Nottingham, which is almost entirely of one period, is the crowning
example. The rebuilding of this fine church was achieved during the
second and third quarters of the century. The architectural detail,
apart from that of the south porch, which was probably built when the
aisles were set out, as a beginning to the work, is somewhat hard and
formal; but the characteristic skill of the age in design is everywhere
present. The aisles were set out in six bays, divided by buttresses,
each bay containing two windows of three lights each. In the west walls
of the aisles are two windows of four lights each, with a doorway
beneath each pair; the south doorway and porch are in the third bay
from the east. Inside the church a very marked string-course, with
hollowed underside, forms a continuous sill to the windows, which are
framed within rectangular panels, formed by shafts projecting from
the wall near the outer edge of the moulded window recesses. These
shafts are continued through and below the string-course to tall bases
resting on a plain bench-table, so that the wall below the windows is
formed into a second series of panels. A similar framing is applied
to the arches of the nave and windows of the clerestory and to the
clerestoried transepts, of which the upper portions are contemporary
with the arcade and west wall of the nave, and were not added until the
aisles had been completed.[29] The treatment of the chancel, although
in general keeping with the rest of the work, is much plainer: here, as
elsewhere, the monastic impropriators, the prior and convent of Lenton,
felt no desire to emulate the expense to which the lay parishioners
committed themselves in the nave and transepts. The cruciform plan,
which was employed at St. Mary’s, is uncommon in Nottinghamshire;
and it may be mentioned that in one originally cruciform plan which
remains, that of Whatton, the transepts have been absorbed within
the aisles by the not uncommon method of widening the aisles to the
extent of the projection of the transepts. At St. Mary’s, the fine
effect of the tall central tower and long transepts is very noticeable
from outside. Internally, the need of aisles, both to transepts and
chancel, is much felt; and, although the whole design is actually more
interesting than the work at Newark, it has not the same grace or
spaciousness.
Most of the churches of the county have some remains of
fifteenth-century work. Here, as elsewhere, towers were built or
heightened, and clerestories were added to earlier naves. The best
work of this date, on the whole, is found in the north-east part
of the county. East Markham church was entirely rebuilt about the
middle of the century, and few churches are better examples of the
excellent proportions of “Perpendicular” work. The chancel of Tuxford
church, rebuilt in the last quarter of the century, and the elaborate
clerestory at Laxton, added much beauty and dignity to plain fabrics
of an earlier date. For combined beauty and simplicity, one of the
most attractive buildings in the county is the little church of Holme,
near Newark, rebuilt, with a south aisle to the nave and chapel to
the chancel and a handsome south porch with a solar or upper chamber,
towards the end of the century. This church fortunately keeps some
of its old furniture and stained glass, and, although the inner
face of its walls has been subjected to the process of scraping, it
has otherwise been little spoiled. Here, as at Tuxford and in most
of the late fifteenth-century work of the county, the windows have
depressed heads, which practically form an obtuse angle, and prominent
hood-mouldings; while the arch leading into the porch is four-centred.
The row of seven shields of arms above the doorway of the porch gives
some richness of effect to a design otherwise unpretentious.
The large number of chantries founded in Nottinghamshire were the
cause of the enlargement of many fabrics. This was certainly the case
at Newark, where several chantries were endowed during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries.[30] The majority of such foundations in the
county belong to a comparatively early date, and the effect which they
had on the plan is seen chiefly in the enlargement of the aisles.
Chantry chapels which form an excrescence from the fabric are rare.
The north chancel chapel at Sibthorpe, which has now disappeared, and
the chapel at Willoughby-on-the-Wolds, are examples of such additions
in the fourteenth century.[31] At Southwell the chantry chapel founded
by Archbishop Lawrence Booth, in which stood the altar of St. William
and St. Cuthbert,[32] projected from the wall of the south aisle.
