Grimsby.
[Tanner states, the house was called Thorneton Curteis, and Torrington.
It was founded by William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle, and Lord of
Holderness, about the year 1139, for Austin Canons, and was dedicated
to the Virgin Mary. Dugdale says, that when first founded it was a
priory, and the monks were introduced from the monastery of Kirkham;
but was changed into an abbey by Pope Eugenius III., A.D. 1148. Though
Henry VIII. suppressed the Abbey, he reserved the greater part of the
lands to endow a college, which he erected in its room, for a dean and
prebendaries, to the honour of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. From the
remains it must have been a magnificent building. Originally it
consisted of an extensive quadrangle, surrounded by a deep ditch, with
high ramparts, and built in a style adapted for occasional defence. To
the east of the gateway are the remains of the abbey church. The
chapter-house, part of which is standing, was of an octangular shape,
and highly decorated. On the south of the ruins of the church is a
building, now occupied as a farm-house, which formerly was the
residence of the abbots. It was afterwards the seat of Edward {470}
Skinner, Esq., who married Ann, daughter of Sir William Wentworth,
brother to the unfortunate Earl of Strafford. The estate was purchased
from one of the Skinner family by Sir Richard Sutton, Bart.; it is now
in the possession of Lord Yarborough. In taking down a wall in the
ruins of the abbey, a human skeleton was found, with a table, a book,
and a candle-stick. It is supposed to have been the remains of the
fourteenth abbot, who, it is stated, was for some crime sentenced to be
immured--a mode of capital punishment not uncommon in monasteries. Four
views of the abbey are given in Allen's _History of Lincolnshire_, vol
ii., and some farther notices of its ancient state will be found in
Dugdale's _Monasticon_, vol. vi. pl. i. p. 324.; Tanner's _Notitia_,
Lincolnshire, lxxvii.; and _Beauties of England and Wales_, vol. ix. p.
684.]
_Bishop Wilson's "Sacra Privata."_--In the new edition of this work, p.
381., there is given a table of "The Collects, with their Tendencies."
Under the head of Fasting, references are made to the First Sunday in Lent,
_and the Tenth and Twenty-third after Trinity_.--There must be some mistake
in this, as the last two collects refer to prayer. This for your
correspondent MR. DENTON, to whom I understand the Church is indebted for
the redintegration of the good bishop's journal.