Chapter I: Part 1

MEMORIALS OF THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND

General Editor:
REV. P. H. DITCHFIELD, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S.

MEMORIALS OF
OLD NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

MEMORIALS OF OLD
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

EDITED BY

EVERARD L. GUILFORD, M.A.

AUTHOR OF

“_Little Guide to Nottinghamshire_”

ILLUSTRATED WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN & COMPANY, LTD.
44 & 45 RATHBONE PLACE, W.
1912

[_All Rights Reserved_]

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.

At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

TO

THE INHABITANTS OF
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

THIS BOOK

IS

DEDICATED

PREFACE

When this volume was originally planned the editorship was placed in the able and experienced hands of Mr. W. P. W. Phillimore, but pressure of work compelled his resignation before many essays had been selected. The present editor then took up the work, and has now brought it to a conclusion. The delay caused by the change of editor has not affected the matter in any of the essays except that on “Nottinghamshire Poets.” This paper was originally written four or five years ago, and since then some of the criticisms have been made and published by other writers.

The present editor has tried to choose his subjects from a field as varied as possible, and he ventures to think that papers will be found here which will be welcome both on account of the matter to be found in them and because of the novelty of the subject.

Nor must it be thought for a moment that the choice of interesting subjects is by any means exhausted. Enough material could easily be found to fill a second and perhaps even a third volume.

It only remains for the editor to thank all who by their contributions, helpful advice, and encouragement have made the task of compiling this small tribute to the memory of a great county a pleasure.

EVERARD L. GUILFORD.

LENTON AVENUE, NOTTINGHAM,
_June 1912_.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Historical Nottinghamshire By EVERARD L. GUILFORD,
M.A. 1

The Medieval Church Architecture By A. HAMILTON THOMPSON,
of Nottinghamshire M.A., F.S.A. 12

Newstead Priory and the Religious By Rev. J. CHARLES COX,
Houses of Nottinghamshire LL.D., F.S.A. 54

Wollaton Hall By J. A. GOTCH, F.S.A. 77

The Ancient and Modern Trent By BERNARD SMITH, M.A. 88

The Forest of Sherwood By Rev. J. CHARLES COX,
LL.D., F.S.A. 106

Roods, Screens, and Lofts in By AYMER VALLANCE,
Nottinghamshire F.S.A. 124

The Civil War in Nottinghamshire By EVERARD L. GUILFORD,
M.A. 168

Nottinghamshire Poets By JOHN RUSSELL, M.A. 193

Nottingham By W. P. W. PHILLIMORE 228

Southwell By W. E. HODGSON 239

Nottinghamshire Spires By HARRY GILL 270

The Low Side Windows of By HARRY GILL 295
Nottinghamshire

The Nottingham Mint By FRANK E. BURTON,
F.R.N.S., J.P. 306

The Clockmakers of Newark-on-Trent, By H. COOK 323
with Notes on some of
their Contemporaries

INDEX 339

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Nottingham. The Old Trent Bridge _Frontispiece_
(_From engraving after McArthur; from a photograph
by A. Lineker, Nottingham_)

PAGE, OR FACING PAGE

Blyth Priory Church 20
(_From a photograph by H. Gill_)

South Scarle: Nave North Arcade 26
(_From a photograph by J. Selby_)

Southwell Minster: East End 32

Southwell Minster: Capital in the Chapter House 32
(_From photographs by E. L. Guilford_)

Barnby in the Willows. (South Side of the Chancel) 42

Car Colston 42
(_From photographs by E. L. Guilford_)

Newstead Priory: Buck’s West View, 1726 60
(_From a photograph by Donald Macbeth, London_)

Plan of Newstead Priory 71
(_From a plan by Rev. R. H. Whitworth_)

Plan of Wollaton Hall, by John Thorpe 78

Wollaton Hall: Ground Plan, 1901 80

Wollaton Hall: Half-elevation, by John Thorpe 80

Wollaton Hall 81

Wollaton Hall: Plan by Smithson 82

Wollaton Hall: Elevation of Corner Pavilion, by Smithson 82

Wollaton Hall: the Orchard. Plan by Smithson 84

Wollaton Hall: the Screen, by Smithson 84

Wollaton Hall: Panel in the Screen, by Smithson 86

Wollaton Hall: Panel in the Frieze above the Screen, by
Smithson 86

Plan and Section of the Trent Valley South-east of Nottingham 92

Map of the Trent Valley between Clifton and Collingham 94

The Great Flood of October 1875. (View from Nottingham
Castle looking South) 96
(_By permission of the Geological Survey and Museum_)

The Trent separating Holme from North Muskham 99

Burton and Bole Rounds, after a Map by Mr. Gurnill, sen.,
Gainsborough, 1795 103

Specimen of Sherwood Forest Roll 112
(_From a photograph by Donald Macbeth, London_)

Blyth Priory Church: Screen in the Nave 126
(_From a photograph by A. Lineker, Nottingham_)

West Bridgford: Old Rood-Screen. (Now in South Aisle of
enlarged Church) 130

Holme Church toward the South-east from the Nave 137
(_From a drawing by Messrs. Saunders & Saunders_)

Newark Church: Rood-Screen, from the North-west 146

Southwell Minster: Pulpitum, from the West 154

Southwell Minster: Pulpitum, from the East 154
(_From a photograph by A. Lineker, Nottingham_)

Strelley Church: Rood-Screen 158
(_Measured and drawn by F. E. Collingham_)

