broad, north and south aisles each 28 feet broad, a chancel of five bays
87 feet long, a western tower (making the total length 293 feet), a south
porch with chamber over it, and a chapel 18 feet by 40 feet immediately
to the west of the porch. All the nave and aisles windows, except the
four at the ends of the aisles, have decorated tracery, two designs (one
of them a very poor one) being alternated throughout; the three western
bays of the chancel have also decorated tracery. The four end windows of
the aisles, the west window of the chapel, and the four windows in the
eastern bays of the chancel are Perpendicular. The great east window has
modern tracery, copied from the east window of Carlisle Cathedral. The
three south windows of the chapel have reticulated tracery. The tower
is vaulted at a height of 157 feet. Below the vaulting are the door,
three great windows (west, north, and south), and above them four pairs
of windows with ogee heads; between the two sets of windows the walls
are pierced by an interior passage. Above the vaulting is a ringing
chamber, and over that the belfry surrounded by an exterior passage.
Access to this is gained by two staircases, the lower portions of which
are no part of the tower, but are contained in turrets, which were the
principal decoration of the west front before the tower was built. The
belfry contains the clock and a peal of twelve bells, on which tunes are
played by machinery every three hours. The bells are dated as follows:
1 and 2, 1785; 3, 1772; 4, 1710; 5, 1617; 6, 1758; 8, 1867; and the
remaining four, 1897. The roof of the tower rests on the transoms of the
four great belfry windows, the upper part being hollow. On the top of
the square tower stands the octagonal lantern, which appears never to
have been finished. The total height is 280 feet. The furniture is not
very noticeable, except the series of sixty-four _misericorde_ stalls in
the chancel. The altar is a modern one, 12 feet long. There are a modern
brass eagle lectern, a very poor litany desk, and the base of a poor
modern screen; the renaissance pulpit, with its sounding board recently
restored, is one of the best pieces of furniture. The font was designed
by Pugin, and is as satisfactory as could be expected; the benches are
clumsy and raised on platforms, and the alleys except the central one
have been filled with unnecessary benches, and so appear unduly cramped,
but there is a good open space at the west end. At present the base of
the tower is used as a vestry, but the erection of a new vestry opening
from the chancel is in contemplation. An organ is mentioned as having
been in existence in 1480, but it was destroyed in 1590; a new organ was
begun in 1713 by Schmidt, and it has since been continually repaired
and added to; there are now 2378 pipes. It is rather buried in an organ
chamber built out on the north side of the chancel, and has a poor
monotonous case dating from the last restoration.
MONUMENTS
The oldest monument in the church is one dated 1340, a black marble slab
in memory of Wisselus Smalenburg, citizen and merchant of Münster. It
was originally in the Church of the Franciscan Friars, but was buried
on the destruction of that church, then built for about a hundred
years into the wall of a cottage, and eventually was placed in Boston
Church, near the west end of the north aisle, in 1897. There are two
good fifteenth-century altar tombs in recesses in the south aisle: one
of a Knight Hospitaller in full armour, the other of a lady; both are
unidentified. They were originally in the Knights’ Church, and, when
that was pulled down in 1626, were moved to Boston Church, but have only
been in their present position since 1853, when the lady’s tomb had the
arms of Tilney carved upon it, though without any idea that she really
belonged to the Tilney family. On each side of the altar is a black
marble slab with brass; that on the north being in memory of Walter
Peascod and his wife; that on the south in memory of Richard Strensal,
rector from about 1375 to his death in 1408. He is vested in surplice,
almuce, and cope, the orphrey of the cope being adorned with figures of
the Apostles under canopies. Both these were originally in the Chapel of
SS. Peter and Paul. Towards the west end are some slabs which have no
doubt been engraved with figures, the faces and hands joined in prayer
being now filled in with concrete. The monuments generally seem to have
had their places much shifted in the restoration in the middle of the
nineteenth century.
