To the traveller who may wish to visit whatever is deemed most
worthy of notice in the town of Leicester, the following sketch
is devoted. And as the highly cultivated state of
topographical knowledge renders superficial remark unpardonable
in local description, we shall endeavor to produce, at the
various objects of our visit, such information and reflections as
a conductor, not wholly uninformed, may be expected to offer to
the curious and intelligent, while he guides him through a
large, commercial, and, we trust, a respectable town; the capital
of a province which can honestly boast, that by its rich
pasturage, its flocks and herds, it supplies England with the
blessings of agricultural fertility; and by the industry of its
frame-work-knitters, affords an article that quickens and extends
the operations of commerce.
We now request our good-humoured stranger to accept of such
our guidance; whether he be the tourist, whose object of inquiry
is general information—or the man of reflection, who,
wherever he goes, whether in crouded towns or solitary fields,
finds something to engage his meditation—or the mercantile
rider, who, when the business of his commissions is transacted,
quits his lonely parlour for a stroll through the
streets—we shall endeavor to bring before his eye as much
of interest as our scenes will afford: and as for the diligent
antiquary, we assure him we will make the most of our Roman
remains; and we hope he will not quarrel with the rough forest
stones of our streets, when we promise him they shall conduct him
to the smoother pavement of Roman mosaic.
What may have been the name of the town we are about to
traverse, before the establishment of the Romans, cannot be
ascertained; for the Britons had no written monuments, and it
cannot be expected that tradition should have survived the
revolutions, which, since that period, have taken place in this
island. King Leir, and whatever surmises may have been
founded on the similarity between his name and the present name
of the place, may safely be left to those who are more fond of
the flights of conjecture than the solid arguments of truth.
After the establishment of the Romans, Leicester became
one of their most important stations; was known, we are well
assured, by the name of Ratæ,
and was a colony, composed of the soldiers from the legions,
having magistrates, manners, and language the same as Rome
itself. Under the Saxon dynasty it obtained the name of
Leicester, compounded of
castrum, or cester, from its having been a Roman
military station, and leag, or lea, a pasture
surrounded by woods, for such was antiently the scite of the
town. This name it has preserved, with less alteration in
the mode of spelling than almost any other town in the kingdom,
through the barbarous reigns of the Saxon kings, the oppressive
system of the feudal times, the dark gloom of monkish
superstition, and the fatal revolutions occasioned by the civil
commotions of later ages.
Such is, most probably, the true etymology of the name of
the place we are now proceeding to survey; for which purpose we
will suppose the visitor to set forward from the Three Crowns
Inn, along a strait wide street, called
(corruptly pronounced Goltre), from its having formerly
led to the place of execution, the left side of which is the
scite of the antient city walls.
At the bottom of this street, a building, formerly the
assembly-room, but now converted to purposes of trade, with a
piazza, under which is a machine for weighing coals, forms the
centre of five considerable streets. The
on the right, leads to a range of new and handsome dwellings,
called Spa-Place, from a
chalybeate spring found there, which, though furnished by the
proprietor with neat marble baths and every convenient appendage
for bathing, has not been found sufficiently impregnated with
mineral properties to bring it into use. The
Humberstone-Gate is out of the local limits of the borough, and
subject to the concurrent jurisdiction of the county and borough
magistrates; though in the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth,
attempts were made to bring it exclusively under the magisterial
power of the town. It is part of the manor possessed by the
Bishops of Lincoln, in the twelfth century, and is still called
the Bishops’ Fee.
Southward from the Humberstone-Gate to the Goltre-Gate, very
considerable additions, consisting of several streets, have
lately been made to the town.
Advancing forward, the visitor, on passing the weighing
machine, enters the
a street of considerable extent, in the broader part of which
stands what may justly be deemed one of the most valuable
curiosities of the place; it is a milliare, or Roman
mile-stone, forming part of a small obelisk. This stone was
discovered in 1771, by some workmen, digging to form a rampart
for a new turnpike-road from Leicester to Melton, upon the foss
road leading to Newark, and at the distance of two miles from
Leicester. Antiquarians allow it to be the oldest
milliare now extant in Britain; and perhaps the
inscription upon it is older than most others that have been
found upon altars, or other monuments of Roman antiquity in this
island. It is about three feet long, and between five and
six in circumference. The inscription, when the
abbreviations are filled up, may be read thus—
Imperator
Cæsar,
Divi Trajani Parthici Filius Divus,
Trajanus Hadrianus Augustus,
Potestate IV. Consulatu III. A Ratis II.
Hadrian Trajanus Augustus,
Emperor & Cæsar, the son of the most illustrious Trajan
Parthicus,
In the 4th year of his reign, and his 3d consulate.
From Ratæ (Leicester) 2 miles.
Such is the inscription on this milliare, which our
industrious antiquaries seem faithfully to have extracted from
among the ruins of time and the injuries of accident; an object,
which exhibits a curious instance of the civilization introduced
by the Roman arms into this island; for the
erection of marks to denote the distance from place to place, is
an accommodation, at least to the travelling stranger, which
unpolished nations never devised; and which the inhabitants of
Britain never generally enjoyed from the final departure of the
Roman legions, till the last century, when mile-stones were again
erected along our principal turnpike roads. The unlearned
visitor, it is confessed, will be apt to view, with some degree
of disappointment, the object of which we are speaking, and about
which much busy conjecture, and learned antiquarian research has
been employed; for indeed, its appearance is neither singular nor
striking, the engraving being but slight, and the letters rudely
formed. But the ingenious observer will esteem it a
valuable curiosity; not only because it clears up the long
doubted question, whether the Ratæ of Antoninus’s Itinerary
was the present Leicester, but because it is one of those objects
which assist the reflecting mind in connecting the past with the
present; and, by confirming from sensible evidence the records of
history, give greater weight and effect to the lessons she may
teach.
The situation in which this stone is at present placed, has
often been thought improper; for it is undoubtedly exposed to
injuries from the wantonness of play, and is so little
conspicuous from its place in the obelisk, that nothing appears
necessarily to attract the attention of the stranger. A
situation more private, though not wholly so, would be more
proper; such a one as the garden of the Infirmary would afford:
it would there have all the publicity the curious could wish, and
all the security the antiquary could desire.
Our visitor, continuing his walk along this street,
which, as he probably will know, is on the great road from the
metropolis to the north-west part of the kingdom, arrives at a
scene of busy traffic. Here, among numbers of newly-erected
dwellings (proofs of the increasing population of the town) is
the public and principal wharf on the navigable canal, near which
is an iron foundery. This canal was formed, in consequence
of a bill passed in 1791, for the purpose of opening a
communication with the Loughborough canal, and through that, with
the various navigations, united to the Trent. The line of
the canal from Leicester to Loughborough is near sixteen miles in
extent, and serves to supply Leicester with coal, lime, and the
greater part of all the other heavy articles, which the
consumption of a place, containing sixteen thousand
inhabitants, requires.
The rates of tonnage, according to the act, from Loughborough
to Leicester, are—
For coals
|
1s. 2d. per ton.
|
Iron, timber, &c.
|
2s. 6d.
|
Quantity of the articles brought by this canal:
|
tons
|
Coal annually consumed in Leicester and its vicinity
|
35,000
|
Ditto forwarded to other canals
|
18,000
|
Merchandize for Leicester
|
4,000
|
Ditto sent down (chiefly wool)
|
1,600
|
Thus, whether we consider the saving of corn, &c. consumed
by the horses employed in land carriage, the comparative
cheapness of the conveyance, or the improved state of our roads,
relieved from such heavy weights, it must be acknowledged that
this canal adds more than might have been expected to
the convenience of Leicester, and the greater part of its
county. Indeed, these water-roads, as navigable
canals may be termed, reflect the greatest honour on the
ingenuity of man, exemplified in their formation, and prove most
strikingly to the thinking mind, how boundless are the advantages
of civilized life, and how inviolable the security afforded to
property by laws, wisely framed and judiciously enforced.
The view from this spot, across the Abbey Meadow, extending on
the opposite side of the canal, with the ruins of the Devonshire
mansion, commonly termed the Abbey, from its being the
scite of St. Mary de Pratis, will, by most visitors, be
considered, at least, as very pleasing; but as we mean to conduct
our traveller to that place, we shall, at present, forbear to
particularize it.
We shall immediately, along a lane, called
Arch-deacon’s Lane, about the middle of which is a Meeting
house, with a small burial ground, belonging to the General
Baptists, guide our stranger to
This structure is rendered venerable by its tower, whose
pinnacles and trefoil-work, with the niche, or tabernacle, on the
corner of the south wall of the church, would have even shown it,
had not its date been confirmed by Bishop Alnwicke’s
register, 1441, to have been the work of the era of the regular
gothic. From this tower, a ring of ten bells, well known
for their excellence, sound in frequent peals of harmony along
the meadow and river below.
This, when the other churches of Leicester were given to the
abbey by Robert Bossu, was annexed as a
prebend to the cathedral of Lincoln, by the bishops of that
diocese to whom it then belonged. The right of presentation
is vested in the person holding the prebend, and the parish, with
the neighbouring dependent parish of Knighton, is exempted from
the jurisdiction of the Arch-deacon of Leicester. The
inside of the church is handsome; the nave and side aisles are
supported by gothic arches, whose beauty and symmetry are not
concealed by aukward galleries. The organ was erected by
the parishioners in 1773.
