Proceedings at Meetings of the Royal Archaeological Institute. ANNUAL MEETING AT NOTTINGHAM. July 23rd to July 30th. President of the Meeting. The Right Hon. Lord Hawkesbury, Vice-Presidents of the Meeting.-E. W. Brabrook, Esq., C.B., Director.-E. Green, Esq., F.S.A. Local Secretary.-G. Harry Wallis, Esq., F.S.A. Tuesday, July 23rd. The proceedings of the Meeting began at noon, with a reception by the Mayor (Mr. F. R. Radford) in the Council Chamber of the Exchange. The MAYOR said that he had much pleasure in welcoming the Institute to Nottingham. Nottingham men were proud of their city and its associations, not only for its historical importance in ancient times, but also for its growth and prosperity at the present day. They could claim many distinguished names as natives of their city and its neighbourhood-Cranmer, who was born and lived a few miles away, Ireton and Whalley, two of Cromwell's generals, while the family of Cromwell himself came from a Nottinghamshire village, Lord Byron, Darwin, Earl Howe, William Lee, inventor of the stocking frame, and many more. Though many of the ancient features of Nottingham had vanished, they did their best to preserve in the city every relic of past times, and he hoped that the visit of the Institute would help them in their endeavours, by increasing among Nottinghamshire men an interest in their local antiquities. LORD HAWKESBURY, having taken the chair, delivered the Presidential address. It gave him great pleasure, he said, to attend the meeting. He could assure them that he felt highly flattered when the desire was expressed that he should preside on this occasion. Though there were many Nottinghamshire men who would have performed the duties better than he could hope to do, there was no one who more readily seconded the welcome the Mayor had given the Institute on their visit to Nottingham and his (the speaker's) native county. Nottinghamshire was rich in archaeological treasures, and there was plenty of food for the historian. They in this county had the advantage of a county historian-an advantage few other counties had. Dr. Thoroton's work was a valuable one, but there yet remained much to be done in this direction. Dr. Thoroton was a South Nottinghamshire man, and in his days, as now, "the silver Trent (as Shakespeare said of another part of the river's course) came cranking in," and divided the county almost into two, south Nottinghamshire going very much with Leicestershire, and the north. with south Yorkshire and the neighbouring county of Derbyshire. Could they wonder, then, that Dr. Thoroton did not know so much of the northern part of the county as he did of the villages around his own home? Recently a local society had been founded in Nottingham, and by the unanimous wish of its first members it had been named after Dr. Thoroton. He believed this society, which he hoped without vanity he might look upon in a sense as a child of his own, was doing, and would continue to do, good work in recording the history of the county. Fortunately a good deal had been done in regard to parish registers by Dr. Marshall, who had transcribed and published quite a number of them. Nottinghamshire was rich in the number of its monastic houses, and though in many cases not much remained, a great deal of interest attached to them all. They were chiefly situated in the north of the county and on the borders of the Forest, the merry green wood probably proving an attraction, as it had done since, for residential purposes. For the benefit of those members who were in Nottingham for the first time he would enumerate them. There were 39 of them, including the smaller houses, colleges, hospitals, and cells, 13 being houses of importance. Five were Augustinian, namely, Felley (founded in 1156), Newstead (1170), Shelford Priory (founded in the reign of Henry II.), Thurgarton (1130), and Worksop (1102-3); two Benedictine: Blyth (1088), and Wallingwells (founded in the time of Stephen); one Carthusian: Beauvale (1338); one Cistercian Rufford Abbey (founded by the Earl of Lincoln in 1148 for monks brought from Rievaulx); one Cluniac: Lenton Priory (founded by William Peverell at the beginning of Henry I.'s reign); one Gilbertine : Mattersey (before 1192); two Premonstratensian: Brodholme (founded in Stephen's reign), and Welbeck Abbey (1153). Of smaller houses there were the following:-Bingham, Bradebusk (Gonalston), Clifton, Fiskerton-on-Trent, Marshe, Newark, Nottingham (eight houses), Rodyngton, Sibthorpe, Southwell, Stoke-by-Newark, and Tuxford, : In conclusion he expressed the hope that the Institute would spend a very pleasant and profitable week. The PRESIDENT OF THE INSTITUTE, Sir Henry Howorth, in proposing a vote of thanks to the Mayor for his reception of the members of the Institute, said that they were delighted to come to this, one of the most famous of English towns, which for more than a thousand years had been not merely a prosperous English county town, but had taken part in almost every turn of English history. They were hoping to have a very enjoyable week, and to collect for future publication a