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
[Illustration]
[Illustration: NOTTINGHAM. THE OLD TRENT BRIDGE.]
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.
[Illustration: BLYTH PRIORY CHURCH.]
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.