Several elegant modern monuments adorn the walls, and in the
north aisle is the alabaster tomb of Bishop Penny, many years
abbot of the neighbouring monastery of St Mary de Pratis.
In the church-yard the military trophies of a black tomb
commemorate Andrew Lord Rollo. This nobleman was
an instance of the attraction which a martial life affords to an
elevated mind, for he entered the service at the age of forty,
when generally the habits and inclinations of life are so fixed,
as scarcely to admit any change. After many years of severe
and dangerous services, he died at Leicester, as the inscription
informs us, on his way to Bristol, for the recovery of his
health, 1765.
It is to be observed of this and the other churches in this
place, that the entrance is by a descent of several steps; a
circumstance proving incontestibly, that the ground without has
been considerably raised, since no reason could induce the
founders of these sacred edifices to sink the floors beyond the
natural level; nor is the surface of the church-yards alone,
higher than the floors of the churches; so
caused by the continued interment of the dead: but the general
level of the pavements of the streets is also higher; from which
it must be inferred, that the ground on which the present houses
are built has been every where raised, and that very
considerably. That the rubbish produced by buildings, and
particularly the consumption of fuel, should produce this effect,
is what any one may readily believe; and the Bishop of Llandaff
calculates in his Chemical Essays, that the quantity of coal
consumed annually in London, would raise an area of ten miles
square, a full inch.
But notwithstanding it may safely be affirmed that a much
greater quantity of fuel is at present consumed, and more rubbish
produced annually in Leicester, than at any other period
whatever, yet the seeming paradox may easily be proved, that
little, if any alteration in the level of the town is made
now. For the demand of all the refuse of the yards for the
purposes of agriculture, and the ordinary attention paid to
sweeping the streets, prevent any accumulation of soil: the
change of level then, of which our churches afford such
indubitable proofs, can only have taken place when the streets
were unpaved, and made the receptacle of every kind of offal from
the houses; and when the yards, uncleared for the purposes of
improved agriculture, were choaked by accumulated filth; the
whole almost ever yielding in abundance those noxious steams, the
loathsome parent of pestilences, which, in former days,
frequently proved the scourges of our larger towns, and too often
spread their contagion to the villages. Hence the entrance
into our churches, among other good sentiments, may excite in
the reflective mind a gratitude for the improved comforts the
inhabitants of large towns now enjoy; and the same circumstances
may also call forth the exertions of benevolence to promote still
greater cleanliness, and to remove from the habitations of man
those effects of filthiness, which, in proportion to their
extent, are always offensive, and sometimes fatal.
Westward from this church-yard, extends a street strait and
wide, but meanly built, called
Here nothing can be traced worthy of observation, except the
etymologist stops to glean the remark that Sanvy is
derived from sancta via, the antient name of the street,
so denominated from the solemn procession that passed through it
on Whitsun Monday, in its way from St. Mary’s to
St. Margaret’s. In this procession the image of the
Virgin was carried under a canopy, with an attendant minstrel and
harp, accompanied by representatives of the twelve apostles, each
denoted by the name of the sacred character he personated,
written on parchment, fixed to his bonnet; these were followed by
persons bearing banners, and the virgins of the parish.
Among other oblations they presented in St. Margaret’s
Church two pair of gloves; one for the Deity, and one for St.
Thomas of India.
The stranger, having visited St. Margaret’s Church, may
proceed up the
about the middle of which he will pass through an area of
about an acre and a half, the property of Sir Nigel Gresley,
Bart. now used as a wood yard; but formerly given by Queen
Elizabeth to the freemen of Leicester, for the
practice of public sports, and especially archery; whence, from
the butts, or shooting marks erected in it, it is called
Butt-close.
There is good reason to believe that plots of ground were once
destined to the like purposes in almost every village, and butts
erected for the practice of that art, to which several of the
most important victories of the English were certainly
owing. The use of the arbalest, or cross-bow, was
certainly very antient in Europe, and was the weapon that proved
fatal to Harold at the battle of Hastings: but the long bow was
not familiar to the English, or, perhaps, not known in Europe,
till the return of Edward the First from the Holy Land, where he
became sensible of its superior advantages from his conflicts
with the Saracens.
From this period till the time of Charles the First,
frequent orders were issued by the kings, and acts of parliament
were passed, enforcing and regulating the exercise of the long
bow. Persons of all ages, from seven years old and upwards,
were obliged by penalties to appear at stated times, each with
his bow of a length equal to his own height, and, at least, a
brace of arrows, to try his skill and strength before the butts
near their respective places of residence; and by a statute of
Henry the Eighth, no one under twenty-four was allowed to shoot
at any mark, at a less distance than eleven score, or 220 yards,
a distance of greater length than our Butt-close is at
present; yet it is certain that the adjoining orchard once formed
part of it, and other encroachments may have been made on it,
probably at the north end.
The great execution that may be done by the bow, from
the rapidity of its discharges, and the confusion a flight of
arrows is likely to occasion, especially among cavalry, has
inclined some to contend that it is a weapon in excellence
superior to the musket. But the difficulty of procuring, in
any great quantity, the proper wood for the formation of bows,
the expense of arrows, and, above all, the long practice and
training, even from infancy, necessary to form an archer capable
of drawing an arrow a cloth-yard long, [23] will ever secure the preference to the
latter weapon, which, though as commonly used, perhaps less certain of hitting the mark, is however capable of doing
much execution at double the distance to which the bow will carry
[24].
Crossing the Butt-close, to the alley on the right, we pass
the Presbyterian, or Great Meeting
House, built, as appears by a date on the walls, 1708; the
congregation of which was first established in 1680. The
seats are calculated to accommodate eight hundred persons.
An organ was erected here in 1800, a valuable advantage to the
choir, who form a musical society, cultivated with great care,
and justly celebrated for its excellence.
In an opposite lane, now called Causeway-lane, but formerly
St. John’s, leading to the Town Goal, the scite of St. John’s Chapel, is a small place of worship
appropriated to the service of the Romish Church. It
is secluded from observation, being situated behind the house of
the officiating priest, and is a neat miniature representation of
the peculiar decorations with which the members of that religion
adorn the places where they offer up their public devotions.
Opposite the Great Meeting is a Meeting House newly erected by
a society of Independents, which will seat six hundred
persons; and in the adjoining lane, which has undergone a nominal
degeneracy from St. Peter’s to Woman’s
Lane, is another, erected 1803, by a society calling
themselves Episcopalian Baptists. Between these two
latter buildings, is an area used as a Bowling Green, and
Tea Garden, with many small structures erected for
the general purposes of amusement; it is known by the name of the
New Vauxhall. Among this various assemblage of
edifices stands one, which from its size will attract the
attention of visitors; it is a spacious House for the reception
of Lunatics, under the direction of Dr. Arnold. From hence
we pass an irregular street, now called the
formerly Parchment Lane; which may afford interest to
the mind tho’ not to the eye; for the reflective Traveller
will not regard as unimportant the humble dwellings of those
Manufacturers whose industry supplies the commercial wealth of
the nation.
From this street we arrive at a spot still called the
tho the gates of the ancient town were, some years
ago, taken down to render the passage more commodious. In
the massy wood of these gates were found balls of a large size,
which probably had lodged there ever since the assault made upon
the town by king Charles’s forces in 1695, when according
to a note in the pocket-book of one Simmonds, a quarter-master in
the King’s army, which is now preserved in the Harleian
library, “Col. Bard’s Tertia fell on with scaling
ladders, some near a flanker, and others scaled the horne work
before the draw-bridge on the east side.”
We now advance along the
observing on the right hand, about half way up, a lofty
hexagon turret, whose top is glaz’d for the purpose of a
prospect seat. It bears on the inside,
marks of considerable antiquity, and is a remain of the mansion
of Henry Earl of Huntingdon, called Lord’s
Place. It has a winding stair-case of stone, with a
small apartment on each story, and is now modernized with an
outward coating of brick.
From hence we enter a street, which was formerly upon the
great north road; it leads to Ashby-de-la-zouch, and changing its
denomination at different places, intersects the town from the
southern extremity, where stands the Infirmary, to the North
Bridge, a space of a mile and one eighth; where it is crossed by
High-Street and St. Nicholas’ Street, it takes the name
of
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 æra 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 20l.
10s. 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
Dïana and Actæon; 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 tesseræ
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
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 Cæsars. 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
leading to the Ashby-de-la-Zouch road, and that on the right,
the
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.
Quitting the Abbey meadow, and passing the North lock, we
still continue our walk along pleasing rural scenes. The
sweeps of the river which here beautifully meanders, wash, almost
closely, a large extent of town, affording an agreeable prospect
on the left, and a slope finely diversified with groves and
pasturage descends gently to the meadows on the right.
Approaching the Bow-Bridge, we pass a plot of ground insulated by
the Soar, called the Black Friars, once the scite of a monastery
belonging to the Augustine or Black Friars, of which no traces
now remain. That arm of the river
which flows under the west bridge, is by some supposed, from its
passing under the scite of the old Roman town, to be a canal
formed by that people for the convenience of their
dwellings. It is now called the New Soar, and
whether it can authentically boast the honor of being a Roman
work, the antiquary may perhaps endeavour in vain to
decide. A tunnel or Roman sewer, was discovered in 1793, at
an equal distance between the Roman ruin, called Jewry Wall, and
the river, and in a direct line towards the latter, which
contained some curious fragments of Roman pottery.