Wysall Church: Rood-Screen 166
(_From a photograph by A. Vallance_)

Siege Plan of Newark 188
(_From C. Brown’s “History of Newark”_)

Robert Dodsley 200
(_From the portrait by Gainsborough_)

Philip James Bailey. “Festus” 210
(_By kind permission of Miss Carey_)

Halam 272

Sompting 273

Bradmore 274

Compton, Sussex 275

Gotham, Notts 275

Burton Joyce 277
(_From a photograph by H. Gill_)

Wollaton 277
(_From a photograph by H. Gill_)

Normanton-on-Soar 277
(_From a photograph by H. Gill_)

Edwinstowe 277
(_From a photograph by H. Gill_)

Normanton-on-Soar 277

Ratcliffe-on-Soar 278

Mansfield Woodhouse 279

Squinches, Edwinstowe 281

Gedling 282
(_From a photograph by W. H. Kirkland_)

West Retford 282

Gedling 283

Newark 284
(_From F. Bond’s “Gothic Architecture of England”_)

Bingham 284
(_From F. Bond’s “Gothic Architecture of England”_)

Thoroton 290
(_From a photograph by H. Gill_)

Car Colston 290
(_From a photograph by H. Gill_)

Keyworth 290
(_From a photograph by Thomas Wright_)

Upton 290
(_From a photograph by H. Gill_)

Bradmore 293

Laxton 296

Costock 296
(_From a photograph by H. Gill_)

Haughton 296
(_From a photograph by H. Gill_)

Car Colston 305
(_From a photograph by H. Gill_)

Linby 305
(_From a photograph by H. Gill_)

Coins. Athelstan to Stephen 309
(_From a photograph by Mr. S. Barlow Vines_)

Newark Siege Pieces. Half-crowns and Shillings 314
(_From a photograph by Mr. S. Barlow Vines_)

Newark Siege Pieces. Ninepences and Sixpences 316
(_From a photograph by Mr. S. Barlow Vines_)

Tokens 318
(_From a photograph by Mr. S. Barlow Vines_)

Tokens 320
(_From a photograph by Mr. S. Barlow Vines_)

Clocks by William Gascoyne and Nicholas Goddard 326

Clocks by William Barnard and Edward Smith 326

Clocks by S. Bettison, W. Barnard, and W. Unwin 332

Clocks by Humphrey Wainwright and Will. Foster 332

Sketch Map of Nottinghamshire _at end_

HISTORICAL NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

BY EVERARD L. GUILFORD, M.A.

Modern historians look askance at the writers of fifty years ago, their methods, and their results. Their work is unreliable, supported by little documentary evidence, and therefore of no worth. But these despised historians of an earlier generation did what many modern writers forget to do--they made history live. They remembered that the characters in the great drama were once such men and women as themselves, and they tried to reproduce them as such. Their frequent inexactitudes in the light of modern knowledge have discountenanced this school, and the pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme. No statement is accepted unless it can be amply and substantially supported by documentary evidence, and, what is more, if I may use the expression, by documentary evidence of the bluest blood. Thus it is that our national history, and more especially our local history, has lost many of those picturesque sketches which riveted our attention and, like the piers of a bridge, helped us to span the intervening gulf of interminable yet necessary detail. Nowadays we must eradicate from our minds the stories of such heroes as Robin Hood and place them among the national fairy tales. This is quite an unnecessary surgical operation. It is as though we cut off our leg to cure a sprained ankle. Much may be learnt from the adventures of Robin Hood if we regard them from the social point of view, for we can obtain from them no mean nor incorrect idea of what England, and particularly Nottinghamshire, was like in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

I do not wish it to be thought that the importance of documents is disregarded, but rather that they can be used much more than they have been in conjunction with tradition and the study of natural features. In this sense the study of local history is still in its infancy. Some historians have even gone so far as to refuse to consider Nottingham prior to the first definite date recorded--868 A.D. This is mere stupidity, this erring on the safe side. One other side of the question I would venture to point out before I deal more particularly with Nottinghamshire history, and that is that it is impossible to gain a clear and correct knowledge of a district without making a personal acquaintance with the territory in question. Large scale maps will do much to help, but a tramp through the land under consideration will give clearer insight into the minds of the men who made the country, the natural features and the artificial features will then assume their proper positions and due proportions, and the why and the wherefore will in many cases be as clear as the noonday sun.

Nottinghamshire has a great history--greater perhaps than any of its sons realise--a history reflecting in miniature the history of the country at large. The tale of all that has happened in this little Midland shire cannot be rightly understood unless we appreciate the importance of its geographical position and its natural features. Nottinghamshire is par excellence _the_ Midland shire. Its four neighbours all differ from one another, and Nottinghamshire in its turn partakes of the characteristics of that which is nearest. Hence we have a county of very varied character with two strongly predominating features--Sherwood Forest and the Trent. Both of these have played a great part in local history, the latter especially, for the importance of the former was more trivial and not so permanent. Truly the “smug and silver Trent” is the predominating feature in whatever way we consider Nottinghamshire. By it the middle of England could be reached by sea-going ships, and the commerce of the world distributed through districts otherwise extremely hard to reach. Besides the Trent served as a boundary between north and south England for legal and ecclesiastical purposes. The crossings of the Trent at Nottingham and Newark gave to these towns no small measure of their medieval importance; they became keys to the north.

