Chapter 2

from a plain doric pillar bearing the name of High Cross, and which formed some years ago one of the supporters of a light temple looking building of the same name, that served as a shelter to the country people who here hold a small market on Wednesdays and Fridays for the sale of butter, eggs, &c. Here the members of parliament are proclaimed, and here also may be seen on Michaelmas day, the grotesque ceremony of the poor men of Trinity Hospital, arrayed like ancient Knights, having rusty helmets on their heads and breast-plates fastened over their black taberdes proclaiming the fair.

Some paces lower the massy stone front of an edifice adorned with rusticated pillars points to the eye the _County Goal_, erected in the year 1791, at the expense of six thousand pounds. The spectator may prehaps be led into a reflection on the violation of propriety, when he sees the Roman Fasces and Pileus encircled by heavy chains decorating an English prison. Under these symbols the name of the Architect is fully conspicuous, and it may be observed as an example of sudden vicissitude, that the builder of this fabrick became, as a debtor, its first inhabitant.

This prison, to which the county bridewell is now added, was erected, upon the scite of the old goal, some years after the benevolent Howard visited Leicester, and is built with solitary cells after the plan recommended by that celebrated philanthropist.

The mention of a character so widely expanding beyond the customary sphere of human action irresistibly arrests the attention of the heart that glows into admiration at striking examples of virtue, and of the head that feels interest in tracing the motives which influence the conduct of man.

Separated from the county prison, by a lane called _Free-School Lane_, is a rude heavy building, adorned with the Royal Arms. This is the FREE GRAMMAR SCHOOL, the aera of whose original foundation has been thought uncertain; but upon the authority of the learned topographer Leland, it is ascertained to have been founded by one of the three Wigstons interred in the collegiate church in the Newark, and who, according to the same writer, was a Prebendary of that church. This, if not the same person, was brother to him who founded the Hospital dedicated to St. Ursula, now called _Wigston's Hospital_. The master of that Hospital, had formerly the privilege of recommending, if not appointing the master and usher of the school, but this right is now exercised by the Mayor and senior Aldermen.--The present building was erected by the Mayor and Burgesses, in the fifteenth of Elizabeth, who granted them for that purpose, the materials of the adjoining church of St. Peter.

On the opposite side of the street projects the gabel end of a building once part of the _Blue Boar_, afterwards _Blue Bell_ inn, in ancient times undoubtedly the principal inn of the place. The old over-hanging window gave light to a chamber in which stood the bedstead, which has been celebrated by the name of _King Richard's Bedstead_, from the circumstance of his having slept in it a few nights preceding Bosworth Fight.

Antiquaries have spoken of this bedstead as belonging to the king rather than to the master of the house; and this opinion has been thought favoured by the circumstance of a large sum in gold coin, partly of Richard's reign, accidentally discovered in its double bottom. The bedstead is of oak, highly ornamented with carved work, and is now, in the possession of Tho. Babington Esq. M.P. There seems but little reason to suppose that a Royal General while attending the march of his Army, should unnecessarily encrease his baggage by so cumbrous a piece of furniture, or that a Sovereign, guarded by nearly all the military force of the Nation, should find it expedient to hide his gold like a private unprotected person. The bedstead therefore, it may safely be inferred, belonged, not to a monarch, but to the master of a good inn; and the money was secreted in it by some person anxious to secure his property from the dangers threatened by times of civil distraction.

At the bottom of _Blue Boar Lane_, which takes it name from the inn, is a small Alms-house, founded 1712, by Matthew Simons Esq. for six Widows, and endowed with 20_l._ 10_s._ annually.

The next observable object in the High Cross Street, is the TOWN GOAL. It is a commodious building, with a handsome stone front, and built after the plan of Howard--the Architect, Mr. W. Firmadge.

In taking down the old Goal for the erection of the present edifice, in the year 1792, incorporated with the walls of the cells were discovered the remains of the chapel of St John, supposed to have been destroyed during the contests between Henry the Second and his Son. A regular stone arch belonging to this chapel, of a circular form, with ornaments of cheveron work, was carefully taken from among the ruins of the old goal, and preserved by that industrious Antiquary and Historian of Leicester, Mr. Throsby.

The small Hospital of St. John, to which this chapel belonged, joins the prison; it supports six Widows who subsist on a very scanty stipend arising from various annual donations. Bent's Hospital, being the ground floor of the same building, supports four Widows on an endowment equally small.

