Guisborough

Guisborough, or Guisbrough, a market town in the Cleveland parliamentary division of the North Riding of Yorkshire, England, 10 m. E.S.E. of Middlesbrough by a branch of the North-Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 5645. It is well situated in a narrow, fertile valley at the N. foot of the Cleveland Hills. The church of St Nicholas is Perpendicular, greatly restored. Other buildings are the town hall, and the modern buildings of the grammar school founded in 1561. Ruins of an Augustinian priory, founded in 1129, are beautifully situated near the eastern extremity of the town. The church contains some fine Decorated work, and the chapter house and parts of the conventual buildings may be traced. Considerable fragments of Norman and transitional work remain. Among the historic personages who were buried within its walls was Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale, the competitor for the throne of Scotland with John Baliol, and the grandfather of King Robert the Bruce. About 1 m. S.E. of the town there is a sulphurous spring discovered in 1822. The district neighbouring to Guisborough is rich in iron-stone. Its working forms the chief industry of the town, and there are also tanneries and breweries.