in the room over the north porch, and that during the time of her
concealment she gave birth to a child. It is said that all the time she
was hiding from the Puritans, a body of these men were camping in the
church, and her terror at being discovered was not lessened by hearing
their shouts and ribaldry so near at hand. She was kept alive by an
old friend who crept in every night to bring her food and render her
what other assistance was possible in her terrible predicament. The
Commonwealth soldiers stayed for some time in Southwell, especially
during the siege of Newark, and many skirmishes are reported to have
taken place in the neighbourhood, but there seems to be no truth
in the tradition that Cromwell bombarded the palace, although the
so-called trenches which were made for his guns are pointed out on the
neighbouring hill to the south. The unfortunate part of the story is
that these trenches, which are really gravel pits, are situated at a
much greater distance from the palace than any cannon of that period
could carry; and also that part of the palace which faces these very
pits is to-day the best preserved part of the ruins.
It may also be added that it would have been a marvellous thing that
the church should have escaped if any considerable bombardment had
taken place.
After the troubles of the Commonwealth a more profound peace than ever
enveloped Southwell. Matters, of course, had to be put straight again,
and there are extant two letters of Charles II. written just after the
Restoration, one of which orders the Chapter to provide a sufficient
maintenance for the ministers who officiate in the parochial churches
appropriated to the Chapter, implying that the Chapter had rather
starved such livings, and ordering them to increase the emoluments up
to the value of £80 a year. The other letter is addressed to certain
gentlemen directing them to “seize and secure into safe hands and
places all the rents and revenues,” together with all the woods and
other property belonging to the Chapter in Nottinghamshire.
Nothing much of interest happened during the last 180 years of the
Chapter’s existence. On November 5, 1711, a fire, caused by lightning,
broke out in the south-west tower of the nave and the flames destroyed
the roof of the nave and the organ and melted the bells in the central
tower. At the end of the eighteenth century the houses in the Vicars’
Court had grown so old and dilapidated that they had to be pulled down
and the present ones were erected in their stead. At the beginning of
the nineteenth century fears, quite unfounded, were felt as to the
safety of the spires on the western towers, and so the towers were
literally beheaded and the tops battlemented instead. The spires were
restored about thirty years ago, but after comparing them with old
pictures of the former ones they do not seem nearly so shapely, and are
even thought to be grotesque by some people.
The Chapter Decree Books, which from 1661–1840 are fairly complete,
contain nothing of great moment. There are mentions of organ repairs
and the duties of the ringing men, the prohibition of fives playing
against the walls of the church, the regular entry of a decree “that
the Dogg-whipper shall have a new coat as usual.” This official was
doubtless the man who wielded the dog-tongs, though such an instrument
is not mentioned. His office is continued to this day in a certain
verger who is on duty on Sundays and any special occasions, and marks
his descent from the old dog-whipper by always carrying a long wand.
In 1798 there is an entry that the tradesmen shall be paid £61, 9s.
2d. for putting up a new bed in the Residence House, which certainly
seems a large sum for such an article. In 1820 it is decreed that an
alteration be made in the wine cellars of the Residence House so as
to furnish room for the accommodation of each prebendary. There were
sixteen prebendaries supposed to keep a residence of three months each
in turn, and it looks as if some of them did not wish their wines to
get mixed up with those of their less fastidious colleagues. In 1805
the Chapter accepted the gift of the Brass-Eagle lectern, now in the
choir, which had belonged to Newstead abbey, and had lain for more than
200 years at the bottom of the lake at Newstead, where it had been
hidden by the monks at the dissolution of the monasteries.
There is one curious entry of which no explanation is given. On June
23, 1806, it is “decreed that the last seat in the South Side be
allotted to the Prior of Thurgarton.” What this means it is impossible
to say; this seat had always been given by courtesy to the Prior of
Thurgarton, while such a dignitary existed, because he was head of the
nearest important religious house.
In the history of the town itself there is nothing much to relate.
Southwell seems to have been quite a gay little place at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. There were archery meetings and
a flourishing bachelors’ club and numerous dances--the Assembly Rooms
being built in 1808 for this purpose--a theatre was built in 1816,
and there was a billiard-room as well. Lord Byron, who lived with his
mother during his school and college days in Burgage Manor House,
described the place as being very pleasant and possessing “a very
genteel society.”