Tho’ it be the leading purpose of this survey to point
out existing objects, those who lament the loss of such antient
remains as were justly to be prized, will pardon a brief tribute
to the memory of Bow-Bridge. That single
arch of stone, richly shadowed with ivy, spanned, at the corner
of this island, the arm of the Soar. Its beautiful curve,
unbroken either by parapet or hand-rail, well merited the name
with which some Antiquaries have graced it, the Rialto
Bridge. On the top of the bow, feeding on the mould
which time had accumulated upon the stony ridge, flourished a
spreading hawthorn; this with the stream below, when sparkling
under the reflection of the western sun, the broken shrubby
banks, and the distant swell of Brad-gate Park hill, formed a
picture which has often allured the eye; a picture, that, as it
repeatedly arrested the painter’s hand, we can hardly say
is now no more.
Of this Bridge, the learned author of the Desiderata
Curiosa, who has mistaken it for the adjoining one of
four arches, has given a plate in which is represented a troop of
horsemen with banners, carrying the dead body of Richard the
third, thrown upon a horse, over a bridge which never exceeded
three feet; a width fully sufficient for the purpose for which it
seems to have been constructed, that of affording a foot passage
from the monastery of the Augustines to a spring of pure water
some yards distant. This spring till within a few years,
was covered with a large circular stone, having an aperture in
the centre, thro’ which the monks let down their pitchers
into the water, and retained the name of St. Austin’s
Well.
But tho’ not over this bridge, yet over the adjoining
one, known also, probably from its vicinity to the other, by the name of Bow-Bridge, the monster Richard
really passed, proud, angry, and threatening, mounted on his
charger to meet Richmond; and over it, the day after the battle,
his body was brought behind a pursuivant at arms, naked and
disgraced, and after being exhibited in the Town-Hall, then
situated at the bottom of Blue-Boar Lane, was interred in the
church of the Grey-Friars near St. Martins.
The name of this king excites in the mind a sensation of
horror;—and tho’ it required the overwhelming
evidence of human depravity furnished by the French revolution,
to make the author of the “Historic Doubts,” believe
his crimes possible, the concurrent testimonies both of
Lancastrian and Yorkist Chroniclers, too well demonstrate
them. Tho’ the latter may have endeavoured to soften
the picture, and Shakespear may have
thrown upon it the darkest shades by working up his deformity of
body and mind into a picture of diabolical horror, the original,
the undoubted traits are preserved by both parties; traits, which
so far from being peculiar to Richard, marked likewise the other
characters of the contending houses. Nor did he deviate
widely from the manners of the times when he “waded
thro’ slaughter to a throne.”
A pleasing woody road leads from Bow-Bridge to Danett’s
Hall, the seat of Edward Alexander, M.D. The ground here
rising in a gentle slope obtains a command of the town, and that
the dryness of the soil and agreeableness of the situation, mark
it as a desirable spot for residence, even the taste of the
antient Romans may prove; for in the plot of ground known by the
name of the “great cherry
orchard,” remains a relic of one of their houses.
This is a fragment of a tesselated floor, discovered a few years
ago, but covered over by a former possessor of the estate.
It is composed of tesserœ of various sizes, forming an
elegant geometrical pattern, but how far it extends, has not yet
been ascertained.
Among the great number of these pavements found at Leicester,
are three very perfect ones discovered in the ground belonging to
Walter Ruding Esq. adjoining the old Vauxhall, near the west
bridge—they also are composed in curious and exact
patterns, and form entire squares; but are now filled up.
Of these, together with that in the great cherry orchard, very
accurate plates are given in Nichols.
To the westward of Danett’s Hall, and West-cotes, the
seat of Mr. Ruding, is a lane or bridle road,
commonly called the Fosse, but various reasons lead to the belief
that it is not part of the antient Roman road of that name.
The unvarying testimony of tradition has clearly proved that the
road from the town westward lay, in the reign of Richard the
third, over Bow-Bridge. By attending to the Fosse, which
runs nearly in the line of the Narborough road by West-cotes, it
will seem likewise necessary to conclude that the approach to
Leicester, in the time of the Romans, was also over a bridge
situate near that spot; for as it is certain that the Fosse did
pass thro’ Leicester, and the Romans in forming their roads
scrupulously adhered to the strait line, they would cross the old
Soar near this place.
When the Romans penetrated into Britain under the reign
of Claudius, they found it almost in every part, crowded with
woods, and infested with morasses; and as the natives well knew
how to avail themeslves of these fastnesses, the island could
never be considered as effectually conquered till it was rendered
accessible to the march of the legions, and means were provided
for speedy communication of intelligence from even the most
distant parts of the provinces. On this account their
Cohorts early applied themselves to the task of forming roads;
nor did they cease their labours till in the time of Antoninus,
they had opened passages thro’ the island in all
directions. In the reign of that emperor, these works,
connected with others which they had already constructed on the
continent, formed a great chain of communication, which, passing thro’ Rome, from the
Pict’s wall, or north west, to Jerusalem, nearly the
southeast point of the empire, was drawn out to the length of
4080 Roman, or as Mr. Reynolds has shewn, of so many British
statute miles. Along these roads proper relays of horses
were stationed at short distances, and it seems that couriers
could travel with ease above an hundred miles a day. Two of
these roads, as already observed, passed thro’
Leicester. One, the Via Devana, leading from
Camalodunum, or Colchester, in Essex, to Deva, of west
Chester, a distance of about two hundred miles, has been lately
discovered by some ingenious and able Antiquaries of the
University of Cambridge.
It enters Leicestershire in the neighbourhood of Rockingham;
continues a strait road for many miles till it
nearly reaches Leicester, and passing thro’ the town it is
found to leave the county near Ashby-de-la-Zouch. The other
road, called the Via Fossata or Fosse, always
known, and every where remarkable, traverses the island in a
north-east direction, from near Grimsby on the coast of
Lincolnshire, passes thro’ Bath, and terminates at Seaton,
a village situated on the coast of Devonshire, a distance of more
than two hundred and fifty miles. This road enters
Leicesteshire at a place called Seg’s Hill, on the wolds,
or antiently wild and uncultivated parts of the county; from
thence it passes the village of Thurmaston and approaches the
East gates of Leicester, by the street called the Belgrave
Gate. On the south-west of the town it is again recognized
in the Narborough road, and from that
village it proceeds again a solitary lane till it enters
Warwickshire at High Cross, where it crosses the no less
celebrated Roman road, the Watling-Street. It is well known
that in the formation of these roads, the Romans spared no cost
and labour. From the remains of some of them it appears
that upon a bed of sand they spread a coating of gravel, upon
which the pebbles, and sometimes hewn or squared stones were
laid, firmly compacted together in a bed of cement. This,
we have reason to believe, was the structure of such of the roads
in this island as are distinguished by the title of
Street, a word derived from the Latin Strata,
meaning formed of layers. But such pains were not, it is
probable, taken in all cases; and from the name of one of the
roads passing thro’ Leicester, the
Fosse, an abbreviation of the Latin Via Fossata,
meaning the way ditched, or dug, we cannot but conclude that it
was a road raised by the spade and formed with a rampart, and
probably covered with gravel in the manner of our present
turnpike roads. The same may also be said of the Via
Divana, whose rampart, now covered with grass, the ingenious
discoverers observed in many places.
When the Saxons subdued this island, after the departure of
the Romans, to preserve a ready communication between distant
places formed no part of then rude and simple policy. Hence
the best roads of the Romans were neglected by them, and since
the Romans had either forbidden, or the inclination of the
Britons had dissuaded them from erecting villages on the line of
public roads, those roads became useless,
and their lasting materials are only to be found, tho’ not
distinguished, in the foundations of the neighbouring
habitations. As it would always be more easy to carry away
the materials of a Roman road than dig for them in a quarry, it
has happened that those materials have been in general so
intirely removed, as to leave almost no where any other trace,
than history and tradition, of their existence.
From the departure of the Romans in 445, to the beginning of
the eighteenth century, the roads of this Island received little
or no improvement from the legislative powers, except by an order
in the reign of Henry the second, that roads should be cleared of
woods and made open that travellers might have leisure, if they
should find it prudent, to prepare to resist the almost armies of
robbers which were spread over the face of almost every
county. Roads, being no longer regulated by any system, to
pass from place to place so as to avoid as well as might be the
inconveniences of woods, bogs, and sloughs, became the only
business of the traveller. It was thus by accident the line
of our present roads was formed, and to this their frequent
circuits and other inconveniences are owing.
During the period above mentioned they were in general so bad
as to be useless for the passage of any other carriages than
carts, and for these only in the summer season; so that the
people inhabiting the same country as the Britons, who are said
to have had numbers and great variety of cars of all kinds, were
so exclusively confined to the use of horses and mules, that scarcely any other mode of conveyance was known even in
London, and this so late as in the reigns of Elizabeth and James
the first; for it is certain that when the great Shakespeare fled
from his country and came to town, his first means of subsistence
were the pittances he might earn by holding the horses of the
persons who had come from different parts of London to see the
plays then performed at the Bankside Theatre.