The earliest human inhabitants of these islands had a predilection for dwelling in caves, and we know that they were able to attain to their desires in one place at least within the county--at Cresswell Crags. Their remains are so scanty that we can readily believe that they were few in number, perhaps mere northerly outliers on the edge of a great uninhabitable unknown. These men we call the Palæolithic men, and their successors--though there is a great gap between--the Neolithic men. We have good reason to believe that in the earliest times Britain was not separated from the Continent, but we are certain that this cleavage took place before Neolithic man made these shores his home. In Nottinghamshire at any rate Neolithic man was much more numerous than his predecessors had been, assuming that we may argue the comparative population of races by the quantity and distribution of their remains. Of neither of these races, nor of any that succeeded them till we come to the Britons, can we obtain any fact which we can safely place on the modern side of the distant border between history and pre-history.

The historians of the picturesque era brought the British period into bad repute, just as the writers of thirty or forty years ago discountenanced archaeology by classifying all architecture of uncertain age as Saxon. But if we want to get at the truth we must not be frightened of the pre-Roman days. The Britons were after all very human, and acted in given circumstances as men may always be expected to do. We must not look for their fords at the deepest parts of the river’s course, nor must we expect their roads to take a difficult ascent where an easy slope presents itself.

The publication of the first two volumes of the _Victoria History of the County of Nottingham_ is an event of great importance to local historians and archaeologists. The volumes, in which are gathered all the store of present knowledge, show us how much we really know, and how much work lies before the earnest seeker for the truth. A list of more than a hundred earthworks is given, and of these hardly one has been adequately explored, and yet each holds some secret which would help us to a greater knowledge of our county’s story.

Historians nowadays divide the Britons into three races who came to these shores one after the other, beginning about 600 B.C. and ending only a short half century or so before the Romans arrived. The first to come were the Goidels, with whom we have no concern, then came the Brythons, who inhabited at the arrival of Cæsar all Britain north of the Thames, and finally, south of the Thames, were the Belgæ. Nottinghamshire of course did not then exist as a county, but the use of the term must be excused because of its obvious convenience. So then Nottinghamshire was inhabited by a Brythonic tribe called the Coritani, a peace-loving, sparsely-scattered race, who offered no resistance to the Roman invaders, and of whom we know but the one fact that they existed. It seems hardly necessary to point out that Julius Cæsar’s two exploratory expeditions do not concern us. They were passing incidents whose importance has been greatly exaggerated by the survival of the Roman leader’s account of his little war. It was not until a hundred years later that the Roman world realised that there were still lands unconquered to the west. The realisation was father to the accomplishment, and within a very few years--by 50 A.D. to be precise--the Roman wave had passed over Nottinghamshire, and, what is more, had passed over very lightly.

Historians of the Romano-British period ignore Nottinghamshire as containing nothing meriting notice, but the truth is that few or no efforts have been made to find out more. There are four acknowledged Roman stations within our borders, and of these two remain totally unexplored, the exact sites even unknown, while only tentative explorations have been undertaken on the remaining two sites. Yet, while it can claim no such important station as Ratæ or Lindum within its borders, Nottinghamshire cannot really be ignored, for it occupies an intermediary position in Roman Britain between the hardy north, where there was seldom peace, and the fertile and peaceful south, where the colonists could live a life more congenial to their southern desires. After all negative fact is often extremely useful. Why did not Nottinghamshire assume a more important position in Roman Britain? Why was not a strong station fixed on the twin hills of Nottingham? No race with self-protective instincts would ignore such a strong position as this, and yet the Romans passed hastily from Ratæ to Lindum without approaching Nottingham. To have utilised the British trackway which almost certainly crossed the Trent, passed through the camp on St. Mary’s Hill at Nottingham, and vanished into the dark forests to the north, would have brought into operation forces against which the Romans seldom opposed themselves if they could be avoided. A road driven through open country is more easily defended than one which carves its way through many miles of dense forest, and even when the forest was passed there lay to the north a wide marshy expanse, watered by the Idle, now a well-drained fertile tract, but formerly a wilderness of morass. The strong natural position of Nottingham would not appeal so forcibly to the Romans as it did to later invaders. It was then more a river town than a road town, and the Roman system of defence and communication ignored rivers as much as possible. Leicester and Lincoln could be linked together without any interference from the Trent, while the road from Lincoln to Doncaster was in every way suitable to Roman engineering--an easy ford over the Trent, and then a road for the most part over raised ground, which avoided the marshes of the Idle and the Cars to the north, and ran on the narrow crest of the hills between Drakeholes and Scaftworth.

Nottinghamshire in Saxon times was a piece of essentially border territory. When the kingdoms of the Heptarchy were fighting among themselves the boundaries were ever changing, so that at one time a piece of Nottinghamshire would be in Lindsey, another piece in Northumbria, and yet a third in Mercia. During the early part of the Saxon period it was pretty equally divided between Northumbria and Mercia, but during the Danish invasions it was entirely Mercian. Of actual history there is little, yet one or two facts there are which must be recorded. About 630 St. Paulinus introduced Christianity into the valley of the Trent, while in 617 Rædwald of East Anglia, sheltering Edwin the exile King of Northumbria, defeated the usurper Æthelfrith at the battle of the Idle, fought, I am inclined to think, at Rainworth. This battle gave Edwin a kingdom which he kept until his death in 633 at the hands of Penda at Heathfield, perhaps near Doncaster, perhaps just north of Sherwood Forest.

