be that of Robert de Brus of Annandale. The
stone slabs are now built into the walls on each side of the porch of
Guisborough Church. They may have been removed there from the abbey for
safety at the time of the dissolution. Hemingburgh, in his chronicle for
the year 1294, says: 'Robert de Brus the fourth died on the eve of Good
Friday; who disputed with John de Balliol, before the King of England,
about the succession to the kingdom of Scotland. And, as he ordered when
alive, he was buried in the priory of Gysburn with great honour, beside
his own father.' A great number of other famous people were buried here
in accordance with their wills. Guisborough has even been claimed as the
resting-place of Robert Bruce, the champion of Scottish freedom, but
there is ample evidence for believing that his heart was buried at
Melrose Abbey and his body in the church of Dunfermline.

The memory of Mr. George Venables--that most excellent man who devoted
many years to gathering funds for a charity school in the town--is
preserved on a monument in the church. He had retired from business,
but, in order to find the means to start the school, he resumed his
labours in London, and devoted the whole of the profits to this
useful object.

The central portion of the town of Guisborough, by the market-cross and
the two chief inns, is quaint and fairly picturesque, but the long
street as it goes westward deteriorates into rows of new cottages,
inevitable in a mining country.

Mining operations have been carried on around Guisborough since the time
of Queen Elizabeth, for the discovery of alum dates from that period,
and when that industry gradually declined, it was replaced by the
iron-mines of to-day. Mr. Thomas Chaloner of Guisborough, in his travel