It is not indeed to be asserted that till the eighteenth
century our roads never received any repairs, for necessity would
frequently call for something of the kind in most places; nor yet
that Toll Bars were antiently wholly unknown; for it is certain
that a Gate or Bar was first erected in the reign of Edward the
first, at a place now called Holborn Bars in London, for
the purpose of collecting tolls for the repairs of the
roads. But it must be allowed that the art of constructing
a good and firm road was ill understood, and worse attended to;
and when, in the beginning of the last century, turnpike roads
were first made, it was imagined that the only good form was that
of a ridge and furrow lying across the road on the line of its
direction. Turnpike gates were also in many places
considered as such impositions that even in the beginning of the
reign of George the second, some persons contested the payment,
several were frequently seen together, especially at newly
erected gates, suffering an interruption in their journey rather
than submit to what they deemed an imposition. Every one
who understands the true conveniences of life will rejoice, that
both the formation and repairs of roads, and also the
usefulness of turn-pike tolls are now better understood; that
even countries once held to be inaccessible are now open at all
times and at all seasons to the traveller, and that most of our
roads are now so well suited to the purposes not only of
convenience but of pleasure, that we have no reason to lament the
destruction of the Roman ways, or even not to think that we have
within these few years greatly surpassed them in the expedition
of our mails and all the conveniences and comforts of
travelling.
On this western side of the town, where its environs afford
the attraction of woody scenery, the stranger is invited to
prolong his stroll round Ruding’s Walk. This
walk, tho’ a continuation of the plantation that
encloses West-cotes, is liberally left open by its possessor, who
generously shares with the public the pleasure of his cool and
shady scenery. Where the walk, after winding thro’ a
flourishing shrubbery, enters a grove of tall and venerable elms,
the churches and buildings of the town, broken by the
intermediate trees of the paddock, and the long line of distance
varied by villages, scattered dwellings and corn-mills, unite in
a rich and pleasing prospect.
On turning towards the West, the lover of contrast may for a
moment call to his imagination the dark, heavy, and almost
impenetrable forest which covered these lands in the twelfth
century, and depicture figures of the inhabitants of Leicester
bearing from thence their allowed load of wood, the
supply for their hearths, and for this privilege, paying at the
West bridge, their toll of brïgg silver to their
feudal Baron. To this picture he will oppose the present
scene of pasturage, flocks, and free husbandmen, cultivating the
earth under the protection of just and equal laws. The
slightest glance at past ages is a moral study, that renders us
not only satisfied but grateful.
We cannot pass West-cotes, without noticing an object in the
possession of Mr. Ruding, highly interesting to the admirers of
the fine Arts. This is a picture in painted glass,
representing Mutius Scævola affording Porsena an
astonishing proof of his resolution by burning that hand which
had assassinated the secretary instead of the king. The
exquisite finish, and perfect preservation of this small piece bespeak it of the antient Flemish school, whose
artists according to Guicciardini, invented the mode of burning
their colours into the glass so as to secure them from the
corrosion of water, wind, or even time. There is no
department of the delightful art of painting that so much excites
wonder as this. When, in examining this piece, it is
considered that every tint and demi-tint of the highly relieved
drapery, every stroke of the distant tents and towers, was laid
on in a fusile state; that delicate command of skill which could
prevent the shades from liquefying into each other, and arrest
every touch in its assigned place, so as to produce the effects
of the most finished oil painting, cannot be sufficiently
admired.
Entering the town we pass the Braunston
Gate, to the bridge of the same name, crossing the old Soar, and
soon arrive at the West bridge, which crosses the new Soar.
From hence the canal, taking the name of Union Canal, proceeds
toward Market Harborough. On the corner of an old house
upon the bridge, is an antient wooden bracket, which formerly
supported a bell, by some supposed to have been used by the
mendicant brothers of the neighbouring monastery of St.
Augustine, who here took their station to beg alms, or, which is
more probable, it might have been the bell belonging to the
porter of the gate which stood here.
The street called Apple-gate, that leads us to the church of
St. Nicholas, will not be passed without interest by those who
recollect that on this spot, where the ground rises in a gentle ascent from the river, the Legions of Rome
established their town; and we are now arrived at an object which
brings them more forcibly to remembrance, a massy arched wall,
commonly termed, from its bounding the quarter antiently
inhabited by the Jews, the Jewry Wall.
This ruin, so minutely described by many Antiquaries, will
afford to curious and learned observers, a valuable specimen of
the mode of building practised by the Romans, but the uses for
which it was designed, will, most probably, for ever elude their
researches. They will not however, forbear their
conjectures concerning it; of these, two have obtained most
credit; one, that it was a temple of the Roman Janus; and the
other, the Janua, or great Gate-way, of the Roman town. The
latter seems chiefly supported by the assertion of
the learned Leman, that the line of the Fosse, having joined the
Via Devana, runs thro’ this spot. But whoever
minutely examines the arches, will not easily overcome the
objections which the work affords to oppose this opinion; or
assign a reason why a city no larger than our Ratæ should
have a Gateway with so many openings; nor does any satisfactory
answer occur to the query why a gate should be placed in what
seems to have been the central part of the antient city.
And perhaps all the evidence for the other opinion rests upon the
dark sooty coat that encrusts the interior of the arches; an
appearance which the smoak of the town would easily produce in
one century. Indeed, little, it seems, can be concluded
from the present outside of the work; for as we cannot
conceive that the Romans would have elected so rough an edifice,
it must be supposed that the present remains were originally
coated with workmanship more worthy of such polished
builders. If, however we must indulge a conjecture, we
shall be led to imagine, from the slight remain of ornament,
which is only the fragment of a niche, that this wall was either
part of a Roman temple or bath. Still however such an
opinion rests, and must rest, on nothing but conjecture, since
the remains are too scanty to afford sufficient data for a
settled opinion. Thus may we take our leave of this
remarkable object, which, tho’ incontrovertibly of Roman
origin, and likely to exist when the church built with its stolen
spoils shall be no more, must continue
for ever, as it is at present, an interesting mystery.
The adjoining church of St. Nicholas is a small edifice of
very rude and consequently very antient construction. It
has evidently been built at different periods. It consists
only of two aisles, the north one having long since been taken
down; the south aisle is gothic, and the other, properly the
nave, is of that massy unornamented style, in use before and at
the conquest; from the circumstance of its being built with the
materials of the neighbouring Roman work, it will perhaps be no
anachronism to assign to it a date prior to that period.
The tower is also Saxon; and the spire having been damaged by the
wind is now taken down.
The area, eastward of the churchyard, is called
Holy Bones; bones of oxen having been there dug up in
sufficient numbers to induce the belief that it was once a place
of sacrifice. The church of St. Augustine which stood on
this spot, is supposed to have been destroyed before the
conquest.
At the corner of this area is a charity school, established on
the bounty bequeathed by Ald. Gabriel Newton, for the clothing
and educating thirty five boys; and in the terms of the
founder’s will, “instructing them in toning and
psalmody.”
In a lane not far from St. Nicholas’ church, called
Harvey Lane, is the meeting house of the Calvinistic Baptists,
which is capable of containing 500 persons.
From St. Nicholas’ street, we again arrive at the
High-Cross, and proceed southward, along High-Cross-Street.
In this street, in the house of Mr. Stephens, are the
remains of a chantry or chapel, established for the purpose of
saying masses for the dead, once belonging to St. Martins
church. They consist of a range of windows, exhibiting in
curiously painted glass, a regular series of sacred history.
The next object, worthy of attention, at which we arrive, is
an elegant gothic building, with an inscription
“Consanguinitarium, 1792.” It consists
of five neat dwellings, to which is annexed a yearly stipend of
upwards of 60l. and was built by John Johnson, Esq. a well-known
Architect as a perpetual home for such of his relations as may
not be favored by successful fortune.
Turning down a narrow alley, called Castle Street, we arrive
at a spacious area, on the right of which is a charity school, built in 1785, belonging to the parish of St.
Mary, which clothes and educates 45 boys and 35 girls.
The visitor will now have a full view of St. Mary’s
church, antiently known by the distinguishing addition of
infra or juxta Castrum, a building in which he will
perceive, huddled together, specimens of various kinds of
architecture, from the Norman gothic of the north chancel, to the
very modern gothic of the spire; a mixture which evinces the
antiquity of the church, marks the disasters of violence,
accident, and time, and proves that the neighbourhood of the
castle, within whose outer ballium or precincts it stood, was
often most dangerous. That there was a church, on this spot
in the Saxon times, seems almost certain, from some bricks
apparently the workmanship of that people, found in the
chancel; and the cheveron work round the windows of this chancel
proves that the first Norman Earl of Leicester, Robert de
Bellomont, when he repaired the mischiefs of the Norman conquest,
or rather of the attack made by William Rufus upon the property
of the Grentemaisnells, constructed a church on a plan nearly
like the present, and adorned it with all the ornaments of the
architecture of his times. This Earl founded in it a
college of twelve canons, of whom the Dean was most probably one,
and among other donations for their support, he endowed it with
the patronage of all the other churches of Leicester, St.
Margaret’s excepted. These, his son and successor,
Robert, surnamed Bossu, converted into regular canons, and
removed them, with great additional donations to the Abbey
in the meadows. He seems however to have continued an
establishment of eight canons in the collegiate church,
tho’ with revenues comparatively small, since their income,
at the dissolution of the monasteries, was valued only at 23l.