It was not until some common foe appeared that the Saxons ceased from intertribal warfare. During the early part of the ninth century all western Europe had suffered from the cruel plunderings and harryings of the Vikings--great sailors and great soldiers, whose fierce strength gave them the victory over higher though more effete civilisations than their own. Wave after wave of these fierce invaders broke on our shores, but could find no resting-place. But at length the Danes came to stay, and soon the north and east were overrun by these virile warriors. York fell in 867, and in the next year Nottingham yielded reluctantly to the Danish yoke, and entered on a bondage which was to bear so grand a result in the hardy hybrid race who peopled the East Midlands during the tenth and eleventh centuries. It was left for the Danes to recognise the strategic importance of the twin rocks that stand sentinel above the Trent. Every school-boy knows all about the Five Boroughs, and in this loose confederacy Nottingham probably occupied the premier place. What is perhaps of most importance to history is that the Danish jarls who ruled in each of these towns held sway over territory which a few years later was to be formed by Edward the Elder into the counties of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Lincolnshire, the great size of the last being due to the union of the jarldoms of Lincoln and Stamford. The English revival under Edward the Elder led to the emancipation of the East Mercians, and at Nottingham we hear that the town was fortified and “occupied by English as by Danes.” This phrase may possibly imply the existence of a Danish as well as a Saxon town, each on its rock and each with its own defensive earthwork.

We must pass over the brief invasion of the Five Boroughs by Anlaf Guthfrithson, the quarrels of Eadgar with Eadwig, and Æthelred with Cnut, and pass to the period shortly before the Norman Conquest, when we find that England is divided into several great earldoms. Though Nottinghamshire was at first part of a small earldom with Leicester, yet soon it appears to have formed part of Siward’s vast Northumbrian territory.

The history of Nottinghamshire after the Norman Conquest has been told many times, and therefore may be treated in a more cursory manner. William the Conqueror was at Nottingham in 1068, and then passed on, leaving the castle to be rebuilt by his powerful dependent William Peverel. It is almost certain that the English were sufficiently strong in the county to merit consideration, and in the county town itself we find that two boroughs were definitely established, an English and a French, each constitutionally separate and each surviving in name, if not in fact, till comparatively modern times. The great feudal castle at Nottingham becomes the dominating factor in the history of the town for the next 150 years, but before the end of this we see the awakenings of commercial and corporate life. The great forest of Sherwood provided a playground for kings, and throughout the county religious houses were founded to give knowledge to the people, alms to the poor, and rest to the weary.

This county played a large part in the civil war of Stephen’s reign; both the castles of Nottingham and Newark were in the King’s hands, though the former changed sides several times, and in the process the town, whose prosperity and beauty Florence of Worcester belauds, was burnt.

Henry II. had no intention of having Nottingham Castle held against him should occasion arise, and in 1155 he took possession of it himself, and at the same time ordered all adulterine castles to be dismantled. Probably Cuckney Castle was one of these latter, and there were almost certainly others, but the matter is obscure.

Henry II. gave the castle of Nottingham to his favourite son John in 1174, and it remained this despicable prince’s chief and most frequented residence, and here he made his rebellious stand against his brother Richard, until he was ejected in 1194. It was in this year that Richard discovered the suitability of Sherwood Forest for a royal hunting-ground, and on April 17 he met the King of the Scots at Clipstone.

After the conference at Runnymede had driven John into a corner, that treacherous monarch determined to make a last stand at Nottingham Castle, which he ordered Philip Marc, the constable, to prepare for a siege. Newark, too, was faithful to John, though the surrounding country was suffering much at the hands of his enemies. It is fitting that, as John had loved this county and been loved by it, he should end his worthless life here, and perhaps here alone was he regretted when he passed away at Newark.

To all intents and purposes the history of Nottingham itself is the history of the whole county. The character of this history undergoes a change early in the thirteenth century. Henceforth Nottingham the town attracts our attention instead of Nottingham the castle as formerly. To quote Mrs. J. R. Green, “The interest of its history lies in the quiet picture that is given of a group of active and thriving traders at peace with their neighbours, and for the most part at peace with themselves.” Commercial Nottingham owes everything to its magnificent geographical position and fruitful geological formation. No marauders pillaged it, no warring barons held it to ransom and impoverished it. It dwelt in peace and grew in prosperity. Linen and woollen goods, ironwork, bells, brazen pots, goldsmiths’ work, images, and ale were all made in this wealthy town. During the fourteenth century the coal that lay all along the western border of the county began to be worked, and rich quarries of stone were cut to build the churches and houses that sprang up everywhere. Compared with other towns in the Middle Ages there seems to have been a noticeable absence of poverty in Nottingham.

We have seen how John used Nottingham as his headquarters in his insurrection, and 200 years afterwards Richard II. attempted his _coup d’êtat_ there--an attempt which was to have made the King absolute.

Nottinghamshire had been but little affected by the Hundred Years War. Except for an occasional demand for men or supplies--a demand frequently occurring in connection with the Scotch wars of the end of the thirteenth century--the records of the county are barren. The fifteenth century saw the suicide of feudalism in the Wars of the Roses, and here again Nottingham’s policy was a purely commercial one. It was quite immaterial to her which side gained the victory, so long as her trade was not interfered with, and so we find that whichever side was on the top, to that side did the powers that be in Nottingham send congratulations and men.

Edward IV. and Richard III. were much at Nottingham, and to both of them the castle owed much. It was from here that Richard set out to fight his last fight at Bosworth, and a few years later the river meadows beneath the rock were black with the troops of Henry VII., drawn together to meet the puppet of the Yorkists, Lambert Simnel. Henry passed from Nottingham to Newark and thence down the Fosse Way, while Simnel’s troops crossed from Mansfield to the Trent, which they forded, and met the King at East Stoke. This one important battle in the county’s history was a most bloody affair, and the pretender’s forces were completely routed.