We are now approaching one of the most valuable traces which Leicester affords of our Roman Conquerors, a relick of their tesselated floors; preserved with great attention, in the cellar of Mr. Worthington, opposite the town prison. It was discovered in the year 1675, about four feet and a half under the surface of the earth, which beneath was found to consist of oyster shells to a considerable depth; it was sunk from its original portion on one side being considerably inclined from the level.--This pavement, which is an octagon three feet diameter, represents a Stag looking intently upon the modestly-inclined countenance of a figure seemingly female, with her arm resting affectionately against his neck; in front stands a boy, whose wings and bow plainly indicate him to be a Cupid; he appears about to discharge an arrow at the breast of the female; a circumstance which renders it very certain that the subject must be the amours of some fabulous personages, but assuredly not _Diana and Actaeon_; nor yet as some Antiquaries have hastily supposed, _Cypressus_ lamenting the death of his favourite stag. Indeed in the whole of the _Metamorphoses_, no story cm be found bearing the slightest resemblance to the subject before us.

The elegant and picturesque Gilpin has chosen to denominate this pavement "a piece of miserable workmanship," which can only be owing to the manner in which he injudiciously viewed it. By placing the light in a proper position, the spectator will observe that the effect of the whole piece gives the idea of good design, shade, and relief; and will be clearly convinced that it could not have been wrought by a hand which had not made considerable progress in the art of painting, as is evident from the rounding of the arm of the female, the foreshortening of the stag's horn, and the animated expression of each countenance. The tesserae are of various sizes, mostly square, but where a narrow line of light was required, as in the strait Grecian nose of the female, they are small and long. They appear to be a composition, and are of three or four distinct shades, the darkest a brown approaching to black, the next a warm or red brown, and the lightest, which forms the ground work, an ochery white.

The admirers of this art, so much practised by the Romans as a decoration of their magnificent buildings, an art which has survived so long as to have obtained an established manufactory in modern Rome, will ascertain the pavement in question to be one of the first specimens of antient mosaic, and will, with gratified attention, here behold form and shade called up from that unmanageable material, a piece of baked earth.

The commonly received opinion of these pavements having been the floors of baths, as founded on the circumstance of their being discovered three or four feet under the surface of the earth, is not conclusive; for the soil has been raised by accidental accumulation; and had not this been the case, the depth of three or four feet would not have been sufficient for a Bath as it could not have allowed room for submersion. Neither does the vault with a floor and walls of tesselated work, and pipes in the roof, discovered near Leicester in the reign of James the first, the memory alone of which is preserved by our indefatigable topographer, Mr. Nichols, render such an opinion in any respect more certain; but that some of them were floors of sitting rooms may be justly inferred, from the flues constructed under them for the purpose of conveying heat.

In examining the specimens of the mosaic art, we are tempted to draw a far different conclusion from that adopted by the truly learned author of the _Munimenta Antiqua_, who strongly adduces the number of _fragile_ (as he terms them) tesselated floors found in Britain, as a proof of the slightness of the superstructures erected by the Romans. Now, surely it is not to be expected that a people whose architecture in their own country was so strikingly characterized by massiveness & splendor, should, in this island, which though a distant was a durable conquest, and improved by all their arts and industry, have departed from their usual principles. And farther, the taste and costly magnificence discoverable in these curious remains must lead to the conclusion that they could not have committed them to slight or ordinary buildings, for they were decorations which the experience of more than fourteen hundred years has scarcely surpassed. Even the looms of modern Brussels, in elegance and beauty of pattern, cannot fairly outvie the Mosaic Carpets of the antient Romans.

The next object that engages the eye is the church of _All Saints_, projecting on the west end into the street, exhibiting in its clock an humble copy of the machinery of St Dunstan's, in London. It is a small neat church with three aisles and a low tower, and nothing in its architecture attracts regard. This vicarage with that of _St Peter's_, which was annexed to it in the reign of Elizabeth, includes the antient parish of _St Michael_, and part if not the whole, of that of _St. Clement_.

A monument in this church-yard commemorates a character greatly distinguished by his large donations to the poor--_Ald. Gabriel Newton_.

Of the prevalence of alms-giving in Leicester, this parish, together with the rest, bears full testimony, in a long list of benefactors, from the Royal Grant of Charles the first of forty acres of land in Leicester forest, to poor housekeepers, (which now produces annually 33l. 11s. 4d {42}) to the donor of the penny wheaten Loaf. From the returns to Parliament in the present reign, when accounts were made of all the charitable donations in the kingdom, it appears that there are donations in the parishes of Leicester, in land and money (including the endowments of the lesser Hospitals) mostly vested in the trust of the Corporation and by them distributed, to the annual amount of upwards of 800l.--see Nichols.--

A short space below the church is the spot where formerly stood the North Gates; here a narrow lane, which once obtained the name of St. Clements, from its leading to that church, but which is now degraded into _Dead-mans Lane_, is the passage to a Meeting House, belonging to the Society of Quakers. The street continuing in a right line, now takes the name of

NORTH-GATE STREET.

and conducts us to a bridge over the Canal, beyond which is the _North_ or _St. Sunday's Bridge_. This is an elegant stone structure, erected in 1796 and when viewed from the Abbey meadow below, it forms with the trees and slopes beyond it a very pleasing scene. Its three arches are small segments of a large circle.