ENDOWMENTS
The parish was originally endowed with tithes (which are now represented
by farms allotted in lieu thereof on the enclosure of the fens) and
glebe. On the ordination of the vicarage in 1480, the vicar was allowed
the use of the rectory house (pulled down in 1750, and now represented
by a house built in 1870), and also had a stipend of £33, 6s. 8d. (fifty
marks), charged upon the endowments of the rectory: he also receives
from the Governors of Boston Grammar School an annual income of £266,
13s. 4d., representing the provision made by Philip and Mary when they
restored to the Corporation of Boston the ancient endowments of the trade
guilds, out of which the Grammar School and the assistant clergy had been
supported. These endowments had been confiscated in 1552, under Edward
VI., by William Parr, Marquis of Northampton, who subsequently took part
in the attempt to set Lady Jane Grey on the throne: the vicar also has
a fen allotment and various small modern endowments which, allowing £75
for fees, bring up the income to about £400 per annum net. Provision is
also made under the charter of Philip and Mary for a second priest—the
lecturer—who receives £250 per annum from the Governors of the Grammar
School, and interest on £200 (Falkner’s Legacy), which latter sum is
in the hands of the Corporation. The Mayor’s Chaplaincy, founded in
1557 by Henry Fox, has an endowment of about £160 per annum, managed by
the Boston Charity Trustees. There is a modern endowment of about £45
per annum, given by the Misses Gee, for the curate of St. James’; the
Ecclesiastical Commission allow two sums of £60 each towards the stipends
of the fourth and fifth priests; and there are other small endowments
for the choir, the fabric and the poor, which bring up the total income
from endowments in connection with the church to about £1000 per annum.
It is impossible to exactly distinguish the rectory endowments from the
other lands held by the Corporation, but, roughly, their value may be
taken at £1200 per annum. About £2000 per annum is raised by voluntary
subscription in connection with the church.
[Illustration: BOSTON CHURCH.]
RECTORS AND VICARS
1228. John Romanus. His legitimacy was doubtful, and he had to obtain
a papal dispensation before holding the benefice. He was Canon and
first Sub-Dean of York Minster, and afterwards Treasurer and Archdeacon
of Richmond. He was the father of the Archbishop of York of the same
name. He died in 1256 at an advanced age. It is not known who was his
successor in the rectory.
1309. John Truesdale, as rector, laid the foundation of the present
church.
Henry de Hemmyngburgh, afterwards Sub-Dean of Lincoln.
1316. Mr. John Barett.
1362. William de Sandford.
John Strensal, rector in 1378 and 1381.
1408. Richard Fleming, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln and
Archbishop-designate of York.
1425. John Ickworth.
1431. Richard Layot.
1448. John Marshall.
1462. Roger Cheshire.
1482. William Smyth, the first vicar, presented by the Knights of St.
John. All the rectors had been presented by St. Mary’s Abbey. He was
prebendary of Heyther in Lincoln Cathedral. He was buried in Boston
Church, but his brass, mentioned by Colonel Holles and by Browne Willis,
is not now visible.
1505. William Gunays, died at Boston.
1505. Robert Wylburfos, died at Boston.
1512. John Tynemouth, Bishop of Argos, buried in Boston Church.
1524. John Mabledon, D.D., a brother of the Order of St. John. He
resigned on a pension of £6, 13s. 4d. per annum.
1536. Brian Sandford, probably an opponent of the changes which had
already begun when he was instituted. In 1552, when the church was being
spoiled of its plate and furniture, the Corporation order communication
to be had with Vicar Sandford for surrendering his benefice.
1554. Robert Richardson, whose tenure of office just coincided with the
reign of Queen Mary. He would be the first of eighteen vicars presented
by the Corporation of Boston.
1559. William Fiske, preferred to Moulton vicarage.
1561. William Holland.
1583. Lewis Evans.
1584. James Worshippe, M.A., formerly Mayor’s Chaplain.
1592. William Armstead.
1594. Samuel Wright, B.D.; he resigned.
1599. Thomas Wooll, M.A., a Nonconformist. He was presented at the
Archdeacon’s visitation in 1606 “that he weareth not the surplice; it
hath been tendered to him, and he sitteth upon it.” He was preferred in
1612 to the rectory of Skirbeck.
1612. John Cotton, M.A.: after twenty years of nonconformity he found
it necessary to resign his benefice, and flee to America to avoid
prosecution. In compliment to him and other refugees the settlement of
Trimountain had its name changed to Boston. He died there in 1652.
1633. Anthony Tuckney, D.D., a Nonconformist, Mayor’s Chaplain from 1629,
Master of Emmanuel College in 1644, Trinity College in 1653, and Regius
Professor of Divinity in 1655 at Cambridge, and therefore non-resident.
From 1651 the Corporation paid Banks Anderson (who had since 1643 been
minister at Holbeach) £70 per annum to minister in the church; but as he
was an antipædobaptist, a separate minister had to be hired to administer
holy baptism. Anderson was one of the elders summoned by Cromwell to
his Independent Convention at the Savoy in 1658. About the time of his
arrival in Boston, a great witch-hunting campaign took place. On the
Restoration he formed an Independent congregation; he died in 1668, and
was buried in the church. Tuckney resigned his vicarage in 1660, and his
other preferments in 1662. He died in 1670.