At the accession of Queen Victoria the Chapter still continued, but the
end was near. In 1835 a Royal Commission was appointed to look into
the affairs of the church, for there was a general demand that the
whole body ecclesiastical needed rousing to life. Reform was active
in other branches of public life, and it was not possible, nor indeed
desirable, that the church should go on in her old way and not stir
herself to meet the changing needs of the ever-moving life around
her. It was felt that there was a great waste of time and money, and
especially was this the case among cathedral and collegiate bodies.
The Chapter of Southwell did not escape the keen scrutiny that was
fixed on all such bodies; it was not any more effete or lazy than other
capitular bodies, and it was by no means as wealthy as some Chapters
were at that time, but there seemed little need for it, and it appeared
to fulfil no useful purpose in the Church at large, for Southwell was
not a cathedral city nor was it the centre of a large population, and
as there was nothing for its canons, as such, to do, it was thought
that its revenues ought to be diverted into some more useful channel.
We need here only mention the recommendations of the Commissioners so
far as they affected Southwell. In 1837 Nottinghamshire, except the
Peculiar of the Chapter of Southwell, was transferred from the diocese
of York to that of Lincoln. For three years longer the Chapter was
suffered to remain, but “in 1840 a clause or two in a bill (3 and 4
Vict. c. 113), supplemented the next year by a special Act (4 and 5
Vict. c. 30), destroyed the Chapter, after making allowance for vested
interests, as a useless waste of ecclesiastical revenues. The canonries
as vacancies occurred were not filled up, the minor canons were to be
reduced to two (eventually to none at all), and the property was to
go to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to help in founding Ripon and
Manchester, although these two dioceses were quite wealthy enough to
endow their own bishoprics.”[79] It is interesting to remember that
Mr. Gladstone, then the young Tory member of Parliament for Newark
(in which division Southwell lay), spoke very strongly in the House
against the destruction of the Chapter.
In time Southwell became a simple rectory, with the Residence House
as the official residence of the incumbent. The Commissioners pay
the rector and two assistant curates, the organist, choir, and other
officials of the church, and keep the fabric in repair.
The Chapter was not dissolved at once, the canons being allowed to
keep their stalls and their incomes as long as they lived, but they
were to have no successors; one of their number was to be appointed by
themselves as perpetual residentiary. The Chapter thus died a lingering
death. The policy which destroyed it was short-sighted, for it was
evident that Nottinghamshire could not long remain in the diocese of
Lincoln, for it was a district with a rapidly increasing population
owing to the development of the coal trade. Indeed, the last prebendary
of the old foundation was not dead before a project was on foot to make
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire a separate diocese in themselves. And
that same last prebendary had scarcely been in his grave ten years when
this project was carried out--the new see being constituted in 1884.
But nothing had been done to stop the transference of the patronage
of the old Chapter to the Bishops of Ripon and Manchester, to whom it
was allotted by the Act of 1840. The last prebendary, the Rev. T. H.
Shepherd, had exercised all the patronage until his death in 1873,
and then each living as it became vacant went in turn to the Bishops
of Ripon and Manchester. It was in vain that the first Bishop of
Southwell, Dr. Ridding, tried to secure this patronage, which consists
chiefly of livings just round Southwell.
It was principally due to Bishop Wordsworth, of Lincoln, that Southwell
Minster was chosen as the cathedral of the new diocese, and he was also
one of the largest subscribers to the funds needed to found the new
bishopric, parting even with some of his official income. The Minster
was a building worthy of the honour, and though by the foolishness
and short-sighted policy of the previous generation the bishop found
no Chapter at his cathedral church, yet this church possessed the
advantage and privilege of two choral services daily, of the kind
that rightly are expected to be found in cathedral churches, for the
Commissioners had not discontinued the revenues which supported the
choral services, which had thus been sung daily in the church from
time immemorial under the regime or the old College of Canons. It was
left to the present bishop of Southwell to make the Palace, which the
archbishop never used after the Great Rebellion, owing to its ruinous
condition, once more the home of a bishop, and a place of generous
hospitality to all who are concerned in the affairs of the Church.