It was built upon the enlarged site of an earlier chapel: it was
unfortunately destroyed in 1784. The foundation of a small college of
chantry priests (1476) in the cruciform church of Clifton-on-Trent[33]
led to the enlargement of the church and partial rebuilding of the
chancel. The enlargement of Holme church, which took place in or
a little before 1490, was due to the desire of the founder, John
Barton, to establish a chantry there.[34] This chantry, if actually
founded, was no longer in existence at the time of the suppression
of the chantries. The south chapel at Wollaton was built for the
accommodation of the service called Willoughby’s chantry, founded at
the end of 1470.[35] But, as a rule, the foundation of chantries was
followed by little variation of the normal plan. Thus, at Tuxford,
where Sir John de Longvilliers had contemplated the foundation of a
college of chantry priests in the middle of the fourteenth century, and
actually endowed three chaplains,[36] the plan consists of the long
chancel, built by the impropriating priory of Newstead in 1495, a north
chapel, a nave with north and south aisles, south porch, and western
tower. At Ratcliffe-on-Soar there is also a large north chapel to the
chancel.[37] The normal plan, however, of the Nottinghamshire parish
church is that of a chancel without chapels, aisled nave, western
tower, and south porch. East Markham is an excellent instance of this
design.
Monuments of lords of the manor and founders of chantries are a very
characteristic feature, which add to the architectural beauty of
Nottinghamshire churches. The series of three monuments, two of the
thirteenth and one of the early fourteenth century, at West Leake
are remarkable: the monument of a lady on the north of the altar is
almost unexcelled for beauty among effigies of the date. The late
thirteenth-century table-tomb of one of the Lexingtons and the effigies
(one wooden) of the Everinghams at Laxton, and the fine series of
fourteenth-century tombs at Whatton deserve special mention; while at
Willoughby-on-the-Wolds is a series of effigies from the thirteenth to
the middle of the fifteenth century. Reference has been made to the
architectural beauty of the founders’ tombs at Hawton and Sibthorpe.
But the finest monuments of all are those of the late fourteenth and
fifteenth century, when Nottingham was the centre of the alabaster
industry, and the work of its craftsmen was known far and wide through
England. Of the monuments already mentioned, one or more at West Leake,
Laxton, and Whatton are of alabaster. Holme Pierrepont and Staunton,
among other places, supply good examples. The beautiful table-tomb at
Wollaton, between the chancel and the south chapel, is one of the best.
But, for its architectural effect, the most striking of all the series
is the late fourteenth-century table-tomb in the middle of the chancel
at Strelley. This, combined with the other tombs of the chancel and the
very handsome rood-screen, gives great impressiveness to the interior
of a lofty and well-designed, but plain, building.
More definitely architectural than these monuments is the gorgeous
canopied chantry chapel, which a member of the Babington family built
for himself between the chancel and south chapel at Kingston-on-Soar.
The chancel and south chapel, which has a shallow half-hexagonal bay
for an altar in its east wall, were rebuilt in 1538: the date is carved
on the outside of the church, where shields of arms in rectangular
panels are inserted in the wall. The chantry chapel is a rectangular
erection, like those at Newark or the La Warre chapel at Boxgrove,
standing within the arch south of the chancel, and has a stone canopy,
elaborately vaulted, resting on four columns at the angles. The
space between its foot and the west side of the arch is bridged by a
depressed archway, forming an entrance into the south chapel, with an
attic and pediment above. No tomb or altar remains within the chantry
chapel. The design is rather heavy, and the broad octagonal capitals of
the angle columns are distinctly clumsy. Every inch of the structure is
covered with sculpture, some of which is coarse and inferior; but the
“babe in tun,” the rebus of the Babingtons, is repeated in the hollow
mouldings of arches and capitals with a wonderful amount of variety and
liveliness, and there is a very delicate, although crowded, carving of
the Doom on the east wall. The sculpture may fairly be compared with
that of the screen of the Kirkham chapel at Paignton in Devon, which
is rather earlier in date, and of the almost contemporary chapel of
Bishop West at Ely. The hexagonal coffering of the columns suggests
that the designer had seen the cast-metal screen of Henry VII.’s tomb
at Westminster, and wished to reproduce it in stone. The archway west
of the chapel has mouldings and other features of an unmistakably
Renaissance type. A step further towards the Renaissance is taken in
the tomb of Henry Sacheverell (d. 1558) in the neighbouring church of
Ratcliffe-on-Soar, where there are rough Italianesque reliefs on the
pilasters at the angles of the monument: the tomb of his father, Ralph
Sacheverell (d. 1539) is, on the other hand, Gothic in all but the
lettering.