1660. Obadiah Howe, D.D., a Puritan, previously successively in charge of
Stickney and Gedney. His brass is in the chapel.
1683. Henry Morland, M.A., previously Lecturer. He died at Boston.
1702. Edward Kelsall, M.A., previously Master of the Grammar School. He
died at Boston.
1719. Samuel Coddington, M.A., also previously Master of the Grammar
School. He died at Boston.
1732. John Rigby, M.A., also previously Master of the Grammar School. He
died at Boston.
1746. John Calthrop, M.A., also Vicar of Kirkton, and a prebendary
of Lincoln Cathedral. He represented the clergy of the diocese in
Convocation. He was buried at Gosberton, of which place he was a native.
1785. Samuel Partridge, M.A. He also held the rectory of the south
mediety of Leverton till 1797, and was also Vicar of Wigtoft and of
Quadring.
1817. Bartholomew Goe, B.A.
1838. John Furness Ogle, M.A., collated by the Bishop of Lincoln under
the provisions of the Municipal Reform Act, 1835. He died at Boston.
1851. George Beatson Blenkin, M.A., a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral,
under whom the church was restored. He died at Boston.
1892. John Stephenson, M.A., a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral. He
resigned.
1905. Reginald Thomas Heygate, M.A., a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral.
THE TOWN AND CHURCH OF GRANTHAM
BY A. HAMILTON THOMPSON, M.A.
Grantham is still, and long has been, a name familiar to travellers
between the north and south of England. Only a few miles west of the
old Roman road from London to York, it lies directly in the course of
the more modern road, and for more than fifty years has been one of the
principal halting-places on a great railway system. The traveller from
the south, who has left the Fenland behind him some ten miles north of
Peterborough, and has for another ten miles or so ascended the valley of
a stream whose waters eventually find their way into the Welland near the
Wash, passes through a short tunnel, and rapidly descends into the Witham
valley. On his left hand the Witham winds through pleasant meadows, with
the noble tower of Great Ponton Church on its farther bank. The stream
passes under the railway near the ford by which the traveller approached
Grantham during the greater part of its history, leaving the Roman road
not far west of Somerby for the by-road known as the Saltway. The smoke
of engineering works begins to fill the air; and the tower of Spittlegate
Church, close to the line, and, farther away, the rather attenuated tower
and cupola of the Town Hall, promise little historical or architectural
interest. But if he looks a little beyond his immediate surroundings
he will see that beyond this industrial and modern suburb there lies a
more inviting town, with a huge tower and spire and the body of a great
church mounting high above its red-tiled roofs, with a pretty background
of tree-crowned ridge, with the parks of Belton and Syston closing the
view to the north-east, and to the north-west the line of the North Road
as it cuts its way up Gonerby Hill.
Grantham is sometimes said to take its name from the river, one name of
which, as of the Cam at Cambridge, may have been the Grant. The Witham,
which rises across the border of Rutland some miles to the south, and
flows northward from Grantham, approaching the Trent near Newark, and
turning aside to take its own course to the sea by Lincoln and Boston,
widened into a small lake or marsh as it drew near to Grantham. The
first settlement of Grantham must have been dictated by the sight of a
potentially fertile valley. It grew up, so far as we know, neither round
an abbey nor beneath a castle, but as a community of agriculturists. The
church, which grew to such proportions in its midst, grew probably with
the prosperity of the town; while of the castle, which stood on the east
side of the town, between it and the river, we know nothing but the name.