The Tudors for the most part neglected this county, and though we meet with such men as Wolsey and Cranmer now and then, they are but lights that emphasise the darkness.

Nottinghamshire was shortly to awake from its lethargic commercialism to its great struggle during the seventeenth century between the King and the Parliament, between Newark and Nottingham, a struggle which harassed the trade of the towns and ruined the agriculture of the villages, which saw the standard of war raised at Nottingham, and the unhappy King surrender himself at Kelham. Newark gained eternal honour, and the county showed itself the birthplace of great men.

If we except the industrial riots of the early nineteenth century, Nottinghamshire was to feel but once more the stirrings of civil strife; the invasion of England by the Young Pretender progressed as far as Derby, but the reputation of the fierce Scots covered a much wider field, and the horrors of war were felt to be very close at hand.

But we must glance back for a moment and record the invention in 1589 of the stocking-frame by the Rev. William Lee, curate of Calverton. Like many great inventors Lee was unlucky and without profit in his own country, yet, if we may be permitted to quote Master Ridley’s famous dying words, Lee had lit “such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” This stocking-frame was the small beginning whence came the great lace and hosiery trades which, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, may be said to have been the staple industries of the county. Almost every village round Nottingham earned its living by hosiery, and before the days of the big factories, in 1812, there were said to be 30,000 frames at work.

It is impossible here to do more than state the fact that every great invention in the cotton trade emanated from Nottinghamshire. We have mentioned the early beginnings of the coal trade, and since then this mighty industry has continued to spread, until now it occupies the attention of one-third of the county, and in the near future it will undoubtedly spread further.

Such is a brief history of Nottinghamshire, and though we realise that history is still being made, it behoves us to turn now and then, and by considering the past, try to wrest its secret from the Sphinx.

THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

BY A. HAMILTON THOMPSON, M.A., F.S.A.

Nottinghamshire probably has received less than its due from students of English architecture in the past. Its more easily accessible churches, Newark or St. Mary’s at Nottingham, naturally have attracted some attention; and the noble collegiate church of Southwell has never been neglected by intelligent lovers of medieval art. Newstead, dear to the illustrators of anthologies, is usually remembered as the home of Byron and a subject of his verse. Blyth and Thurgarton, however, are little known to the majority of Englishmen. Few people know of the beautiful, if unpretentious, work of the thirteenth century which is to be found in the churches of the Trent valley between Newark and Gainsborough. While frequent allusion has been made to the Easter sepulchre, the chief glory of the chancel of Hawton, little attention has been given to the fact that this chancel is simply a member of a group of fourteenth-century chancels, which, though not confined to Nottinghamshire, possesses its most finished examples within or close to the borders of the county. It is true that, for the most part, Nottinghamshire parish churches are simple and unambitious in plan and elevation alike. Their plans present few variations from the normal type. Here, as elsewhere throughout the north and eastern midlands, the aisleless nave developed, in the ordinary course of things, into the nave with aisles, western tower, and south porch. The rectangular chancel was lengthened, and here and there, as occasion served, was provided with one or more chapels. But while, in adjacent counties, considerable architectural development followed this expansion of plan, Nottinghamshire builders were on the whole content to build churches which were adequate for the services of the parish, without attempting to give them any special magnificence of outward form and decoration. This simplicity of design, however, has an architectural interest of its own, as throwing considerable light on the methods of local masons, who remained unaffected by the ambition of neighbouring schools of art.

Geographically, Nottinghamshire presented no obstacle to a general architectural development on lines similar to those which were pursued in other midland counties. Only a small district of the county, on the north-west, reaches an elevation of from 400 to 600 feet above sea-level: a height of 600 feet is exceeded only here and there. The great stream of the Trent provided for building material a main artery of water-carriage from which no part of the county was altogether remote. The quarries of Ancaster, to which Lincolnshire architecture owes so much, were within easy reach of Newark and the vale of Belvoir. There was good building stone within the shire at Mansfield, Maplebeck, and Tuxford. Moreover, the general state of Nottinghamshire in the middle ages seems to have been highly prosperous: laymen were well-to-do, and few, if any, counties of the size can show such an array of well-endowed chantry foundations as that which it possessed at the close of the period. It possessed a centre of ecclesiastical influence at Southwell; and, although there was no religious house of the first class within its borders, there were several fairly important houses of canons regular, which might be expected to provide models for architectural work in their neighbourhood.

It is probable, however, that, at any rate in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, much of the skilled workmanship of the district was attracted eastwards by the splendid growth of architecture which took place within the sphere of the trade route to Boston and in the neighbourhood of the growing port of Hull. These provinces of art, again, must have drawn towards them, and away from Nottinghamshire, masons brought up within the architectural influence of Lincoln and York. As Nottinghamshire formed the southern archdeaconry of the diocese of York, we should naturally expect to find some Yorkshire influence upon its buildings. This, as we shall see, was undoubtedly the case. The influence of York upon Southwell is strong, and the churches of north Nottinghamshire have a strong family likeness to those of south Yorkshire. Again, the chapter of Lincoln possessed a large amount of property in the wapentake of Newark, and in this part of the county it is possible to trace at an early date an architectural spirit which had its origin at Lincoln. The fact, however, remains that, while Nottinghamshire possesses several individual churches which are fully equal in beauty to those of south Lincolnshire or south-east Yorkshire, it stood outside the main current of architectural progress which set in, as the middle ages advanced, towards the Humber and the Wash.