The period after the Reformation is not within the province of
this chapter; but a word may be added as to the survival of Gothic
work after the civil war at St. Nicholas in Nottingham, and in the
well-designed central tower at East Retford, and to the beautiful
modern churches, in which the spirit of medieval Gothic architecture
is so well maintained, designed by Mr. G. F. Bodley, at St. Alban’s
in Sneinton, and at Clumber. Something, however, remains yet to be
said of towers and spires. Of spires later than those that have been
mentioned, the best is at West Retford, where the flying buttresses
seem to indicate a Lincolnshire origin for the design. Scrooby, Weston,
and Tuxford, in the same part of the county, and Edwinstowe, further
west, have good spires. In the district round Nottingham, spires, where
they occur, are, as already has been said, very plain. The unusually
lofty tower and spire at the north-west corner of Gedling church,
however, would call for honourable mention in any part of England. The
tower and spire of Attenborough are also an excellent composition.
The massive and heavily buttressed tower at Keyworth is crowned by a
stone octagon rising from a square base, and surmounted by a small
spire, and is engaged within aisles, which are not continued the full
length of the nave eastwards: the elevation and plan are altogether
exceptional. Of fifteenth-century towers, a large number, especially
in the north of the county, are of the ordinary type found in south
Yorkshire--_e.g._ at Silkstone, South Kirkby, or Fishlake. The
details are plain, there is a single window of two lights in each face
of the belfry-stage, and a battlemented parapet with slender pinnacles
at the angles. Such towers are found at Blyth, where the elaborate
parapet was clearly suggested by that of the neighbouring church of
Tickhill, and at Mattersey, East Markham, Saundby, Bole, Gamston, West
Drayton, and several other places: the type occurs as far south as
Hickling. At Carlton-in-Lindrick a belfry-stage and buttresses were
added to an eleventh-century unbuttressed tower. Sturton-le-Steeple
owes the latter part of its name to the far-seen array of twelve
pinnacles with which the builders thought fit to surround the parapet.
The tower of Dunham-on-Trent has a very lofty belfry-stage, pierced
with enormous windows of three lights, with different tracery in
each face--a design as unique in its way as the chancel at Barnby.
Near Newark a different type of tower comes into use about 1480.
This has double window openings in the belfry-stage, with depressed
heads and prominent hoods: the string-courses are more in number and
project more boldly, and the pinnacles of the parapet are less thin
in design. Hawton is the best example of this type, which has more
architectural ambition than the other: it is also found at Rolleston,
and across the Lincolnshire border at Beckingham and in the upper
stage of Hough-on-the-Hill. South Muskham, more massive and earlier
in date than Hawton and Rolleston, belongs to the same family. Upton,
near Southwell, has a small fifteenth-century tower, in the centre
of which is a solid stone pinnacle or spirelet. Other towers, such
as Sibthorpe, Woodborough, or Linby, of various dates and designs,
are merely serviceable bell-towers of no special architectural merit.
For gracefulness of design, no Nottinghamshire tower of the later
Gothic period appeals to the present writer so much as that of Car
Colston, with its long and slender belfry-openings. Indeed, the whole
church, with its thirteenth-century south doorway and its beautiful
fourteenth-century chancel, is pre-eminently one of those buildings
in which, as Dr. Whitaker said of Patrick Brompton in Yorkshire, “the
antiquary may happily waste an hour”; and, in its peaceful seclusion
at the head of one of the prettiest village greens in England, is the
appropriate last resting-place of the historian of the county, Robert
Thoroton.
NEWSTEAD PRIORY AND THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
BY REV. J. CHARLES COX, LL.D., F.S.A.
The county of Nottingham, considering its limited area, was rich
in old religious foundations. Almost every variety of mediaeval
monasticism was found within its bounds. There were Benedictine monks
at Blyth, and Benedictine nuns had a small house at Wallingwells.
Those reformed Benedictines, known as Cluniacs and Cistercians, were
each represented in this county--the former at the important priory
of Lenton, and the latter at the abbey of Rufford. The Carthusians,
the most rigorous order of all the monks, had a house of some note
at Beauvale. The Black or Austin Canons had five priories, of varied
importance, at Felley, Newstead, Shelford, Thurgarton, and Worksop. The
White or Premonstratensian Canons had a large and important abbey at
Welbeck; whilst at Broadholme was one of the only two English nunneries
pertaining to this order. The Gilbertine Canons were also represented
at the priory of Mattersey. The Knights Hospitallers had a preceptory
at Ossington, and they also held other property which they inherited
from the dissolved Templars.