great deal of valuable matter in the course of their excursions and evening meetings. He had been asked to call their attention to the exhibition of the city maces and plate, lent by the courtesy of the Mayor and Corporation, as were also the early deeds and charters which they saw before them. Special mention should be made of one most interesting exhibit, the only known example of a York gradual, most kindly lent by Mr. James Ward, and they were also indebted to Mr. George Fellows for several valuable manuscripts. Mr. E. W. BRABROOK having seconded the vote of thanks, it was carried unanimously, and suitably acknowledged by the Mayor. Judge BAYLIS then proposed, and Mr. J. T. MICKLETHWAITE seconded, a vote of thanks to Lord Hawkesbury for presiding at the meeting. The resolution was put to the meeting by Sir Henry Howorth and carried, and the proceedings terminated. After luncheon at the "George" Hotel, the headquarters for the week, the members walked to St. Mary's church, where Mr. W. STEVENSON gave an account of the building and its history as follows: The early history of this church, like many other institutions of this ancient city, is lost in the mists of time. In Edward the Confessor's time, and unquestionably long before, it was a wealthy foundation endowed with land and houses in the demesne of the King. In the later days of William the Conqueror the rectory was in the holding of Aitard the priest, when the church and all its belongings were recorded in Domesday as being worth one hundred shillings. There is no doubt but in early times it ministered to the adjoining manors of the castle and Sneinton, which combined formed the central wapentake of the county. The fact of the town being chosen as the metropolis of a county stamps it as a place of early importance, one in which this church could not fail to have a full share. With the Norman Conquest came a change of ownership-this lordship of the old English Kings became the lordship of a Norman vassal, William Peverell, who founded the alien priory of Lenton, a mile or so to the west of the town, and as part of its endowment gave this church, by consent of Henry I., with its lands, tithes, and appurtenances. The current of its history was here turned, and for fully four hundred years this church, with the churches and chapels in the adjoining manors, was in the "dead hands" of the prior and convent. This, the richest, they took to themselves, and reduced the rectory to a vicarage. The earliest vicar I am able to refer to is Johannes de Ely, in 1290, but it was a vicarage before 1234. The last of the long line of Priors of Lenton, patrons and rectors of this church, was Nicholas Heth, who, with his brethren, was hanged on the gallows of Nottingham in 1538 for the part they had played in the great revolt of the north called "the Pilgrimage of Grace." The priory, with all its property, escheated to King Henry VIII. His daughter, Elizabeth, sold the patronage and the rectorial property into lay hands, since which the tithes have been commuted into real estate. So ends the story of the financial reverses of this ancient church. The town, from being the seat of a castle, suffered in the troubled times of King Stephen and Henry II. It was burnt and pillaged in 1140, when it is recorded that the churches were burnt along with a great number of the inhabitants who had taken refuge therein. There are some deep caves in the rock under the church, partly accessible to-day. It was again burnt in 1153, and a third time in 1174. We have evidence of an arcaded church in stone being built about 1175, and the rebuilding of an arcaded portion of it about a century later, in the existence of some late Norman capitals found in the foundations of the church some years ago, and the remains of an Early English column, which you may see in the base of one of the piers of the north arcade. These early churches are further represented in the top course of the foundations of the present nave and transept walls. This course, which forms a seat on the inner side of the walls, is capped with Norman and Early English incised coffin slabs, the designs of which may be largely recovered. We are wholly without documentary evidence with regard to the date of the erection of the present church. John Leland, the antiquary, was in this church in 1540, and the following appears in his Itinerary:-"The church of St. Mary is excellent new and uniform in work, and so many fair windows in it that no artificer can imagine to set more." You will notice that the capitals at the springing of the arches, such prominent features during the Norman, Early English, and Decorated periods, show signs of decadence. You will also notice that the arch-moulds in part are continuous, uninterrupted by an impost, down the columns. The church, except the restored portions, is built of local stone, identical with that furnished by the old quarries in the Town Wood at Gedling, a neighbouring village. It is a sandstone of the saline beds of the New Red Sandstone, which in this part of England reposes upon the Upper Bunter Sandstone, or pebble beds, which