There is now a chapter of twenty-four honorary canons, of which body
there is nothing to say except that perhaps its members are more
honorary than is usually the case; sixteen of them have taken the
names of the old prebends for their stalls, and the other eight are
called after places in the diocese. It seems a pity, perhaps, that the
old names have been taken, for there is really no connection whatever
between the old body and the new.
The little town does not grow very fast, but it is in no sense
old-fashioned, the advent twenty years ago of a lace factory giving
the place a modern appearance and helping to keep it up to date. There
is also a silk mill and a flour mill and large nursery gardens to give
employment to the people.
It is impossible to close this chapter without one word of regret
that Southwell, and indeed all Nottinghamshire, remain divorced from
the ancient ties with the archbishopric of York. When the present
archbishop visited Southwell, in June 1909, on the occasion of the
commemoration of the 800th anniversary of the building of the nave,
he expressed the same regret; for, as he said, in the very place
where his long line of predecessors had worshipped and ruled and
dwelt, he was himself only present by the sufferance, willingly
granted, it was true, of his brother of Canterbury. He hoped that
some day he would come again in his own right and not as a stranger,
but as a metropolitan visiting one of the dioceses which formed part
of the province over which he ruled. It is to be hoped that when
Nottinghamshire is made into a separate diocese, as the needs of the
Church will soon demand, that it will be restored to its old province
of York and once more acknowledge the overlordship of the archbishop of
the northern see.
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE SPIRES
BY HARRY GILL
“And O, ye swelling hills and spacious plains!
Besprent from shore to shore with steeple towers,
And spires whose silent finger points to heaven;”
--WORDSWORTH.
The word steeple is generally applied to a lofty tower intended to
contain a peal of bells, and especially to a tower surmounted by a
spire.
The origin of the word spire is obscure; presumably it is a survival of
the Anglo-Saxon word “spir,” a spike or stalk, and it is now used to
denote the upper portion of a steeple when it shoots up to a point.
It would be presumption to claim any special distinction for the spires
of Nottinghamshire. They are not to be compared in size or grandeur
with those of the neighbouring county of Lincoln, or with the beautiful
spires to be found in the Nene valley, where the “tower roof” is
said to have originated. Still they are not devoid of interest, and
one example (Newark) is held to be one of the finest spires in the
kingdom, while in no other district of equal area can the development
from one type to another be traced more easily than in the hundred of
Rushcliffe, in the south of the county.
The existence of a spire pre-supposes two important conditions:
(1) A well-trained band of masons; (2) a local supply of suitable
stone; for in the Middle Ages the architecture of a district was
influenced greatly by its geology; and, at any rate while the art of
spire-building was in its infancy, we may almost add that a third
condition was essential--the existence of a tower large enough and
strong enough to support a superimposed spire, for in many of the early
examples the tower is much older than the spire.
If we take a map of the county and place a mark wherever a steeple
was built, we shall see how sporadic the art of spire-building was.
Where stone of a suitable kind was to be obtained, there we shall find
spires; an extensive cluster in the south, with a trail northward along
the outcrop of the Keuper marl; a group of five spires in the magnesian
limestone district around Mansfield; isolated examples along the banks
of the Trent and Soar, where river-borne stone could be obtained; while
the hundred of Bassetlaw, comprising large tracts of flat marshy land
in the north of the county, may fairly be said to have been spireless,
for only two medieval spires stand to the north of Tuxford, and both of
these belong to a late period of architecture.
The blue lias limestone of the county, sometimes used for rubble
walling in towers, was quite unsuitable for spire-building, and
therefore the earliest spires are to be found on the skerry belt,
wherever “water-stones” of good quality could be obtained; Tuxford,
Maplebeck and Gedling were the principal quarries, while fairly good
stone was obtained from the bank in the vicinity of Bunny and Gotham.
As facilities for transport increased, we find that the millstone grit
from Castle Donnington and south Derbyshire was used in the southern
portion of the county, and Lincolnshire oolite in the eastern portion.