12s. 11d. That the number of these canons remained
unchanged at the time of the dissolution, appears probable from
the circumstance of seven cranes and a socket for an eighth being
still found in a kind of press, or ark, as it is called, in the
vestry, for the purpose of suspending the priests’
vestments.
The inside of the church is spacious and commodious, and has
lately been rendered still more so by converting the gothic
arches of the south side of the nave into one bold semicircular
arch whose span is 39 feet, and erecting a gallery in the wide
south aisle, said to have been built by John of Gaunt
Duke of Lancaster.
In the great choir or chapel called Trinity choir, at the east
end of the great south aisle, (for the aisles of our churches
were formerly often divided into chapels, but of which in this
church no traces now remain), was held a Guild or
Fraternity, called Trinity Guild, founded in the reign of
Henry the Seventh, by Sir Richard Sacheverel, Kt. and the good
Lady Hungerford. Collections were made four times a year,
of the brethren and sisters belonging to this Society, whatever
it might be, for Antiquaries have not rendered the point
sufficiently clear, but from their meetings being held in
churches, it is most probable that they were of a religious
nature. The money when collected was applied to
meet various expenses, but chiefly to pay the wages of their
priest, perhaps their confessor, and to supply their great feast
held annually on Trinity Sunday, for which, according to the
account of the steward and wardens, the following articles were
purchased, A.D. 1508.
|
s.
|
d.
|
A dozen of Ale
|
1
|
8
|
A fat Sheep
|
2
|
4
|
Seven Lambs
|
7
|
0
|
Thirty Chickens
|
1
|
11
|
Two gallons of Cream
|
0
|
8
|
½qr. of Malt
|
2
|
0
|
Fourteen Geese
|
4
|
3
|
From a curious and ingenious Mathematical Essay on the
comparative prices of similar articles in different ages,
presented to the society of Antiquaries, we have here the
pleasure of offering to the attention of our visitor, the
following valuable remarks.
“The generality of readers when they look
into the records of antient times, are forcibly struck by the
seeming lowness of the prices of every article of common demand,
when compared with the modern prices. When they find that
an ox was formerly sold for a few shillings, and the price of a
quarter of corn calculated in pence, they are led to envy the
supposed cheapness of those ages, and to bewail the distressing
dearness of the present. Nothing however can be more absurd
than the whining complaints founded upon such facts; for since
the cheapness of living depends not so much upon the price given
for every article of prime necessity, as upon the means by which,
to use a common expression, the purchase may be
afforded, we must, if we wish to form a proper judgment on the
subject, rightly compare these means as they existed in different
ages, otherwise our conclusions will be not only idle, but
sometimes mischievous.
“It is very certain that money is a commodity, no less
than the articles it is employed to purchase, and like them, its
absolute value is depreciated or lowered by abundance.
Since the discovery of America, the quantity of gold and silver
brought into general circulation, and of late, the general and
extensive use of paper money which represents real specie,
produces the same effect as would arise from a still greater
encrease of it. From this natural depreciation alone of the
value of coin, it follows that were all other circumstances to
have continued the same, the relative value of money would
have decreased, or a greater number of pieces of the same
denomination would be now required to produce the same effect as
formerly, and therefore that it will be necessary to multiply any
sum of money of the present age, into some certain number, in
order to learn the effect of the same sum in an assigned
preceding age.”
From this multiplication it is demonstrated that the price of
the dozen of Ale, for which the Trinity Guild paid 20d. is
equivalent to something more than 6d. a quart;—the fat
sheep at 2s. 4d. to 1l. 11s. 4d.—the seven lambs at 7s. to
16s. each;—the thirty chickens at 23d. to rather more than
2s. 6d. the couple;—the two gallons of cream at 8d. to 2s.
8d. a quart;—the half quarter of malt at 2s. to 3l. 4s. the
quarter;—the fourteen geese at 4s.
3d. to nearly 5s. each.
In the reign of the Norman kings, articles, but especially
corn, were dearer than at present. In Henry the sevenths
reign meat was cheaper, but other articles dearer than at
present. We now return to the church of St. Mary.
In the year 1783, the spire which had several times been
injured by lightening, was so much shattered by a fresh stroke as
to require to be taken down to the battlements. It was
rebuilt under the direction of an architect, of the name of
Cheshire at an expense, exclusive of the old materials, of 245l.
10s. the height of the spire from the ground 61 yards. In
this church, in which for many years he officiated as curate, is
interred the Rev. W. Bickerstaffe, a man of great simplicity of
manners, and urbanity of disposition; who by his
laborious and minute researches materially assisted the
Topographers of Leicester.
Near the north door of this church is a passage leading under
an old fashioned building forming a gate-way into an area called
the castle yard. That the present structure was the
gate-way of the castle when it was tenable as a place of defence,
cannot, for a moment be imagined; but that there was always an
entrance at this place we are well assured, for the adjoining
building on the left is known by the name of the Porter’s
Lodge, and it must therefore be concluded that the present was
built upon the scite of the antient gate-way, and that it was
constructed with the timbers and other materials taken in later
ages from some part of the castle which had been taken down.
At this gateway was preserved, till within a few years
past, an antient ceremony expressive of the homage formerly paid
by the magistrates of Leicester, to the feudal Lords of the
castle. The mayor knocking for admittance at the gate was
received by the constable of the castle, while the mace was
sloped in token of homage; he then took an oath of allegiance to
the king as heir to the Lancastrian property; the latter
ceremony, agreeable to one of the corporation charters, is still
performed, but in private. The office of constable of the
castle, which in the beginning of the reign of Mary, was held by
Henry duke of Suffolk, with the annual fee of sixty shillings and
eight pence, is now retained only nominally.
Opposite the gate-way stands a building most probably erected
by the first of the Bellomonts, tho’ the
modern front which meets the eye effectually conceals all the
outward traces of antiquity. The inside of the edifice
however is a room exceedingly curious. Its area is large,
being about seventy-eight feet long, twenty-four high and
fifty-one broad. It is framed into a sort of aisles, by two
rows of tall and massy oaken pillars, which serve to support a
large and weighty covering of slate. This vast room was the
antient hall of the castle, in which the earls of Leicester, and
afterwards the dukes of Lancaster, alternately held their courts,
and consumed in rude but plenteous hospitality, at the head of
their visitors, or their vassals, the rent of their estates then
usually paid in kind. On the south end appear the traces of
a door-way, which probably was the
entrance into a gallery that has often, among other purposes,
served as an orchestra for the minstrels and musicians of former
days. This hall, during the reigns of several of the
Lancastrian princes was the scene of frequent Parliaments, whose
transactions our provincial historians have carefully
recorded. At present it is used only for the holding the
assizes and other country meetings, to which purpose it is, from
its length, so well adapted, that, tho’ the business of the
civil and crown bars is carried on at the same time at the
opposite ends of the room, the pleadings of the one do not in the
least interrupt the pleadings of the other.
The reflecting visitor, who may choose to compare the uses to
which this place is now applied, with the purposes for which it
was built, will not fail to derive from the
comparison so very favorable to the present times, a satisfaction
most worthy the benevolent heart. Instead of the rude
licentious carousals of the Bellomonts, when the baron
domineered, even in drunkenness, over his assembled slaves, we
often see large bodies of the inhabitants of the county, men
worthy of freedom and possessing it, assembled to consider with
decorum, and to decide with unawed, unbiassed judgment, upon
measures of no little importance to the kingdom of England.
And instead of the savage violence, or idiot folly which mostly
dictated the award of every kind of property, in those feudal
times, we see happily substituted the fair examination of the
witnesses, the eloquent pleadings of the barristers, the learned
observations of the Judge, and the impartial
decisions of the Jury, nobly co-operating to investigate truth,
and to decide, according to right, the means alike of happiness
and virtue. In what manner, and by what degrees this happy
change was effected, the following well authenticated anecdote
may serve to shew.
Robert de Bellomont, the first earl, sitting in the apartment
of the keep of his castle at Leicester, heard a loud shout in the
neighbouring fields. Enquiring into the cause, he found
that it was given by the partizans of a combatant who was then
fighting a duel with his near relation to ascertain the right to
a certain piece of land in St. Mary’s field. The
cruelty and absurdity of such a mode of decision seems to have
been forcibly impressed upon the mind of the earl, by
this affecting circumstance; and he agreed with the burgesses and
inhabitants of Leicester, on the payment of one penny for every
house that had a gable or gavel in the High-street (a payment
afterwards known by the term gavel pence) that all pleas
of the above mentioned nature should be determined by a jury of
twenty four persons.
From the county hall, or castle, as it is commonly called, a
road to the right leads to an antient gate-way strongly built and
once furnished with a port-cullis, and every requisite for
defence. The embattled parapet being much decayed, was
taken down a few years ago, and its roof is now reduced to one of
an ordinary form. When this alteration was made, the arms
of the dukes of Lancaster by whom the gate-way was undoubtedly
built were destroyed on the outside; but on the
inside, at the spring of the arch, two mutilated figures, one of
a lion, the other of a bear, doubtless some of their devices,
still remain. The lion passant, it is well known, formed
part of the arms of that family, and the muzzled bear was a
symbol used on the seal by Edward the first in his transactions
with Scotland. Nothing can be more probable than that the
Lancastrian princes would ornament their buildings with a figure
which would serve to preserve the memory of their descent from so
renowned a monarch.
