Old England: A Pictorial Museum (page 37/52)

1047.—Stone Church, Nave and Chancel.

Stone is a town in Cheshire. [$]

1048.—Hadley Church Tower and Beacon

“On top of a turret at the South West angle of the tower is an iron cresset, fire pan or pitch-pot, an almost unique survivor of other days. It was erected by the monks to guide wayfarers crossing Enfield Chase by night, and travellers to or from St Albans, or the north. The beacon may have been used as late as 1745 to provide an alarm to warn of the Stuart rising in the North. It was used for a more pleasant occasion to mark the marriage of the Prince of Wales in 1863, when the future Edward VII married Princess Alexandra of Denmark.”

Sources: Village London, Part 2, North and East by Edward Walford 1883 and Handbook to Environs of London by James Thorne 1876. See also Hadley Church Appeal.

“A beacon-tower, of ruder fashion than that of old St. Botolph’s, and used generally for less peaceful purposes, is to be seen at Hadley Church, Middlesex (Fig. 1048). “before the reign of Edward III., beacons were but stacks of wood set up on high places, which were fired when the coming of enemies was descried; but in his reign pitch-boxes, as now they be, were, instead of those stacks, set up; and this properly is a beacon.” (Lord Croke.) The pitch-box, or fire-pot, is still remaining at Hadley, and a picturesque object itis, reminding us of the warlike days when watches were regularly stationed at such places, and horsemen, called hobbelars, according to Camden, waited by, “to give notice in daytime of an enemy’s approach, when the fire would not be seen.” A perilous task these watchers and hobbelars must have had of it, for [more...] [$]

1049.—Lutterworth Church.

Dedicated to St. Mary. John Wycliffe (John Wyclif, 1324-1384, bible translator) is buried here. The church clock was installed in 1862 and is therefore not shown in [...] [more...] [$]

1050.—Chilton Church, Oxfordshire.

An American visited and took some pictures of this clearly very photogenic village. The church itself was extensively renovated starting in 1847, and looks very different in the photographs! [more...] [$]

1052.—St. Nicholas Church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

“Among the more important churches erected in the period of which we treat, that of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne holds an honourable place (Fig. 1052). It crowns a bold eminence, and forms from every point of view the cihef ornament of the town. The founder was St. Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury; the time, the reign of William Rufus. Henry I. gve the church to the canons of Carlisle. It was burned in 1216, and rebuilt, as supposed, about 1359. The most remarkable [...] [more...] [$]

1053.—Glasgow Cathedral.

“As St. Patrick’s Cathedral is the chief specimen of Gothic architecture in Ireland, so is Glasgow Cathedral (Fig. 1053) the most perfect relic of the kind in Scotland, or anywhere else, in the opinion of some of its frequenters and admirers. It is one of the four remarkable points of Glasgow, namely the Cathedral, the Green, a great public esplanade, the Trongate, a noble specimen of a street, and the graceful river Clyde, said by a Glasgow poet to be—

Glory of that and all the world beside.

Mr. Robert Chambers tells us that on these four “the native of Glasgow principally grounds his ideas regarding the [more...] [$]

1054.—Kelso.

“Among the less distinguished classes of monachism [sic, meaning monasticism] that also sprang out of the original Benedictine, may be mentioned that to which Kelso Abbey, in the town of Kelso, Roxburghshire, belonged. It acknowledges the same founder as Melrose, St. David. Kelso was repeatedy burned or otherwise injured during the English invasions. The ruins (Fig. 1054) are of mingled styles, the Norman predominating. At a certain period they were injured by incongruous additions for the use of a church congregation, [...] [more...] [$]

1055.—St. Magnus, Kirkwall.

The Reformation in Scotland, which had so nearly caused the destruction of Glasgow Cathedral, spared one other building of the same kind, and only one—the Cathedral of St. Magnus, at the seaport twn of Kirkwall (Fig. 1055), the capital of the Orkney Islands, and this pile too has become familiar to us through the writings of the great novelist, who has made the neighbourhood the scene of his romance of ‘The Pirate;’ and with happy propriety; for the spot chosen may be said to have been dedicated from the very earliest period to the service of [...] [more...] [$]