It may be said that the direct influence of ecclesiastical foundations upon churches connected with them was probably much less than is usually supposed. A large collegiate church, such as Southwell, which played its part as a central point in the ecclesiastical life of the county, and owned much local property, might have considerable effect upon the progress of local architecture. The chapter and its individual canons would be responsible for the repair of chancels in their impropriated churches. Where they were lords of the manor as well as impropriators, their care for the fabric might go still further. The same thing is true of monasteries. But it must be remembered that, as in our own day, so then, no corporation as lord of the manor, and still more as rector, would go out of its way to beautify its possessions at unnecessary expense. Its interest lay in the income to be derived from the churches, not in the money which it might be possible to expend upon them. The statement, so common in uncritical writers, that the religious houses throughout the land built churches broadcast, rests on no sound historical basis. It is far more accurate to say that they simply built where they were obliged to do so, and that then they did their utmost to avoid expense. The church west of the chancel lay outside their province. Its maintenance was the duty of the parishioners. In churches where they merely owned the advowson, the rector, their presentee, was responsible for the chancel. Where they were impropriators, they usually avoided part of their obligations by charging their vicar with a sensible part of the repairs of the chancel. Thus, Worksop priory undertook, in 1283–84, three-quarters of the repairs of the chancel at Walkeringham: the vicar was charged with the remaining quarter.[1] Many arrangements of this kind could be cited. At Newark, in 1428, St. Katherine’s priory at Lincoln undertook the whole upkeep of the chancel; but the vicar, on his part, was made wholly responsible for the vicarage house.[2] In any case, a monastery would save itself unnecessary expense, if possible. This is not to be wondered at, if the whole question of monastic finances in the middle ages, and the pressure of debt which constantly weighed upon even the larger houses, is considered. The constant excuse for appropriating an advowson was one of poverty, nor did bishops sanction appropriations without a conventional demur.

These circumstances taken into account, it will be seen that the religious houses cannot be credited with any great architectural influence upon the churches belonging to them. For necessary repairs in parish churches they would employ local masons, who would charge them little, and execute their work neatly and adequately. It is true that there are exceptions. The vast aisled chancel of Newark was planned on an unusually liberal scale; but it may fairly be assumed that the work was put in the hands of skilled local craftsmen who had no direct connection with St. Katherine’s priory. Nor can any special architectural relationship be discovered between the chancel of Newark and the vanished church of the impropriating house. It may also be noted that, until the fourteenth century, the number of churches appropriated to monasteries in Nottinghamshire was not large. By the time of the suppression of the monasteries, a third of the churches of the county were appropriated to religious houses, and of these about a third belonged to monasteries outside the county, Westminster abbey holding six.[3] This, however, does not represent the proportion of appropriated churches during the time of the greatest architectural activity. The number of churches, on the other hand, appropriated to prebendaries of Southwell and members of other collegiate bodies, such as the dean and chapter of Lincoln,[4] or the warden and canons of St. Mary and the Holy Angels at York,[5] was considerable from the twelfth century onwards. Yet it is impossible to trace any general attempt at architectural improvement on the part of ecclesiastical bodies or their individual members. Here and there we may suspect something; but the general rule is one of sound practical building on local lines, following the general current of architectural growth prevalent throughout the length and breadth of England, and touched now and then by the work of a neighbouring school of masons whose mastery of their craft was superior to the homely dialect of the Nottinghamshire craftsmen. In most parishes the lord of the manor may be regarded as the principal contributor, who may have helped with the chancel, if he occupied a seat there, and would have been the ruling spirit in the building of the nave. The rector, often a non-resident, would be the repairer and rebuilder of the chancel, and may often have been forced to do his duty unwillingly. The builders, save in exceptional instances, were, we may well believe, masons of the village or neighbourhood, who were also the builders and repairers of the manor-house and such stone dwellings as the village might possess. For the furniture of the church the local carpenter and painter would be called in. In our own day, when we are familiar with the professional architect who restores our village churches, and with improved means of communication between place and place, it is difficult to imagine that our villages possessed the necessary talent for all this work. Architecture, however, in the middle ages was a general, democratic art: building was a part of the practical life of the English village, and the stonework of the place was a topic of current interest and intelligence, not yet relegated to the province of archæology.