The stranger must now be requested to pass thro’ the
uninviting doorway of the adjoining public house; and he will be
led by an easy ascent up to the mount, or perhaps the
scite of the keep of the castle, which tho’ lately lowered
considerably for the purpose of converting it into a
Bowling-green, yet affords a pleasant station for a view of the
environs of Leicester, and is the spot from which the best idea
can be formed of the antient form and boundaries of the
fortifications.
It is well known that the fast Saxons built few or no castles,
for having nearly exterminated the Britons, during the long
continued warfare that preceded their conquest of that people,
they had no occasion for strong fortresses to secure the
possession of the territories they had acquired; and in the later
ages of their dynasty they were too indolent and ignorant to
undertake such works with spirit and effect, notwithstanding the
frequent and sudden inroads of the Danes, rendered such places of
retreat highly necessary, and the great Alfred earnestly recommended their construction. Hence the places
of defence found in this island at the conquest, were few in
number, and those generally too slight to resist the continued
attacks of time. For this reason the antiquary need not
endeavour to extend his researches after the state of the castle
of Leicester beyond the time of the arrival of William the
Norman. On the division of the provinces made by that
monarch, Leicester became part of the royal demesne; a castle was
erected to ensure the submission of the inhabitants, and the
wardenship of it entrusted to Hugh Grentemaisnell baron of
Hinckly, who possessed considerable property in the
neighbourhood. This castle, like other Norman works of the
same kind, would have its barbican or out-work, defending the
gate and bridge over the outer ditch would
be commanded by a strong wall, eight or ten feet thick, and
between twenty and thirty high, with a parapet, and crennels at
the top, towers at proper distances, and a gate-way opening into
the town. It would, we may presume, extend from the river
below the Newark round by St. Mary’s church, and then,
turning towards the river again, whose waters were brought by a
cut across the morass lying on the west side, to wash that part
of the wall, and fill the ditch, would thus enclose what was
called the outer Bayle or Ballium. Within this, at a
distance not now to be ascertained, but probably not less than
eighty or an hundred yards, another, similar, but perhaps
stronger fortification, would extend from, and to the river, and
this entered at the gates already described, would
enclose the inner Bayle, where stood the lofty massy keep, the
hall, and all the apartments and rooms belonging to the noble and
potent owners. Although the curious will be inclined to
join in the pathetic laments of the writer of the memoirs of
Leicester, (Throsby) that the just position of the castle and its
extent in former times cannot be known; yet strong probability
will almost authorize us to believe that the account here given
does not vary very widely from the truth; for these conjectures
are directly confirmed by the well still open on the top of the
castle hill or keep, and by the entire remains of a large cellar,
forty-nine feet long and eighteen wide, nearly adjoining the
great hall, on the west. That more traces should not be
discoverable will not appear surprising
when we consider what effects may be produced by the decays of
time and accident, by the accumulation of soil, and encroachments
of buildings.
During the disputes concerning the succession, on the death of
the Conqueror, the Grentemaisnells seized Leicester castle, and
held it for duke Robert. This subjected it to the fury of
the successful partizans of William Rufus, and the castle lay for
some time in a dismantled state. In the next reign it was
granted by Henry to his favourite Robert first earl of Leicester,
who repaired the damages and it became the principal place of
residence of himself and the second earl, Robert Bossu. The
third earl Robert surnamed Blanchmains, encreased his property
and power, by his marriage with Petronilla, or
Parnel, the heiress of the Grentemaisnells, but the violent
temper of this earl involved him in disputes with king Henry the
second, whose forces under the command of the Chief Justiciary,
Richard de Lucy, took Leicester and its castle by assault, and
reduced both to an almost uninhabited heap of ruins.
Blanchmains regained however the favor of his king and was
restored to his estates, but both he and his son, Robert
Fitz-Parnel engaging in the crusades, the town of Leicester was
but ill rebuilt, and the castle remained in a state of
delapidation for many years. Fitz-Parnel dying without
issue, the honor of Leicester, as part of the Bellomont
estates were called, passed into the family of Simon de Montfort,
in consequence of his marriage with one of the sisters of
Fitz-Parnels. But the Montfort earls of Leicester, both
father and son, were too much engaged in the busy transactions of
their times to pay much attention to their property at
Leicester. After the death of the latter, in the Battle of
Evesham, the Leicester property was conferred by Henry the third
on his second son Edmond earl of Lancaster, whose second son
Henry, heir and successor to Thomas earl of Lancaster, beheaded
at Pontefract, in the year 1322 made Leicester his principal
place of residence, and under him and the two next succeeding
earls, the castle recovered and probably surpassed its former
state of splendor.
When the dukes of Lancaster ascended the throne, Leicester
tho’ frequently honored with their presence, received no
permanent benefit, and tho’ several parliaments
were held there in the reign of Henry the sixth, the castle had
so far decayed in the time of Richard the third, that that
monarch chose rather to sleep at an inn a few evenings before his
fall, than occupy the royal apartments in the castle. From
this time the castle seems to have made constant progress to
decay, so that in the reign of Charles the first, orders, dated
the ninth of his reign, were issued to the sheriff Wm. Heyrick,
Esq. of Beaumanor (as appears from papers in the possession of
that family) “to take down the old pieces of our castle at
Leicester, to repair the castle house, wherein the audit hath
been formerly kept, and is hereafter to be kept, and wherein our
records of the honor of Leicester do now remain; to sell the
stones, timber, &c. but not to interfere with the vault there, nor the stalls leading
therefrom.”
From others of the same papers it appears that the timber sold
for 3l. 5s. 8d. the freestone, and iron work for 36l. 14s. 4d.
and that the repairs above ordered cost about 50l. Thus was
the castle reduced to nearly its present state, and tho’
the Antiquary may in the eagerness of his curiosity lament that
so little of it now remains, yet he must surely rejoice in his
reflecting moments that such structures are not now necessary for
the defence of the kingdom, and that the fortunes of the noblemen
are now spent in a way calculated to encourage the arts and
promote industry, rather than in maintaining in these castles a
set of idle retainers, ever ready to assist them in disturbing
the peace of the realm, and still more ready to insult and injure the humble inhabitants in then
neighbourhood.
Descending from the castle mount, and passing thro’ the
south gale-way of the castle yard, the visitor enters a district
of the town called the Newark, (New Work) became the edifices it
contained were new when compared with the buildings of the
castle. They owed their foundation to Henry, the third earl
of Lancaster, and his son Henry first duke of that title.
By these two noblemen they were nearly finished, and what was
wanting towards their completion was afterwards added by John of
Gaunt. They must then have formed a magnificent addition to
the antient dignity of the castle. The remains of the walls
which enclosed this area enable us to affirm that its form was a
long square, bounded on the north by the castle, on the east by the streets of the suburbs of the town, on the
south by the fields, and on the west by the river.
Judging from what remains of these walls, we feel inclined to
maintain that they were rather calculated to enclose, than
strongly protect, the buildings they surrounded; for if the walls
now standing be the original walls, they were not capable of
resisting the modes of attack usually practised in the age in
which they were built; nor is the gate-way that still remains
entire, formed with towers to command, or with grooves for a
port-cullis to defend, the entrance. Indeed if the state of
England during the age of the founders be considered,
magnificence rather than great strength might be expected to be
their object, and magnificent truly were the buildings
of the Newark. The gate-way now known by the name of the
Magazine, from the circumstance of its being the arsenal of the
county, is large and spacious, yet grandly massive; and the form
of its arches, which partake of the style of the most modern
gothic, tho’ built at the time when, according to the
opinions of the most learned Antiquaries, that truly beautiful
species of architecture was not generally established, prove the
ready attention of the founders to the progress of the arts.
This gate-way led to an area, which tho’ nearly
surrounded by buildings, was much more spacious than the present
wide street, an area worthy the dukes of Lancaster. On the
south another gate, similar to the Magazine now standing, opened
into the court opposite the strong south gate of the castle, and on the west rose a college, a church, and an
hospital, which completed the grandeur of the Newark. These
latter buildings formed a lesser quadrangle or court, having on
the north the present old, or Trinity Hospital, built and endowed
for an hundred poor people, and ten women to serve them. On
the south stood a church dedicated to St. Mary, and cloysters;
the former called by Leland “not large but faire;”
the “floures and knottes in whose vault were gilded,”
he says, by the rich cardinal of Winchester; the latter, (the
cloysters,) were both “large and faire;” the houses
in the compace of the area of the college for the Prebendaries
(standing on the west side) the same author says, “be very
praty,” and the walls and gates of the college occupying
the east side of the court, he says,
“be very stately.” Nor did the princes of
Lancaster limit their designs to magnificent structures; this
college was as well filled as the hospital, for it contained a
dean and twelve prebendaries; thirteen vicars choral, three
clerks, six choristers and one verger, in all thirty-six persons;
and the endowment was adequate to the establishment, for the
revenues at the dissolution amounted to 595l. 12s. 11d.
Among the various donations to this college, the following taken
from the Parliamentary rolls of the year 1450, will not be found
unworthy the attention of the curious. The king (Henry the
seventh) grants to the dean and Canons of the church collegiate
of our lady at Leicester, “a tunne of wynne to be taken by
the chief botteller of England in our port of Kingston upon Hull,” and it is added “they never had no
wynne granted to them by us nor our progenitors afore this time
to sing with, nor otherwise.”