Grantham was not one of those fortified river towns, like Stamford and
Nottingham, which played a part in the campaigns of Edward the Elder and
his sister. And its first definite appearance in history is the entry in
Domesday Book, where it is numbered with the King’s possessions. It had
belonged to Edith, Queen of Edward the Confessor; and included within
it there was a right of jurisdiction, granted by a nun named Ælswith to
Peterborough Abbey, and now held by Colegrim. The Queen had a hall in
the demesne, and the church and its property are mentioned. The history
of the manor and soke of Grantham is somewhat complicated, and a full
account of it is beyond the scope of this article.[45] When Edward I.’s
commissioners visited the town in 1275, to inquire by what warrant lands
were held there and privileges exercised, the jurors gave an account
of the descent of the lordship, which indicates that the Norman kings,
like their successors, treated the manor and soke as grants to be held
in dower by their wives or daughters.[46] They said that Maud “regina
et heres Anglie”—obviously Henry I.’s daughter, the Empress—enfeoffed
William de Tancarville, hereditary chamberlain of the duchy of Normandy,
of Grantham and the whole soke, to be held of her in chief, apparently
by service of ten knights’ fees, as he sub-enfeoffed this number of
knights. The chamberlain’s grandson, Ralph, took part in the rebellion of
Normandy against John, and forfeited the possession. John then gave the
town with the soke to William, Earl of Warenne, on whose death in 1240
his widow, Maud, a daughter of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, was
allowed to remain in seisin. At her death, however, in 1249, Henry III.
resumed the property, claiming that the Earl had held it only while the
King was pleased to suffer him; and in 1254, when Prince Edward married
Eleanor of Castile, it was granted to him, the claims of John, the then
Earl Warenne, being overlooked.[47] Edward, however, a few years later
gave the town and soke to the Earl, to be held of him by the service of
four knights. The grant was confirmed by a royal charter, in which Henry
III. laid stress on the principle that the manor was inalienable from the
crown. The lordship and manor seem to have been in different hands from
the later part of the reign of Henry II. to this period; but under Prince
Edward and Earl John they seem to have been reunited.[48]
Earl John died in 1304, and the lordship escheated to the Crown. It was
then granted to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who held it till
his death in 1324.[49] Edward II. then granted it, or part of it—for
here again there seems to have been a temporary divorcement of the
lordship from the manor—to John, Earl Warenne, the younger.[50] But he
first took care to preclude John from claiming it as his hereditary
right by requiring him to quit-claim it to the Crown: this done, he
allowed the grant. In 1338, shortly before John’s death, Edward III.
gave the reversion of part of the tenement to William de Bohun, Earl
of Northampton,[51] after whose death (1360) his son Humphrey was
allowed to hold it. In 1363, the castle and town were granted to Edmund
of Langley.[52] The manor was possibly retained by the young Earl of
Northampton, and the grant of castle and town seems not to have included
the soke. In 1399, the manor reverted to the Crown, by the attainder of
its holder, the Earl of Northumberland, and was granted to Edmund of
Langley. The soke also, on the death of Sir Robert Byron, passed into
Edmund’s hands.[53] Edmund died in 1402; and castle and town, with
manor and soke, were granted to his son Edward, Duke of York, who died
at Agincourt. In 1420 they were given in dower to Katharine of France on
her marriage. Edward IV., in 1461, granted the lordship with the manor to
his mother Cicely, Duchess of York: his grant included the inn called “le
George.”[54] On her death, the manor with its appurtenances was settled
on her granddaughter, Elizabeth of York; and from that time till the time
of William III., save for an alienation to private owners during the
Commonwealth, it was regarded as Crown property, and held in dower by
the Queen-Consort for the time being. The Earls of Rutland were stewards
of the manor. William III., in 1696, alienated it to the first Earl of
Portland, and since then it has remained in private hands, though not in
the same family.
Other proprietors also held property, and had certain forms of
jurisdiction in the town. The traveller who entered it from the south in
the year 1300, after crossing the Salters’ Ford and passing the leper
hospital which about this time began to give its name to the suburb of
Spittlegate, might have seen, on the wide space outside the town, near
the modern Town Hall, the cross which within the last few years the
King of England had built to mark the southward progress of his wife’s
funeral procession.[55] On his right hand, on and near the modern St.
Peter’s Hill, were the lands of the abbey of Peterborough, which had
been granted to it by Ælswith before the Conquest, and by Colegrim
afterwards, and had been confirmed to it by royal charter.[56] On this
land probably stood the Church of St. Peter, of which too little is
known to justify definite statement.[57] Near the church he would see
the opening of Castlegate, east of which lay the Castle, the visible
symbol of the royal lordship. He would keep straight on along the higher
ground. Passing along High Street, he might already see here and there
a handsome house of Ancaster stone, such as he certainly would see in
forty or fifty years’ time. It is doubtful whether the inn, afterwards
known as the “George,” was built yet: it is probable that the little
guild chapel which stood on the same side of the street till late in
the eighteenth century belonged to a later period. Farther on, on the
opposite side, stood the “Angel Inn,” on the property of the Knights
Templars of Temple Bruer. Within the next decade the Order of the Temple
would be no more; and their property here, as elsewhere, would—at any
rate, it seems likely—be granted to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem
in England. The gateway of the “Angel,” as we know it to-day, was not
built till more than half a century later: the rest of the street
front is of a still later date. Opposite the “Angel” was the opening,
afterwards known as Coal Hill, leading to the market-place—if, indeed,
the market-place was divided from the High Street then as now. On the
west side of the market-place was the house of the Grey Friars, on the
property known later as the Grange, and for some time, in accordance
with the modern genius for confounding monks with friars, as Cistercian
Place. It is possible that the Franciscans, who appeared in Grantham
about 1290, may have come from the house of their order at Bury St.
