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 Dunfermline Abbey.

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 today. Mr. Thomas Chaloner of Guisborough, in his
travels on the Continent about the end of the sixteenth century, saw
the Pope's alum works near Rome, and was determined to start the
industry in his native parish of Guisborough, feeling certain that alum
could be worked with profit in his own country. As it was essential to
have one or two men who were thoroughly versed in the processes of the
manufacture, Mr. Chaloner induced some of the Pope's workmen by heavy
bribes to come to England. The risks attending this overt act were
terrible, for the alum works brought in a large revenue to His
Holiness, and the discovery of such a design would have meant capital