The tradition of river-borne stone having been used still lingers in
Trentside villages; and even as late as 1742 one of our local artists
shows the method of haulage then in vogue, where five men are seen on
the towing-path, harnessed to a small boat.[80] (Horse haulage was
not sanctioned by Act of Parliament until the middle of the eighteenth
century.)
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
It is difficult to determine when spire-building first started in this
country, for lightning, storm, and fire have destroyed every trace of
the timber and shingle spires which prevailed before stone was adopted
as the more suitable material.[81]
The origin of the spire grew out of the necessity for roofing the
tower in some form. The simplest and most natural kinds of roof were
the “pyramid” and “saddle-back.” The early Saxon churches, especially
in districts exposed to the attacks of the Danes, each had a strong
tower for defensive purposes, and this was invariably crowned with
a pyramid. This type of tower roof was continued during the Norman
period. The ancient towers at Halam, Flintham, and Fledborough still
retain the original form of pyramidal roof, although in each instance
they are modern restorations; and this applies also to the western
towers at Southwell Minster. The ivy-mantled tower at Walesby is the
only ancient tower in the county with a saddle-back roof; but this,
again, is not the original work. Sometimes the pyramidal roof was set
diagonally, thus forming a four-sided gable spire. We have only one
example of this type remaining in England, at Sompting in Sussex,
although it is still quite common in the Rhenish provinces.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
As time went on, the churches were gradually enlarged to meet
increasing needs; chancels were extended, aisles were thrown out
necessitating the introduction of clerestories, and thus the tower,
once the dominant feature, was dwarfed and made to look quite
inadequate. It was natural, therefore, that the tower should be raised,
when it not infrequently happened that the old roof was discarded,
and a new type of “tower-roof,” a tall, tapering spire, was erected
in its place, not only to keep out the weather, but designed as an
ornamental feature to give dignity and importance to the whole fabric.
At Bradmore, for instance, where only the steeple remains,[82] and that
in a ruinous condition, the building periods are quite clearly marked.
The lower stage of the tower, built of local blue lias limestone with
skerry dressings, is the original steeple; this was raised by the
addition of another stage, of a superior kind of workmanship, built of
cleansed ashlar in large and regular courses of millstone grit, and
this stage was eventually finished with a parapet surmounted by a plain
octagonal spire of fourteenth century type.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.]
[Illustration: Fig. 4.]
The _stone_ spire first made its appearance late in the twelfth
century, and became fully developed by the end of the fourteenth
century. At first it took the same form as the discarded timber
structures;[83] a stone corbel-table took the place of the dripping
eaves, and from this rose a plain octagonal pyramid, the oblique
faces being brought out to the square at the base with a plain
splay. There is only one example of this non-lithic form of spire in
Nottinghamshire--that at Gotham. To facilitate comparison, I have made
a sketch of it side by side with a typical spire of timber and shingle.
An Early English tower, 18 feet square, in three diminishing stages,
without buttresses of any kind, stands at the west end of the nave.
The walls are 3½ feet thick, finished with a corbel-table, from which
a spire springs without the intervention of parapet or pinnacles. The
spire is square on plan to begin with, but quickly assumes an octagonal
form, the oblique faces being brought out with a plain splay above the
squinches, which consist of well-formed pointed arches of one order.
There are two tiers of lucarnes or spire lights in each cardinal face,
with an orb and weather-cock as a finial at the summit. About twelve
years ago the masonry was repaired and pointed, the upper portion of
the spire, from just above the splays to the summit, being taken down
and rebuilt in its original form. A peculiarity of this spire is that
the stonework is left rough and irregular within, probably due in part
to the fact that the local skerry or waterstone, of which the whole
steeple is built, is very tough and difficult to work, and in part to
the inexperience of the early builders. Speaking generally, spire walls
are as truly worked within as without, and as the skill of the masons
increased, the thickness of the masonry was reduced on account of the
weight, until the utmost limit was reached. The beautiful spire at
Louth (Lincs.), which rises to a height of 294 feet from the ground,
is only 10 inches thick in the lower portion and 5 inches thick in the
upper portion.
Kirkby-in-Ashfield has a spire similar to the one at Gotham, but it is
modern, having been entirely rebuilt fifty years ago.