Edmunds, and that the Benedictine abbey of Bury may have allowed them to
settle on the property which it had received in frankalmoin from William
de Tancarville, and had been allowed to retain after the forfeiture of
the Tancarville estates.[58] In 1318 Richard Kellawe, Bishop of Durham,
allowed the Friars to convey water to their house from springs on his
land at Gonerby; and the conduit, built in 1579, which is to be seen
on the west side of the market-place, is the successor of the conduit
of the Friars. But it is probable that already, in 1300, the chief of
the four ancient wells from which Grantham took its supply was in the
centre of the market: it may already have been roofed over, and the dyers
may already have begun to spread their goods on market-days beneath
the projecting eaves of the roof. At the “Angel” the traveller would
be sure to find wool-merchants travelling from fair to fair, or the
King’s buyers come to transact business with the rising wool-merchants
of the town.[59] North of the “Angel,” the High Street was continued,
under the name of Watergate, down the slope of the hill which led to the
watering-place at the bridge over the Mowbeck, the little stream which,
flowing down the Harlaxton valley, met the Witham below the town. Our
traveller would leave this on his left: a narrow lane, now Vine Street,
used till 1705 merely as a foot-path to the church, would take him to the
head of Swinegate, the road along which the town swine were driven daily
to spend the day on Manthorpe Moor. Here possibly markets had been held
till within the last quarter of a century; and here, till 1645, stood
the old Apple Cross, the High Cross of Grantham. But the space had been
encroached upon by the westward extension of the church;[60] so that
Grantham lost that magnificent combination of church and market-square
which is the unrivalled distinction of its neighbour Newark. What the
town had lost, however, the church had gained in architectural beauty;
and in the year 1300 the west front, much as we now see it, had been
finished, and the scaffolding was probably being removed from a spire
which at that time was unsurpassed in England. The spire of the mother
church of Salisbury was not to be completed for many years: the spire
of Newark was not taken in hand till the second quarter of the century.
More than a century later, Grantham spire would be surpassed in height
and grace of proportion by the great lantern-tower at Boston: two hundred
years later, the spire of Louth would challenge both. But in beauty of
detail, whatever may be their advantages in design, neither Louth nor
Boston can compare with Grantham; and in this respect the one steeple in
England which has ever surpassed it is the “Broad” Tower of Lincoln. Yet
even this was not yet completed for another ten or eleven years, so that
for the moment the spire of Grantham stood without an equal.
The space by the Apple Cross was then, we may suppose, less impeded by
houses than at present; and south and south-east of the churchyard were
the outer works of the Castle, whose memory was long preserved in Castle
Dyke, the lower part of Castlegate. But of the Castle itself, as has been
said, little is known.[61] Only once in its history, and then apparently
when the Castle existed no longer, was Grantham prominent as a military
centre. The Kings of England, its nominal lords, must all have passed
through Grantham in their progresses. Edward I. was often there.[62]
Edward IV. came through the town at the head of the procession which
brought the body of his father from Pontefract Priory to the College of
Fotheringhay. Charles I. was there at least three times, on his way to
Scotland in 1633, and again in 1640 and 1641. On none of these occasions
do we hear of the Castle. And when, on the 19th of October 1483, Richard
III. sealed the death-warrant of the Duke of Buckingham here, causing the
Great Seal to be brought for that purpose post-haste from London, he did
it, not in the Castle, but “in a chamber called the King’s Chamber in
the Angel Inn”—the chamber whose outer wall, and at any rate one window,
may be seen above the gateway of the “Angel.” The Castle may have risen
in Norman times, possibly on the site of Queen Edith’s hall, the face
of which, however, would have been completely altered by the new Norman
earthworks. But, if this were so, the most that we hear of it is a casual
mention here and there, and its survival in one or two local names.
[Illustration: ANGEL HOTEL, GRANTHAM.]