There are few buildings remaining in the county which can be said to contain traces of pre-Conquest work. Foundations of a church which is very probably of Saxon date have been uncovered at East Bridgford. The tower of the church of Carlton-in-Lindrick belongs to the type of late Saxon tower, of which there are many examples in north Lincolnshire. It was originally unbuttressed, and in, each face of its belfry stage was a double window opening, divided by a mid-wall shaft. In the fifteenth century an upper belfry stage and buttresses were added to the tower; the large dressed blocks of grey stone, of which these additions are composed, afford an interesting contrast to the rubble work of the older portion of the structure. In another volume of this series the present writer has attempted to show that a pre-Conquest date cannot with certainty be assigned to towers of this class, although there can be no doubt that the type originated during the Saxon period.[6] The presence of “herring-bone” masonry in the tower is a distinct indication of its post-Conquest date. “Herring-bone” coursing never occurs in portions of a fabric, of the Saxon origin of which there can be no doubt. At Brixworth, in Northamptonshire, it is found only in a portion of the tower, above the definitely Saxon work which remains: it occurs, again, in a part of the crypt at York, for the traditionally early date of which there is absolutely no evidence. On the other hand, by far the most extensive use of “herring-bone” masonry is in the walling of early castles, which were certainly not raised before the Conquest, but owed their origin to the conquerors. The curtains of Tamworth, Corfe, Lincoln, Richmond, and Hastings, the keep of Colchester, works of the later portion of the eleventh century, are imposing examples of the use of this method of masonry. It is not even a method which can be attributed to English workmen: it is found in Normandy, and is used on a grand scale in the interior of the donjon at Falaise. Where it is found in churches, therefore, it probably indicates Norman influence at a period soon after the Conquest; while it may be taken as a criterion for doubting seriously the pre-Conquest date of work that seems at first sight rude and primitive enough to be attributed to English masons before the coming of the Normans. Thus there is “herring-bone” coursing in the north wall of the nave at East Leake, found in company with small and narrow windows, the heads of which are not arched, but composed of flat lintels, with a segmental cut in their lower surface. At West Leake, where, as at East Leake, a south aisle was added to the fabric, but the north wall was left untouched, the window openings are similar, and the masonry is equally rude, but there is no “herring-bone” work. There are several examples in Nottinghamshire churches of walls, in which roughly tooled masonry, bedded in thick masses of mortar, and not infrequently arranged in “herring-bone” courses, occurs; and the pre-Conquest date of some of these--Oxton and Plumtree are cases in point--needs careful consideration. The most important cases of “herring-bone” work are found in the churches which fringe the left bank of the Trent below Newark--Averham, South Muskham, Cromwell, Laneham, and Littleborough. In the last two, which are the chief instances, the case for a pre-Conquest date is very poor. The proportions of the fabrics, both at Laneham and Littleborough, in which we find this masonry, have nothing about them which is peculiarly Saxon. On the contrary, while the earliest work at Laneham, the tower and tower-arch, is possibly earlier than the twelfth century, the whole fabric at Littleborough is an ordinary “Norman” aisleless church of twelfth-century character. It may be added that, on the opposite bank of the Trent, “herring-bone” masonry is hardly less common. At Marton, opposite Littleborough, it is used in the very uncommon method employed at Tamworth castle, with two horizontal layers of long, thin stones between the diagonal courses; while, at Upton in the same neighbourhood, the whole south wall of an originally aisleless church, somewhat larger than that of Littleborough, and as thoroughly of the twelfth century in its design and proportions, is composed of very regular “herring-bone” coursing.

The whole problem of the work of English masons after the Conquest is one for the solution of which we have as yet no definite data. These Nottinghamshire examples can hardly be said to do more than leave the question where they find it. The one thing that can be said positively is that such churches were built in country places at small expense, and without the trouble of dressing stone in large blocks of regular size, which was taken in cases where more money was probably forthcoming. Such buildings, it need hardly be said, were intended to have an outer as well as an inner coat of plaster. The masonry, when exposed, is interesting, but unsightly. Far different was the case with the larger churches of the Norman period in England, with the rubble core of their walling faced, out and in, with courses of dressed stone. Of these churches, in which principles of construction were gradually developed by the attempt of the builders to solve the problem offered by the stone roof and its abutments, Nottinghamshire possesses two, the priory church of Blyth and the collegiate church of Southwell. Blyth was the church of a priory of Norman Benedictines, founded in 1088 as a cell to the abbey of La Trinité on the Mont-Ste-Cathérine at Rouen. The eastern portion of the church is now gone, but the nave and north aisle of the original building remain. These must have been built very soon after the foundation: their characteristics are those of the eleventh-century Romanesque of Normandy, as we see it in the large Benedictine churches of Bernay (Eure) and Jumièges (Seine-Inférieure). The masonry with which the building is faced is composed chiefly of cubical blocks of dressed stone with wide joints. The arches of the main arcades are round-headed, and of two orders, unmoulded: both orders spring from a single soffit shaft with a trapezoidal capital and heavy abacus. The piers dividing the arches are square blocks of wall, in front of each of which a bold semi-circular shaft rises to the level of the springing of the triforium arcade. The string-course at the sill of the triforium arcade is continued as a band round the vaulting shafts. Each bay of the triforium is pierced by a single archway, about a third of the height of the corresponding arch of the main arcade. Each of these arches is of two orders: the supports are formed by the rectangular recessing of the intermediate piers, and the arches spring from impost-blocks recessed to match. The construction of the triforium is thus more logical and symmetrical than that of the main arcade below, in which the two orders of the arches find no correspondence in the jambs. The clerestory is composed of a single round-headed opening in each bay, set in the outer face of the wall. The nave originally was not vaulted, but in the thirteenth century the vaulting shafts were adapted to receive the springing of a quadripartite vault, the ribs of which spring at the level already mentioned. Both aisles, however, were probably vaulted. At the end of the thirteenth century, a very wide south aisle was built for the sake of the parochial services, and the older aisle was removed. The north aisle, however, is left as it was: each bay is covered with a groined vault of plastered rubble. The groins are winding and irregular. The builders were evidently alive to the difficulty of keeping the crown of their vault level, where the compartment with which they had to deal was oblong in shape; and the groins are made to spring, not from the same point as the transverse arches dividing each bay, but from small stilts set rather awkwardly upon the springing blocks. The whole work is severely plain: the capitals of the soffit shafts of the main arcade have small volutes at their angles, and there is simple grotesque carving on the flat face of the capitals between the volutes. One of the bases also has an excellent double roll carved in cable fashion.