constitute the rock of Nottingham. As a building stone it is not quarried in the county at the present time. A controversy had long existed with regard to the chancel, the details or which, though evidently by the same architect, were very poor. Some advance the opinion that it is later than the west part of the church. I submit that they overlook the fact that the body of the church would be erected by the munificence of the country gentry and the princely merchants of the town, whereas the erection of the chancel would be dependent upon the patron and rector, the Prior of Lenton. I do not think I am far wrong in laying the poverty of the chancel at the door of the Prior of Lenton. You will notice there are no sedilia, piscina, aumbry, credence, or Easter sepulchre in the church. Our knowledge of the chantries in this church is limited; that of William de Amys, a great merchant of the town, was founded in the former church. The northern bay of the north transept is held to have been its chapel in the present church. We have no evidence that connects any chantries with the south transept. Inserted in the south wall of the chancel is a fragment of sculpture in alabaster. The subject is a pope consecrating a bishop. It was found beneath the floor of the church some years ago, and is no doubt a portion of the original reredos. Nottingham was an important centre for sculptors in alabaster, and a large business was done all over the country; the stone could be readily obtained from Chellaston, Derbyshire, by boats down the Trent. Little can be said of the contents of the church. The iconoclasts of the last century destroyed the tomis spared by the fanatics of the Civil War, of which Nottingham was an important centre, and the church has passed through the fire of a number of "restorations," each in its turn being deemed an improvement. The tomb in the south transept has a canopy of the same design as the front of the south porch. The recumbent figure remains; but the altar tomb, with its inscription to John Salmon and Agnes his wife, recorded elsewhere as benefactors to this church, has gone. The tomb in the north wall of the north transept is a very beautiful piece of costly work. It is considered to be later than the church, and to be an insertion in the wall. Here the altar tomb remains, securely fixed, with its beautifully sculptured alabaster front and ends and its massive marble top, which has been cut back about three inches to accommodate some former pews. Originally this slab was inlaid with a Flemish brass and bore the effigies of a civilian and his wife, but the brass had been removed before the first drawing of the tomb was made, soon after the Civil War. This tomb is practically proved to have been erected to the memory of Thomas Thurland, a merchant prince, and his wife, who resided at Thurland Hall in this parish and were buried in this church. He founded a county family, the last member of which came under the displeasure of Lord Cecil, the great minister of Queen Elizabeth, as a dangerous papist at the time of the Babington conspiracy. Another beautiful but unknown altar tomb stood detached in the centre of the north transept. Its mutilated recumbent effigy is now in the north aisle, after enduring years of exposure in the churchyard and in the vicar's garden. It was specially noticed in its perfect state by Dr. Richard Pocock, Bishop of Meath, when he visited this church in May, 1751, and made a drawing of the remarkable headdress of the figure. The first and second Earls of Clare, who figured on the side of the King in the Civil War, are buried in the east side of the south transept. Their great tomb, placed north and south, with its urn and four obelisks, is gone, and the inscribed panels now fixed as tablets on the immediate east wall. The chancel is the burial-place of the Right Hon. Chambre, Earl of Meath, 1715, and of the Hon. Margaret Middleton, a descendant of the great Sir Hugh Middleton; she lived on an annuity from the New River Company, and died in 1778, aged one hundred years. The font bears an inscription in Greek, readable backwards and forwards, translated, "Wash away thy sin, wash not thy face only." The west end of the church was entirely rebuilt in 1725, in the classic style. The arcades give evidence that the old front was leaning or falling westward. This endured to my time, and was taken down in the middle of the last century, and the present west end, as a restoration of the original one, dates from that period. The vaulting of the tower is a construction designed by Mr. Stretton, a local architect, and carried out in lath-and-plaster, about 1820. I wish, in conclusion, to draw attention to a remarkable earthenware headstone that has stood near the north-west corner of this church for nearly two hundred years, and is as fresh and sharp in its lettering as on the day it was fixed. It has been made in two halves and pressed together. Horizontal lines were drawn across the surface, as on a school slate, and the block letters were rudely impressed in the face of the plastic body. It is possibly the work of |