As to the friars, it is not a little singular that so powerful an order
as the preaching Dominicans had no house in the county; they had,
however, friaries near at hand in the counties of Derby, Leicester, and
Lincoln. The county town, however, had settlements of both Franciscan
and Carmelite friars, whilst there was an establishment of Observants
or reformed Franciscans at Newark.
The colleges or collegiate churches, wherein a company of priests led
a more or less regulated common life, were six in number--namely, the
great collegiate church of Secular Canons, probably based on an earlier
monastic foundation, at Southwell, and five later congregations of
chantry priests at Clifton, Newark, Ruddington, Sibthorpe, and Tuxford.
The hospitals or almshouses of mediaeval foundation, under a more
or less definite religious rule, numbered thirteen--namely, five at
the county town, two at Blyth, and one each at Bawtry, Bradebusk,
Lenton, Newark, Southwell, and Stoke. In Nottinghamshire, as indeed
throughout the greater part of England, the story of the old hospitals
is a gloomy record of peculation by the masters or wardens of funds
intended by the founders for the relief of the sick and needy, so that
the seizing of their funds, as planned by Henry VIII. and carried out
by Edward VI., did but little harm to God’s poor. In this county, too,
the exceptionally large proportion of three of these houses managed to
survive the cruelly avaricious storm of the sixteenth century--namely,
Bawtry, Newark, and Plumptre (Nottingham); they are still doing good
work.
Although it is proper to include the mediaeval colleges and hospitals
under the head of religious houses, the description of them in this
short survey would too much curtail the limited space that can be
allotted to the more important foundations. It is much to be desired
that some one with the necessary ability and leisure would undertake a
Nottinghamshire Monasticon on a thorough scale, so rich and abundant is
the material ready to hand for those who know where to look for it. In
fact, several of the houses, notably Lenton, Newstead, Welbeck, Blyth,
and Beauvale--notwithstanding all that has been written of them--might
readily be treated in monographs on no meagre scale.
In order to find room for these brief historical sketches, it has also
been necessary to omit any reference to existing monastic remains. In
the majority of cases there are no traces left above ground of any of
the Nottinghamshire houses, but to this rule Newstead Priory is an
extensive and distinguished exception, whilst certain parts of the
Beauvale Charterhouse still standing are of importance and interest.
A few general remarks may be permitted before proceeding to the more
particular but very brief discussion of each house.
In Nottinghamshire there is an exceptional amount of general
interest pertaining to the history and development of several of the
monasteries. Thus Blyth Priory, in addition to the difficult problems
involved under its rule between the foreign abbot in Normandy and its
diocesan the Archbishop of York, had a direct influence on the trade of
Nottinghamshire and south Yorkshire by reason of the considerable tolls
that it was enabled to levy on all merchandise passing through Blyth,
either by road or water. Again, the great semi-foreign Cluniac priory
of Lenton entirely overshadowed the town of Nottingham in matters
spiritual, and to some extent in matters temporal, after the like
fashion that the Cluniac priory of St. Andrew overshadowed the town of
Northampton.
Various picturesque incidents telling of the wildness of the districts
on the border of Sherwood Forest pertain to the story of Welbeck Abbey,
the greatest of the Premonstratensian houses, towards the end of its
life; whilst the special position and privileges of the houses of
Newstead and Rufford, within the centre of the same forest, are briefly
mentioned in another article in this volume.
Much can be gleaned as to the condition of the monasteries of
Nottinghamshire from time to time from the various visitations
recorded of the houses subject to diocesan control, as well as those
made by special visitors of exempt Orders, such as those of Cluni
and Prémontré. In these sketches nothing of the nature of evil or
careless living that is brought to light is omitted; but the noteworthy
smallness of the number of grave charges, as compared with the number
of the inmates, and of the great frequency of visitations wherein
no laxity was discovered, cannot fail to bring every honourable and
competent judge to the twofold conclusion that (1) the life and work of
the great majority of the Nottinghamshire “religious” were distinctly
praiseworthy and in accordance with their vows, and (2) that there was
a persistent determination on the part of those in authority to deal
sternly with careless or criminal living. To pass judgment on a whole
class, because of the sins or laxity occasionally detected among an
insignificant minority, is as malicious and absurd in connection with
England’s vowed religious of the past, as it would be to do the like
with England’s clergy of the present day.