The date of this work is of some importance in the general history of English architecture. Apart from the early work at Westminster, few churches in England, built wholly under Norman influence, can have been completed at an earlier date than Blyth, although the building of several was in progress at the time when Blyth was founded. The largest eleventh-century church in the neighbourhood, that of Lincoln, was consecrated in 1092; and the remains of the earliest work there have much in common with Blyth--the wide-jointed masonry, unmoulded arches, voluted capitals, broad triforium arches, and single clerestory openings. The date of the consecration of Blyth, however, is unrecorded, and it should be borne in mind that the work in 1088 would have been begun with the eastern arm, of which there is nothing left. All, therefore, that can be said about it is, that it is approximately contemporary with the eleventh-century work at Lincoln, and that the elevation adopted in the lateral walls of both churches probably supplied a model to the builders of Southwell. The monks’ quire at Blyth extended one bay west of the crossing, and, at a later date, was divided from the nave by a solid wall the whole height of the building. On this wall, towards the nave, remain traces of painting: the eastern bay of the nave is open to the garden of the modern hall near the church, and was used for some time as an aviary.

The great church of Southwell, as it stands, was begun in the days of Thomas II., archbishop of York from 1109 to 1114. The eastern arm was terminated by a rectangular chancel, while the aisles ended in apses, the walls of which were rounded externally as well as internally. Traces alone remain of this interesting plan.[7] The transepts of the twelfth-century church remain, though the apsidal chapels to the east of them have gone: the whole of the nave and south porch, the central tower, and two western towers form one work with the transepts. The general character of this work is of a rather late Romanesque type. The gables of the transepts are filled with a relieved honeycomb pattern which bears some affinity to that used in the gables abutting on the lower stages of the western towers at Lincoln. The date of the Lincoln work has been supposed to lie between 1123 and 1148, but is very probably even later than the second date. The rich string-course of chevron ornament which, in spite of some mutilation, is still continued round the nave and transepts of Southwell at the level of the sills of the aisle windows, and is raised to form the segmental head of the doorway in the south transept, is another feature which points to the late completion of the western part of the church. The northern and western doorways of the nave, the first of five, the second of four shafted orders, in addition to the continuous inner order of rows of chevrons, have a refinement of detail which suggests a date not earlier than 1150. In the side walls of the north porch, the lower stage of the central tower, and the top stage but one of the north-west tower, are arcades of intersecting rounded arches. In the south-west tower, however, the arcade in the top stage but one consists of pointed arches. The probability is that the work was slowly achieved, and was not finished until the third quarter of the twelfth century. The earliest portion appears to be the great arches beneath the central tower, with their elaborate “double-cone” ornament, which is really a highly-developed variety of the twisted-cable sculpture, such as we have noticed on the base at Blyth.[8] The main arcades of the nave were then probably built westward as an abutment to these arches. The arcades are of seven bays up to the eastern piers of the towers. The arches have a curve of rather less than a semicircle: they are framed by a band of double-billet ornament beneath a small roll: they have a deep outer order with an edge-roll, and an inner order with two thick soffit rolls. They are divided by low and massive cylindrical columns, the capitals of which are cylinders of larger diameter, carved with scalloping and other ornament. This carving is incised, and little relief is given to the scalloping. The work of the triforium, clerestory, and aisles appears to have followed the building of the main arcades.[9] The triforium, as at Blyth, has a single bold opening in each bay. The moulding of the arches is very similar to that of the arches below, but the outer band of ornament is richer. The piers dividing them are square in section, and are recessed with an angle shaft and soffit shaft, each with scalloped capitals to bear the orders of the arches. The inner faces of the arches and jambs towards the triforium passage are left unmoulded. The clerestory consists of a circular opening in each bay, framed on the outside by a continuous roll moulding. There is a barrel-vaulted clerestory passage, which opens towards the nave by a plain rounded arch with soffit shafts in each bay. No vaulting shafts were ever planned: the elevation of the nave externally is rather flat and plain, but a strong horizontal line is given by the triforium string, and the effect of light and shade caused by the clerestory openings is one of the most beautiful features of this noble church. It was originally intended to introduce sub-arches into the triforium openings, on the plan adopted at Romsey: the preparations for this subdivision remain, but it was never carried out.

The aisles are vaulted in quadripartite compartments, with massive diagonal ribs, square in section, with thick edge rolls, and a double bead on the soffit. The centre of the diagonals is considerably below their springing, with a fatal result to the artistic effect of their curve. No special provision is made for their reception either on the side of the main arcades or that of the aisle wall: their outward pressure, which is considerable, is met by shallow pilaster buttresses, which serve as thickening to the wall at the necessary points. The north porch, which has a solar or upper chamber, is barrel-vaulted. The rough rubble vault, denuded of its plaster covering, forms a strange contrast to the richness of the north doorway and the intersecting arcades of the side walls. Although, as already said, all this work, and the north porch most of all, belongs to an advanced period of the twelfth century, the actual plan, with the two rather slender western towers, may probably be assigned to the time when the rebuilding of the church was first projected by Norman builders. The two western towers planned at Melbourne (probably after 1133) and Bakewell in Derbyshire, at once recall on plan the towers of Southwell, and are less likely to have suggested them than to have been suggested by them. There is little doubt that the two towers of Worksop priory church bear witness to the influence of Southwell, while the scheme of the elevation of the nave there was derived from Blyth and Southwell, and expressed in later terms.