When it is considered that the castle just surveyed occupies a
station most pleasant as well as commanding; that from the
buildings of the Newark it derived all the splendor which the
arts and taste of the times could bestow, and that its adjoining
a large, well fortified, and not ill built town was calculated to
contribute most essentially to the convenience of its possessors,
it will appear to have been one of the most agreeable residences
in the kingdom for such powerful noblemen as were the dukes of
Lancaster; nor will the visitor be surprised to find that it was
occasionally used as a seat by the kings, its owners.
But of all the periods of its history that will
surely appear most interesting, in which Henry de Gresmond, first
earl of Derby, and on the death of his father, earl and then duke
of Lancaster, already renowned thro’ Europe for his
atchievements in arms, aud crowned with laurels from the fields
of Guienne, where he taught the English how to conquer at Crecy
and Agincourt, returned to reside at Leicester, and to add to the
distinction of wise and brave the still more valuable title of
good, which he was about to earn by the practice of almost
every virtue at this place. Then indeed was Leicester
castle the scene of true splendor and magnificence, for it was
the scene of bounty influenced by benevolence and guided by
religion, of taste supported by expense yet directed by judgment
and regulated by prudence, and of elegance such as
the most accomplished knight of that most perfect age of chivalry
might be expected to display. This nobleman died of a
pestilential disorder at the castle, in the year 1361, greatly
lamented by the inhabitants of Leicester. The order of his
funeral appointed by himself, and curiously recorded by our local
historians, is a pleasing proof of his good sense and piety; the
body being taken in a hearse from St. Mary’s near the
castle, to his collegiate church as he directed, “without
the pomp of armed men, horses covered, or other
vanities”—and the rank of the deceased alone denoted
by the magnitude of five tapers, each weighing one hundred
pounds, and fifty torches.
The buildings of the Newark continued nearly in the state
already described till the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538, when Robert Boone the last dean, terrified by
the power of the tyrant Henry, and alarmed by the unjustifiable
rigours of the king’s commissioners, surrendered his house
and received with the rest of his brethren, trifling pensions for
life, from this period the buildings of the college being
unsupported by any fund sunk into decay, or were applied to
purposes widely different from the intention of the
founders. The church, cloysters, and gate-way are entirely
removed, with the exception of two arches of the vault under the
former, which are still to be seen firm and strong in a cellar of
the house, now a boarding school.
The old hospital itself seems also to have been infected with
the contagion of ruin, for tho’ spared by the rapacious
hand of Henry, the number of poor in the house 64 men
and 36 women, are reduced from their original allowance of seven
pence weekly, to the now scanty stipend of two shillings, which
arises from the rents of lands and tenements in Leicester, and
its vicinity. The house has been reduced to its present
form by contracting the dimensions of the old one; for that
standing in need of considerable repairs, his present Majesty, to
whom, as heir to the dutchy of Lancaster, the expensive privilege
of repairing it belongs, gave the produce of the sale of an
estate at Thurnby in this neighbourhood, which had escheated to
the crown, for that purpose.
At the east end is a small chapel in which prayers are read
twice a day, and where some mutilated monumental figures, probably of the Huntingdon family, are still
to be seen.
Nothing farther remains to be noticed concerning this
interesting part of the town, except that the south gateway was
beaten down by the king’s forces at the storming of the
place in the spring of the year 1645, when they left only a part
of the jamb on the eastern side standing. One of the
prebendal houses on the west side of the antient quadrangle of
the college has, within these few years, been purchased for the
vicarage house of St. Mary’s parish. Opposite the old
hospital a house has been lately erected as an Asylum for the
reception and education of poor female children.
From the Newark, in a lane opposite to which called Mill-Stone
lane, is a Meeting-House of the Methodists, we proceed along
South gate or
At the end of this street, situated on a gentle eminence
affording the desirable advantages of a dry soil and open air, we
perceive one of those edifices which a country more than
nominally christian must ever be careful to erect, a house of
refuge for sick poverty. The Infirmary, which owes the
origin of its institution to W. Watts, M. D. was built in 1771,
nearly on the scite of the antient chapel of St. Sepulchre, and
is a plain neat building with two wings, fronted by a garden, the
entrance to which is ornamented with a very handsome iron gate
the gift of the late truly benevolent Shuckbrugh Ashby, Esq. of
Quenby. The house is built upon a plan which for its
convenience and utility received the approbation
of the great Howard, whose experience and observation qualified
him for a competent judge. It is calculated to admit,
exclusive of the fever ward, 54 patients, without restriction to
county or nation. Its funds, notwithstanding the exemplary
liberality it has excited, are, owing to the pressure of the
times, scarcely adequate to its support. Adjoining the
Infirmary is an Asylum for the reception of indigent
Lunatics.
At the distance of a quarter of a mile from the Infirmary, are
some remains of a Roman labour, called the Raw Dikes,
these banks of earth four yards in height, running parralel to
each other in nearly a right line to the extent of 639 yards, the
space between them 13 yards, were some years ago levelled to the
ground except the the length of about 150 yards at the
end farthest from the town. It was a generally received
opinion that they were the fortifications of a Roman camp, till
the supposition of their having been a cursus or race
course, was started by Dr. Stukely. If it is to be admitted
that they formed an area for horse races, of which the Romans are
known to have been extravagantly fond, we may imagine that the
sport here practiced consisted in horses running at liberty
without riders between the banks; traces of such a race run in an
enclosed space may be found in the Corso dei Barberi, now
practiced in the streets of Florence; [125] the Italians having in many instances
preserved the original customs of the Romans. But the question must still hang in a balance whether the Raw
Dykes were the scene of Roman games, or
The massy mound, the rampart once
Of iron war in antient barbarous times.
From the Infirmary, if the visitor wishes to close his walk,
he may enter the town by the Hotel; if he feel inclined to extend
it, he will find himself recompensed by the pleasure his eye may
receive from a lengthened stroll up the public promenade, called
the New Walk. This walk three quarters of a mile
long, and twenty feet wide, was made by public subscription in
1785; the ground the gift of the corporation.
Following the ascent of the walk, we gain on the left a
pleasing peep up a vale watered by the Soar, where the smooth
green of the meadows is contrasted and broken by woody lines and formed into a picture by the church and village of
Aylestone, and the distant tufted eminances decorated by the
tower of Narborough. A little imagination might give the
scene a trait of the picturesque, by placing among the meadows
near Aylestone, the white tents and streaming banners of king
Charles’ camp, there pitched a few days before his attack
on the garrison of Leicester; or it might advance the royal army
a little nearer to its station in St. Mary’s field, from
whence the batteries against the town were first opened.
Still continuing to ascend, the walk affords along its curving
line many stations from which the town with its churches appears
in several pleasing points of view.
Returning by the London toll-gate if the traveller wishes to
obtain a full view of a fine prospect, he will turn aside from the road, and mount the steps of one of the
neighbouring mills. From such a station the clustered
buildings of the town extend before the eye in full unbroken
sweep; beyond it the grounds near Beaumont Leys varied in their
tints by tufted hedge-rows, and streaky cultivated fields, blend
into the grey softness overspreading those beautiful slopes of
hill into which the eminences of Charnwood forest, Brown-rig,
Hunter’s hill, Bradgate park, Bardon and Markfield knoll,
rise and fall. These hills, running from hence, in a
northern direction compose the first part of the chain or ridge,
that, from the easy irregularity and elegant line it here
displays rises at length into the more grand and picturesque
hills that form the peak of Derbyshire. The abbey and the
adjacent villages pleasingly vary the scene on
the right, from whence it melts away into the blue distance of
the neighbourhood of Melton, the north-east part of the
county.
As we descend along the London road, watching the hills more
and more hid by the town, the road bends into a curve, and here
takes the name of Granby Street; many ranges of buildings having
been here erected within the last fifteen years. Turning to
the left, we again arrive at the town by the entrance into
Hotel Street.
That ingenuity of improvement not only in the conveniences,
but the recreations of life, which has lately advanced so rapidly
as well in the provincial towns as in the capital, led the
inhabitants of Leicester into a plan for the erection of new
edifices appropriated to the purposes of
public amusement. The considerable buildings, which in this
place arrest the stranger’s eye were accordingly erected by
J. Johnson, Esq. architect, on subscription shares.
The front of the
which name it bears, having been originally designed for that
purpose, may from the grandeur of its windows, its statues, bassi
relievi, and other decorations, be justly considered as the first
modern architectural ornament of the town. Here a room,
whose spacious dimensions, (being seventy-five feet by
thirty-three,) and elegant decorations, adapt it in a
distinguished manner for scenes of numerous and polished society,
is appropriated to the use of the public balls. Its coved
ceiling is enriched with three circular paintings of Aurora, Urania, and Night, from the pencil of Reinagle, who has
also graced the walls with paintings of dancing nymphs.
Beside the eight beautiful lustres, branches of lights are held
by four statues from the designs of Bacon.
Uniting under the same roof, every convenience for the
gratification of taste, and the amusement of the mind, a coffee
room handsomely furnished and supplied with all the London
papers, affords the gentlemen of the town and country as well as
the stranger, to whom its door is open, an agreeable and
commodious resort, while on the opposite side a spacious
bookseller’s shop furnishes the literary enquirer with a
series of all the new publications.
