In a message dated 05/01/2010 16:00:16 GMT Standard Time, jmtemple@telefonica.net writes: I wonder if the church could be St. Aidan's at Thorneyburn. Indeed, another possibility, as indeed is almost every church in the Bellingham district. I've just thought of another objection ot the "pirate" theory, at least at Thorneyburn. In 1818 the huge "great parish" of Simonburn was carved up and several new parishes formed out of it (Humshaugh, Wark, Thorneyburn, Greystead). As Greenwich (Naval) Hospital had a lot of interests in the district, mainly through their having received the Derwentwater estates, confiscated for Lord Derwentwater's Jacobitism in 1715, they were reserved for retired Royal Naval Chaplains, an arrangement which lasted for many years - I'm not sure whether it still does today. Such a person would be even more unlikely to tolerate a pirate in his churchyard than even the average clergyman! Geoff