As to the slanderous _Comperta_, or abbreviated charges of Legh
and Layton (men themselves of infamous life), Cromwell’s notorious
visitors of 1536, their amazing accusations against the religious of
this county are at once confuted by a study of the subsequent pension
lists. Take a single instance, the charges against Abbot Doncaster of
Rufford were of an appalling character; nevertheless, within a few
months of this report being presented, the abbot received a pension
of £25, which was, however, very speedily withdrawn in favour of
his appointment by the Crown to the important living of Rotherham.
Or again, in the cases of Welbeck and Worksop, the foul-minded
visitors singled out four of each house as guilty of peculiarly vile
offences, and yet seven of them were pensioned and the eighth retained
in a vicarage. Supposing for a moment that the black lists of the
_Comperta_ were true, which no one worthy of the name of historian
now ventures to contend, the action of the granters of pensions and
preferments was worse than that of the accused.
As there are still one or two writers who persist in trying to make
their readers believe in the generally foul life of the old monks and
nuns, with a malignant and ignorant persistency, it may be well to
point out that a second commission was sent out by the Crown in 1536,
consisting of State officials and leading gentlemen of each county
visited. Their elaborate and detailed reports are extant for religious
houses in the counties of Gloucester, Hampshire, Huntingdon, Lancaster,
Leicester, Norfolk, Rutland, Suffolk, Sussex, Warwick, and Wiltshire.
In these returns, as Dr. Gairdner, the official historian of the reign
of Henry VIII. says, “the characters of the inmates of the houses
visited are almost uniformly good, the country gentlemen who sat on
the commission somehow came to a very different conclusion to that of
Drs. Layton and Legh.” The returns for Nottingham are unfortunately not
extant; if they were there is every reason to believe that they would
flatly contradict the pair of professional slanderers.
It may be well here to confute the current notion that the suppressed
monks, nuns, canons, and friars were all pensioned. The fact is that
it was a distinct minority of the ejected religious that obtained a
pension in Nottinghamshire or elsewhere. A large number of the younger
professed members, namely, all under twenty-five years of age, were
ruthlessly ejected by order of Cromwell, as Visitor General, before
ever the scheme of thorough dissolution began. With regard to the
smaller religious houses, which were dissolved in 1536–7, the rule was
to grant pensions only to the superiors. Thus the prior of Blyth was
the only one of that house who obtained any pension, and the like was
the case with regard to the prioress of Broadholme. Friars received no
pensions, and on being ejected were simply presented with a suit of
secular clothes. Every excuse was made to avoid pension granting; thus
the Lenton monks received nothing, as they were supposed, on paltry
evidence, to be all tainted with high treason. The judicial murders in
connection with the suppression of Lenton and Beauvale are peculiarly
odious.
In the case of Nottinghamshire, it can readily be seen how serious a
matter the sweeping away of monks, canons, and nuns was to the poor
of the county. Not only was relief in kind given at the gates of
every monastic house, small or large, as well as a great variety of
voluntary doles and aids in sickness, and the assigning to the poor
after an inmate’s death the commons of the deceased for a whole year,
but there were actual obligatory alms that various houses were bound
by their statutes to distribute on specific days, often dating back to
the very time of their foundation. Among such obligatory alms were:
Lenton, £41, 1s. 8d.; Worksop, £25, 1s. 4d.; Welbeck, £8, 13s. 4d.;
Thurgarton, £6, 8s. 1d.; Newstead, £4; Blyth, £3, 6s. 8d.; and Shelford
and Wallingwells, £2, 6s. 8d. each--yielding an annual total of £93,
4s. 4d., or considerably more than _£_1000 a year according to the
present purchasing power of money. Not a shadow of attempt was made by
Henry VIII. and his abettors to save for the poor a single penny of
this money, which had been definitely dedicated to the service of the
poor.