At the foot of the bridge in an area enclosed by a low wall, and distinguished by a few scattered grave-stones, the church-yard of _St. Leonard_ meets the eye. The church, of which no trace remains, was demolished by the Parliament Garrison in the reign of Charles the first; as from its convenient situation it might have covered the approach of the enemy, and given them the command of the bridge. The parish still remains distinct, and the occasional duty is performed by the minister of St. Margaret's.

We cannot leave the North Bridge, without remarking that near this spot once stood an establishment, which as it related to a privilege exclusively royal, that of coining money, has ever been thought to confer honor on the places where it was allowed to be exercised. It is undoubtedly proved from the series of coins that has been collected, that money was coined at the _Mint at Leicester_, in regular succession from the reign of the Saxon king Athelstan, down to Henry the second. The _Monetarii_, or Governors of the mint, were entitled to considerable privileges and exemptions, being _Socmen_, or holders of land in the Soc, or franchise of a great Baron, yet they could not be compelled to relinquish their tenements at their lord's will. They paid twenty pounds every year, a considerable sum, as a pound at the time of the conquest, contained three times the weight of silver it does at present. These pounds consisted of pennies, each weighing one _ora_ or ounce, of the value of 20 pence. Two thirds of this sum were paid to the king, and the other third to the feudal Baron of Leicester.

The Leicester coins of Athelstan and Edmund the first have only a rose with a legend of the king's name, that of the Moneyer, and Leicester; from Etheldred the second, they bear the impress of the royal head and sceptre, with the same stile of legend unchanged.

In this series of Leicester coins, which has been engraved with accurate attention in the valuable work of Mr. Nichols, the triangular helmets, uncouth diadems, and rudely expressed countenances of our Saxon Sovereigns, exhibit, when opposed to a plate of Roman coinage, a striking contrast to the nicely delineated features of the laurelled Caesars. In no instance of comparison does the Roman art appear more conspicuous. The great quantity of coins of that scientific people which have been found at Leicester, is an additional testimony of its consequence as a Roman town; these, unfortunately upon being found at different periods, have paffed into various hands, and altho' some few gentlemen here have made collections, yet it is to be regretted that by far the greater part of the coins have been taken from the town. Had those found in the last century been thrown together into one cabinet, Leicester might have exhibited at this time a respectable series of Roman coinage, both in brass and silver, from the emperor Nero, down to Valens. Leaving those whose taste shall so direct them, to pursue the train of reflections to which this most curious subject may lead, we return to our route. From the North Budge two streets branch out, that on the left the

WOOD-GATE,

leading to the Ashby-de-la-Zouch road, and that on the right, the

ABBEY-GATE,

conducting us to the Abbey.

The name of _Abbey_, so dear to painting, poetry, and romance, naturally raises in the mind an idea of the picturesque and the aweful; but we are now approaching no gothic perspectives, no "long drawn aisles and fretted vaults," and scarcely able to bring a single instance of assimilation, we visit indeed an Abbey only in name; yet we visit a spot well adapted to the purposes to which it was appropriated. Sequestered, surrounded by pleasing objects, and dignified by the not uncertain evidences of history, it offers to the thinking mind all those interesting sensations which a review of past times, important events, and manners now no more, can possibly produce.

An antient brick wall with a small niche of stone is the first indication of its boundaries. This is said by Leland, to have been built by Bishop Penny who was Abbot of this Monastery in 1496. This prelate continued in his Abbacy till he was translated to the See of Carlisle, and even then, when spared from his episcopal duty, he delighted to dwell among his brethren in this religious retreat, and was interred in the neighbouring church of St. Margaret. Tracing the wall, we enter the grounds by a modern gateway, and perceive, among orchards, gardens, and potatoe plantations (the land being occupied by a Gardener and Nursery-man) the front wall, facing the north west, of the mansion, once belonging to the Earls of Devonshire, which, as Mr. Grose has ascertained from a MS. in the British Museum, was built out of the ruins of the Abbey, long after its dissolution. The massy stone stanchions of the windows of this house which still remain entire, and the firmness of the walls, shew the durability of the materials. They still retain the traces of that fire by which the forces of Charles the first on their retreat northward after their defeat at Naseby, destroyed that mansion, a few days before, the quarters of the king himself.