Adjoining the hotel, a small theatre built also by Mr.
Johnson, neatly and commodiously fitted up, nearly on
the plan of the London houses, furnishes the inhabitants of
Leicester with a more complete display of the dramatic art than
they had before enjoyed, and has been the means of gratifying
them by the talents of several performers of the first rate
excellence. The popular pieces of the London stage, are
here every season represented in a manner pleasing to the town
and honorable to the manager.
Proceeding thro’ a street which now only nominally
retains a trace of the monkish establishments that formerly
occupied its ground, being called Friar Lane, we observe a
charity school, for 35 boys and 30 girls, erected 1791, belonging
to the parish of St. Martin. At the farther and less
handsome end of this street is the Meeting House of the General
Baptists. Passing down the New Street, part of
the scite of the monastery of the Grey Friars, we arrive at
At what period after the demolition of Leicester in the reign
of Henry the second, the church of St. Martin, antiently St.
Crosse, was rebuilt, cannot be accurately stated. The
chancel, which is the property of the king, rented by the vicar,
and was erected after the main fabrick, is ascertained to been
have built in the reign of Henry the fifth, at the expense of
34l. And as the addition of spires to sacred edifices was
not introduced into England from the east till the beginning of
the reign of Henry the third, the date must be fixed between the
two intervening centuries, and if the spire was built with the
church not very early after the
introduction of that ornament of our churches, as the handsome,
solid form of St. Martin’s bespeaks considerable practice
and expertness in the art.
The church originally consisted only of a nave and two aisles;
the south aisle, where the consistory court is held, which is
formed by a range of gothic arches whose clustered columns unite
strength with lightness, was added after the erection of the
others. In contemplating the inside of this church, it is
curious to draw a brief parallel between its present plain yet
handsome appearance, and its catholic magnificence before the
zeal of the reformation, justly excited, but intemperate in its
direction, had, during its career against Romish absurdities
destroyed almost every trace of ornament in our churches.
And whilst we survey its present few decorations,
its brass chandeliers depending from the elegant cieling of the
nave, the beautiful oak corinthian pillars of its altar piece,
which is ornamented with a picture of the ascension by Francesco
Vanni, (the gift of Sir W. Skeffington Bart.) and its excellent
organ, we can scarcely forbear lamenting the violence with which
the magnificent range of steps was torn from its high altar, then
hung with draperies of white damask and purple velvet.
Its two other altars, [135] its chapels of
our Lady and St George, one at the east, the other
at the west end of the south broad aisle, were also
destroyed; the sculptured figures that adorned the pulpit, the
tabernacles, and brazen eagles demolished, and, as the parochial
records testify, 20d. was paid for “cutting the images
heads, and taking down the angels wings.” In the
succeeding century after this sacred structure had exhibited this
scene of demolition, it became a theatre of war. Hither
fled part of the Parliamentary garrison, after being driven by
the royalists from their fortress in the Newark; making a citadel
of a church, which, on the arrival of the enemy to storm the hold
was polluted with the bleeding bodies of Englishmen slain by
Englishmen, who pursued their victory by chacing the defeated
into the Market-Place, where the stragglers were slaughtered.
From this anecdote of civil discord we are led to
contemplate the more rationally excited bravery of the present
times, by the sight of the old colours of the 17th or
Leicestershire regiment of foot, which are suspended over the
royal arms at the east end of nave. They were presented to
the corporation by Lieut. Col. Stovin, of that regiment, and how
much their intrepid defenders suffered in guarding them, may be
known from their worn and tattered appearance.
As it is the most curious and useful branch of antiquarian
research to read the manners and sentiments of an age in its
public solemnities and pastimes, we will not leave the church
without a wish for a better investigation of an obscure and
singular custom, that antient carnival of Leicester,
“the riding the George.” The horse of
this chivalrous saint, which, when the reformation had overthrown
the monkish mummeries that so inconsistently blended religion
with pastime, was sold for twelve pence, stood at the west end of
the south aisle, harnessed in all the trappings of Romish
splendor. Notice of the day appointed for this festivity
was annually given by the master of St. George’s Guild;
sports of every variety animated the town, and that the jubilee,
was, in the strictest sense general, is proved from the
summons issued in the 17th of Edward the fourth, ordering
all the inhabitants to attend the mayor, to ride the
George. Mention of the celebration is recorded so late
as the 15th of Henry the eighth.
The stranger who is an admirer of sacred
harmony will not pass without particular notice, the Organ of St.
Martin’s. A spirited subscription in 1774, furnished
the church with this noble ornament. It was built by the
celebrated Snetzler, and esteemed one of the best specimens of
his art. It has three sets of keys, from F in alt, to
GG. The stops in the great organ are, the stopped diapason,
two open diapasons, flute, and principal, trumpet and baffoon,
all entire, the 12th, 15th, sesqui-altera, cornet and
clarion. In the ch. organ, are two diapasons and
principal. In the swell two diapasons, principal, hautboy
and trumpet.
A range of antient stone building bounding the west side of
the church yard is an hospital founded about the year 1516, by W.
Wigston, Merchant of the staple at Calais, and mayor
of Leicester, for 12 men and 12 women, their pay about 3s.
weekly. It has a master and confrater. The Chapel has
a large gothic window of painted glass.
On the north side of the hospital is a building called the
Town Library, established 1632 by the corporation, at the
motion of the then bishop of Lincoln. It consists of about
948 vols. chiefly the Latin classics and historians, to which no
modern additions whatever have been made.
The building adjoining the Library which is the hall formerly
belonging to the guild or fraternity of St. George, which,
together with the Corpus Chrisri guild, the principal
establishment of that kind in the town, was founded in St.
Martin’s church, was purchased, on the dissolution of
guilds and chantries by the corporation,
and is the guild-hall of the borough. It is adorned with
several portraits among which is that of Sir Thomas White, Kt.
citizen and merchant Taylor of London, who among many magnificent
charities, bequeathed 10,000l. in the trust of the corporation to
be lent without interest in sums of 50l. and 40l. to every
freeman of Leicester for the term of nine years; a charity of
peculiar value as it affords a perpetual incitement to the
exertions of rising industry.
The magistracy of Leicester is an institution of great
antiquity and respectability, being a corporation by
prescription, dating its establishment from immemorial usage
before its first charter in the reign of king John. It
consists of 72 members; 24 aldermen, 48 common council men; the
officers are a recorder, town-clerk, bailiff, and
steward.
By forming cities and towns into corporations, and conferring
on them the privileges of municipal jurisdiction, the first check
was given to the overwhelming evils of the feudal system; and
under their influence freedom and independence began to peep
forth from amid the rigours of slavery and the miseries of
oppression.
To be free of any corporation was not then, as at present
merely to enjoy some privileges in trade, or to exercise the
right of voting on particular occasions, but it was to be exempt
from the hardships of feudal service; to have the right of
disposing both of person and property, and to be governed by laws
intended to promote the general good, and not to gratify the
ambition and avarice of individuals. These laws, however rude and
imperfect, tended to afford security to property and, encourage
men to habits of industry. Thus commerce, with every
ornamental and useful art, began first in corporate bodies, to
animate society. But in those dark ages, force was
necessary to defend the claims of industry; and such a force
these municipal societies possessed; for their towns were not
only defended by walls and gates vigilantly guarded by the
citizens, but oft-times at the head of their fellow freemen in
arms, the mayor, aldermen, or other officers marched forth in
firm array to assert their rights, defend their property and
teach the proudest and most powerful baron that the humblest
freeman was not to be injured with impunity. It was thus
the commons learned and proved they were not objects of contempt; nay that they were beings of the same species
as the greatest lords.
It is pleasingly curious to observe in these times the shadow
of the semblance of this most useful military power preserved as
at Leicester, in the array of a few of the poor men of Trinity
hospital, clad in pieces of iron armour, attending the beadle
while he proclaims a fair; nor is it less so to recollect that
the feasts annually given by the mayor were once held in
imitation of the rude hospitality of the Barons whose feasts not
a little contributed to give a consequence to the commons of
England, and to humanize the haughty chief by shewing him that
respectability might belong to those who did not wield the sword,
and that men might have dignity even tho’ they had no
pretensions to the glare of titles and the illusions of
birth. Thus will the intelligent observer find, that
corporate bodies were the true sources of law, liberty and
civilization, and by rendering the occupation of trade
respectable they may be deemed the first origin of that commerce
which has rendered Great Britain the most powerful and most happy
nation of the earth.
These few reflections we will suppose to have occupied the
time during the short walk from St. Martin’s church to
the
In this spacious area, which is surrounded by handsome and
well-furnished shops, and whose public ornaments are the plain
but respectable building called the Exchange,
built in 1747, where the town magistrates transact their weekly
business, and a small octagon edifice enclosing a reservoir of
pure water, the Conduit, erected in 1709, we must, having
completed the circuit of the town, offer our farewell to our
visitor.
Here closing our little tour, which has engaged us in an
imaginary acquaintance with the intelligent stranger, we beg he
will accept a friendly adieu: and a wish, that as he quits the
town thro’ which we have conducted him, and which we have
endeavoured to represent in a view not unworthy the attention of
a mind that seeks for more than mere passing ideas of amusement,
he may not consider that time as prodigally spent which he has
passed in his walk through
leicester.
April, 1804
