Part 5

The actual date of these chancels is not very easy to fix. It is clear that Car Colston, the least elaborate, though one of the most spacious of the series, must have been rebuilt some years before the appropriation of the church to Worksop priory in 1349.[21] The chancel of Sibthorpe, similarly, may not be much later than 1324, when we first read of the chantry which was gradually enlarged into a college of chantry priests, and was celebrated in a chapel north of the chancel.[22] At the same time, the college was not founded until 1340, and the founder, Thomas Sibthorpe, endowed a chantry and lights in the church of Beckingham, Lincolnshire, of which he was rector, in 1347, when the aisles of Beckingham church were rebuilt.[23] The character of the dated work at Beckingham is so like that at Sibthorpe as to forbid our assigning too early a date to the latter. A chantry was founded at Fledborough in 1343,[24] which seems to imply that the fine fourteenth-century church which we now see had recently been rebuilt. The Easter sepulchres at Fledborough and Sibthorpe have, as already noted, much in common. If these comparatively late dates be admitted, the date of 1356, which has been given to the chancel at Woodborough, is just possible. At the same time, the design of Woodborough forcibly suggests that it was built before the great plague of 1349, which worked such havoc throughout the country and effected such a change in English art. The founder of the chancel at Hawton died in 1330. The tracery of the east window and the character of much of the carving is in general keeping with this date. But the chancel was probably built in the founder’s lifetime, just as the noble chancel at Heckington, near Sleaford, was undoubtedly built some years before the founder’s death in 1345.[25] In two points especially, the mouldings of the founder’s tomb, which are of the first quarter of the fourteenth century, and the group of figures relieved against the wall at the back of the sepulchre, there is reason to antedate the fabric of Hawton to a date nearer 1320 than 1330. The figure sculpture in question is fully equal, in naturalistic treatment, to any of the carving in the chapter house at Southwell; while the rest of the sculpture of the sepulchre and sedilia is closely allied to the sculpture of the Southwell _pulpitum_. In any case, we have in these chancels a group of buildings which extend over a period between about 1320 and the plague of 1349, and the architectural influence which inspired them may be traced directly to Southwell, and so to York.

Hawton, and the allied Lincolnshire chancels of Heckington and Navenby, were probably the first-fruits of the influence of Southwell upon local architecture. The sculpture in these three cases is of a more delicate and carefully worked type than that of the other churches mentioned. It is a significant fact that, if we look for the closest parallels to Sibthorpe, Woodborough, and Car Colston, we find them in churches which lie north of York--Patrick Brompton, Kirkby Wiske, and Ainderby Steeple. One of these, Patrick Brompton, the best of the series, belonged to St. Mary’s abbey at York, and appears to have been built in the decade between 1320 and 1330.[26] It is impossible to visit these churches without recognising the complete identity of type between the Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire examples, or realising the close link which binds them together. As has been said, the influence of Yorkshire masoncraft found its way into the diocese of Lichfield. At Sandiacre and Dronfield in Derbyshire this type of chancel appears once more: it may be recognised at Checkley in Staffordshire and Norbury in Derbyshire, and even more clearly in the distant church of Halsall in south Lancashire. An isolated instance occurs in the old diocese of Lincoln, at Cotterstock in Northamptonshire: the founder of the rebuilt chancel here in 1337 was John Giffard, a canon of York, who was beneficed at Barnby-on-Don, near Doncaster.[27] The geographical distribution of these monuments, taken in conjunction with their history, is overwhelmingly in favour of their northern origin, as against any influence from southern schools.

Newark church, were it not for the disaster of the Black Death, would probably be the finest of all fourteenth-century churches in Nottinghamshire. Its present plan, a vast aisled rectangle, was conceived in the early part of the fourteenth century, and the lower courses of the outer walls were built as far as the top of the moulded plinth.[28] Only the outer walls of the south aisle, however, and the tower and spire above the already completed thirteenth-century work, were finished. The north aisle, and the lofty arcades and clerestory of the nave were not achieved until the second quarter of the fifteenth century, while it was not until the last quarter that the chancel with its aisles was completed, and the old chancel was finally removed. Later still the plan received its final addition by the building of the north and south transeptal chapels. All this work has the fine sense of design and sketchiness of detail which are the chief symptoms of late Gothic work in England: the dependence of the effect of such a building on stained glass, colour, and furniture is absolute. Fragments only of the glass remain, and the colour is gone; but the late fifteenth-century rood-screen, which has few rivals in the country, and two stone chantry chapels, one on each side of the altar, still remain to give us some idea of the former dignity and beauty of this great town church. The spire and upper portion of the tower were suggested by the completed work at Grantham. Although they yield the palm in height to Grantham, and the spire is inferior to Grantham spire in beauty, yet the design of the belfry stage, with a prominent crocketed pediment above the two lights in each face, is at any rate comparable to the treatment of the similar stage at Grantham. While the Grantham builders were uncertain about their design, and apparently altered it as they got higher, the Newark builders knew exactly what they wanted, and were content with a plan which, if more modest, is more homogeneous.

Of the work of the fifteenth century in Nottinghamshire, St. Mary’s at 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.