In these gardens, nearly thirty acres in extent, no traces now remain of the refectory, the cells of the Abbot and twelve Canons, the structures raised in the year 1134, by the great Robert Bossu, Earl of Leicester; neither is there, as might have been hoped, one vestige of that noble church, believed to have been built by Petronilla, the wife of his son Robert Blanch-mains, and adorned with the pious donation of a braid of her hair wrought into a rope, to suspend the lamp in the great choir; an offering at which some of our modern females who sacrifice their tresses with other views, may perhaps smile. Nor has the diligence of the enquiring Antiquary been more successful in the discovery of any traces of the tomb of Cardinal Wolsey, that great example of fallen ambition; who, after a life of more than princely magnificence, stripped of his honours, deprived of his eight hundred attendants, came here, sick, almost solitary, and a prisoner, performing a wearisome journey on an humble mule, to crave of the Abbot "_a little earth for charity_."

But, however barren this spot may seem to be of antient relicks, it is not wholly destitute of objects calculated to revive in the thinking mind, the events to which we have been alluding; for in the small garden or court before the main front of the present ruins are still to be seen the delapidated towers of that gate-way thro' which Wolsey entered in melancholy degradation, and thro' which other great, more prosperous, and often royal visitors were admitted with their stately trains.

Returning by the first entrance, and passing this interesting gate-way, and the antient stone wall of the Abbey, overhung with profuse ivy, the visitor will find himself well recompensed for the trouble of a traverse along the Abbey meadow, from the Bleach-yard at the angle of the wall, to the navigation bridge at the bottom of North-gate street.

On crossing the antient bed of the Soar, the eye will immediately take its flight over a fine level plain containing at least five hundred acres of perhaps the richest soil in the kingdom, for that may truly be said of the _Abbey Meadow_. The right of this tract is vested partly in a number of proprietors who claim the hay, and partly in the inhabitants of Leicester, who possess the privilege of here pasturing their cows till a certain period of the year.

This ample area was formerly used as a race ground, but that annual sport is now removed to the South-side of the town, having been here frequently incommoded by the floods from the Soar.

It has lately, at various reviews been dignified by a display of that admirable patriotism, which, while it reflects honor on the British name in general, is found in particular to glow with equal zeal and firmness in the breasts of the Volunteers of Leicester and its County.

The view to the North-ward is simply ornamented by the church and village of Belgrave, whose inhabitants in 1357, in consequence of a dispute with the Abbot concerning the boundaries of the Stocking Wood, blockaded the North Bridge, and the Fosse, with a determination of depriving the Monks of their usual supply of provision from their _Grange_, or Farm at Stoughton. This view forms a pleasing contrast to the towering churches and close grouped houses of Leicester. The eye of taste will however soon turn from these objects and dwell with greater pleasure on the noble ivied walls bounding the Abbey domains; it will proceed to contemplate the mingling angles of its ruins, and in the back ground, the rich tops of the woods in the neighbourhood of Beaumont Leys. This scene however, will not serve merely to amuse the eye, but will naturally lead the well informed visitor to interesting and affecting thoughts, while he contemplates the spot in which, in former times, were acted all the striking rites of the Romish Church, tho' he may lament the superstitious errors into which a dark and ignorant age had plunged mankind, he need not join with the destroyer of these venerable institutions in lording then memory with odious crimes, nor deem them even wholly useless. Pity and a regard to truth will lead him to acknowledge that, tho' their worship was less pure than the reformed service now happily established in this Island, yet it was calculated, by its address to the senses, to keep alive the remembrance of the faith of the Gospel, and to prevent the warring Baron and his rude vassals from relapsing into heathenism. Let it also be remembered, that Monks, odious as we are wont to consider them, were at one time, the only inhabitants of Christendom, who were at all acquainted with such sciences as then peered above the mists of overwhelming ignorance. Of history, they may be said to be the modern fathers, and tho' perhaps, like the age in which they lived, in some respects, blind themselves, they led, not indirectly to the enlightening of the present age. But in their own times they were far from useless; their monasteries were ever ready to receive the wearied traveller, and many persons of family, tho' of broken fortunes were honorably maintained at their board. The poor were gratuitously relieved from their kitchens, and that in a manner, upon the whole, more favorable to religion and morality than they are now by those parish rates, which the abolition of monasteries, and the partition of their property among private individuals, have rendered so oppressively necessary. To these valuable purposes the revenues of our Abbey were fully competent, for it possessed the advowsons of thirty six parish churches in Leicester and its County, which together with lands in various places, and rights in particular districts, produced annually for its disposal more than one thousand pounds.