All through the thirteenth century and well on into the fourteenth
century the broach spire was common. Instead of a splay, the angle
between the square of the tower and the octagon of the spire was
covered by a hood in shape a half-pyramid, now popularly called a
_broach_, although originally that term was applied to the whole
spire, and not to a part of it only. Whereas the earlier spires
exhibited the constructive principles of the carpenter, this was
essentially the mason’s method of covering the squinches; and so
characteristic of masoncraft is it that to this day, whenever the
broach form is used to stop a plain chamfer, either in woodwork or
stonework, it is always called a “mason stop.”
[Illustration:
BURTON JOYCE. NORMANTON-ON-SOAR.
WOLLATON. EDWINSTOWE.
_From photographs_ by Mr. H. GILL.]
One of the finest specimens of a broach spire in the county is at
Normanton-on-Soar. It has a bold corbel-table in place of the plain
dripping eaves, carved knots at the apices of the broaches, two tiers
of lucarnes, and a distinct, though not too pronounced, entasis--all
characteristic of the thirteenth century type. The tower belongs
to the Early English period, and is built of rubble (blue lias
limestone), with dressings of local skerry. The spire also is built
of local skerry, but it is a later addition. It rises direct from the
corbel-table, and assumes a graceful outline as it soars above the
crossing of what once was a fine cruciform church, now, alas, despoiled
of some of its original character, but still forming a very pleasing
picture, especially when viewed from the opposite bank of the river
Soar.
[Illustration:
NORMANTON =ON= SOAR
Fig. 5.]
At Ratcliffe-on-Soar a further development in the evolution of spire
design may be seen. An Early English tower (_c._ 1200) was
surmounted a century later by a broach spire of similar construction
and material to the one at Normanton-on-Soar, but with this
difference, that here an attempt was made to overcome that sense of
bareness and weakness which is so apparent in an ordinary broach spire.
This was accomplished by carrying up each angle of the tower above
the springing of the broaches, so as to form a base for an octagonal
pinnacle; and it is interesting to notice that each pinnacle is a
miniature of the spire which rises in the midst.
This innovation was intended not only to give weight and strength at
the angles, but to overcome the abrupt appearance caused by the change
from the square form of the tower to the octagonal form of the spire,
and it is an interesting example in the transition from the “pathless”
spire to the fully developed type having a pathway all round, with
parapets between the pinnacles to mask the junction of the spire and
tower.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.--Ratcliffe-on-Soar.]
The three spires--Gotham, Normanton-on-Soar, and
Ratcliffe-on-Soar--standing in close proximity to each other, thus form
an interesting study in the development of spire design.
Before proceeding to the consideration of spires with parapets, it may
be well to give a brief enumeration of the remaining broach spires in
the county.
_Willoughby-on-the-Wolds._--Similar in all respects to
Normanton-on-Soar. Recently restored.
_Burton Joyce_, (_c._ 1300) is a typical illustration of a broach
spire. The tower, 17 feet square, well buttressed in the lower stage,
stands in the usual position at the west end of the nave, surmounted
by a spire of good proportions with well-designed dormers on each
cardinal face just above the dripping eaves, and lucarnes near the
summit. Each angle of the spire was emphasised just above the broaches
by a boldly carved knot of foliage--the forerunner of the crockets
of a later style--but these are now damaged and worn, and the spire
has in consequence lost much of its beauty. It nevertheless stands as
a pleasing example of a steeple suitable for a village church. The
building material was obtained from the quarries at Gedling, close by.
_Maplebeck._--A very good bed of skerry was quarried here. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find that the church has a spire. This is
similar to the one at Burton Joyce.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
_Mansfield Woodhouse._--This steeple was built to replace a timber
spire which was burnt down in 1304. A curious effect is produced by a
cluster of unpierced gablets which form a corona near the summit of the
spire. The dormers, which stand out boldly from the dripping eaves on
each cardinal face of the spire, are well designed and characteristic
of the period.
_Holme_ (_Newark_) has a small, stumpy steeple, built of Lincolnshire
oolite, in the fifteenth century, with broaches and spire lights after
the manner of an earlier period.