A NORTH-EAST Lordship of the Manor title steeped in history has gone up for sale – for a bargain £5,750.

The Lordship of the Manor of Great Kelloe, near Durham City – or simply Kelloe to distinguish it from Little Kelloe – is being sold through the Manorial Auctioneers of London.

The title has passed through the hands of some of the most illustrious families of the region – once belonging to the third Marquess of Londonderry, whose statue graces Durham City’s Market Place.

Although the title does not come with any land, the new Lord or Lady of the Manor will be able to use the title on their passports, chequebooks and credit cards – and they will be eligible for membership of the Manorial Society of Great Britain.

The first written reference to the manor is found in a return of knights’ fees dating between 1283 and 1310.

At the beginning of the 13th Century, the Prince- Bishop Richard Kelloe took his surname from the village.

Bishop Richard’s brother, Patrick, commanded the Episcopal troops in 1312 against a dangerous group of freebooters, called the Shavaldi, who emerged from a no-man’s land that stretched over much of Northern England into the Scottish lowlands. He killed their leader, John de Wedake, on Holy Island.

Alexander Kelloe was a benefactor of the Hospital of Serburne (now Sherburn) in 1260.

By the 1340s, another Richard Kelloe owned about two-thirds of the land and two watermills at Kelloe.

Richard’s probable son, William, and his wife, Agnes, conveyed these lands on the marriage of Joan, their daughter and heir, to John Fossour (or Forcer), while Richard, Lord Neville of Raby, gave them his lands in the manor.

Another John Forcer was Lord of the Manor in 1432, and the last of the family, Basil, was living in 1782.

Kelloe was bought by the Tempests of Broughton Hall, North Yorkshire, and bequeathed by Sir Henry Vane-Tempest to his daughter, Lady Frances Vane. She married the third Marquess of Londonderry.

The ninth Marquess sold the title in 1987 – the same year he sold his vast Wynyard Hall estate to Sir John Hall.

Robert Smith, director of Manorial Auctioneers and chairman of the Manorial Society, said: “Like Northumberland , County Durham is a settled county, with many of its nobility and gentry remaining on the ground. This offer is subsequently pretty rare.”

For more information, call 0207-582-1588 or visit msgb.co.uk