The Tunstall Vestment
The Tunstall Vestment, c. 1470
Current location: Ushaw College
Chasuble
The vestment was presented to the museum of Ushaw College by the Rev. Michael Trappes in 1866 on the occasion of a visit to Ushaw by Cardinal Von Reisach. The vestment is reputed to have belonged to Cuthbert Tunstall (1474-1559), Prince-Bishop of Durham throughout the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. At a date unknown the vestment came into the ownership of the Trappes family, a recusant Catholic family of Yorkshire. For a time the vestment was at Storyhurst College, Lancashire, and was returned to Ushaw in 1903. In the 1930s it was cut down from a fiddle-back shape and reformed into a Gothic shape by grouping the medieval fabric onto one side and replacing the back with a modern brocade.
The vestment in its fiddle-back form before being re-worked by the convent of the Poor Clares of Darlington in the 1930s.
Image: copyright of The Treasures of Ushaw College: Durham's Hidden Gem (Scala: 2015)
Artefact Information: copyright The Trustees of Ushaw College
References: 'A Reminder of the Last Catholic Bishop of Durham' by Frances Pritchard in The Treasures of Ushaw College: Durham's Hidden Gem (Scala: 2015)