Newark
Reaching Newark at 5.30 tea was partaken of at the Town Hall, and the party then proceeded to the parish church, round which they were conducted by Mr. Cornelius Brown. In the course of his remarks, which were necessarily brief on account of the limited time at the disposal of the members, Mr. Brown said:—“A most noble place of Christian worship,” was the glowing eulogium passed upon this church by one of the ablest antiquaries and ecclesiastical authorities (the late Right Rev. Bishop Trollope, F.S.A.), and it was one which all who had inspected its beautiful architecture and its splendid proportions would most cordially endorse. Newark had the good fortune to possess the means of Christian worship at a very early period. It had in Saxon times its church, on the high altar of which Leofric, the great Earl of Mercia, and his celebrated wife, Godiva, deposited the deed of gift by which Newark and Fledborough were conferred upon the monastery of Stow—a gift that was confirmed by the Conqueror in 1072. Following upon the Saxon building came a cruciform church, of which there remained the four central piers and a contemporary crypt. These were the most ancient portions of the present edifice, and were of a transitional character, dating probably from the close of the twelfth century. The monks were great church builders, and there could be no doubt that a Norman church was built by the Gilbertine monks of the Priory of St. Catherine, Lincoln, to whom the ecclesiastical profits and endowments in the parish had been given by the founder of the Priory, Robert de Chesney, second Bishop of Lincoln. The Priory of St. Catherine, at Barr Gate, Lincoln, was founded for Gilbertian Canons in 1148 by Robert de Chesney, fourth Bishop. The Gilbertians were an English order, who owed their origin to Gilbert of Sempringham. This very curious monastic order, which had almost a local existence, not having extended much beyond Lincolnshire, grew up, as it were, under the patronage of the Bishops of Lincoln, both Alexander and Robert de Chesney having been benefactors to it. Geraldus Cambrensis complains that the last named bishop sacrificed the property and the privileges of the see to enrich monastic societies, and accuses him of alienating four churches and one prebend for the order of Sempringham. One of these was Newark, which was granted to the Priory of St. Catherine in 1148. The edifice erected under their rule was smaller than the present church, but from the position of the crypt beneath the reredos of the chancel it is assumed that though it was narrower, it could not have been much shorter. There could not have been a central tower, for the piers are too slender to support one, but the late Sir George Gilbert Scott, an eminent authority, was of opinion that the former nave had aisles, clerestory, and aisle chapels attached to the chapel. This beautiful edifice did not long satisfy the noble aspirations of the Newark people. Within half a century they had resolved to commence the construction of that noble tower which constitutes so striking a feature of the edifice. About 1230, “ when the Early English style reigned supreme in all its perfection and structural excellence," the building of this splendid tower was commenced at the west end of the nave, and Mr. Micklethwaite was of opinion that it was the intention of the builders to allow it to stand clear; that is to say, not to have aisles at the sides. The tower stands upon arches, beautifully moulded and enriched with the dog-tooth ornament. This lower and earlier portion rises only one stage above the nave roof, and is a noble feature, grand in design and excellent in execution. The perpendicular window is “an incongruous insertion,” but above is a new arcade, with a rich, bold, effective, diagonal diaper, used so freely in Bishop Grossetete’s work at Lincoln Cathedral. In 1291 an additional piece of land was ceded to the Prior and Convent of St. Catherine to enable them to make a road to their houses near the church, under the following circumstances:-
“The King, to those, &c., greeting........wishing to do an especial favour to Robert Brese, we have given him leave to give a plot of land in the town of Newark, near the court of our beloved in Christ, the Prior and Convent of St. Katherine without Lincoln, in the said town, to the said Prior and Convent, which land includes in itself from our Royal road in Apeltongate a width of forty feet in the same road and a length between the lands of Master Henry de Newerk and those of Richard de Benyngton of one hundred and forty feet of land, for making a certain way, so as to have an approach to the houses of the said Prior and Convent situated near the church of the blessed Mary Magdalene of Newerk, and having their exit by the said road because they have hitherto had no other approach to those houses than that through the cemetery of the said church.”
About 1310 the parishioners set on foot an ambitious scheme for rebuilding the Norman church, except the tower. They erected the whole of the south aisle as it now exists, and part of the east elevation of the chancel. On March 6th, 1312, licence was granted to the parishioners of Newark to remove the chapel, which stood in the churchyard, and which had been built by Henry, Archbishop of York. The only Archbishops bearing the .Christian name of Henry were Henry Murdac, A.D. 1147-1153, and Henry de Newark, A.D. 1296-1299, and the chapel was doubtless built by the former. A chauntry was established therein, but as it had no endowment no objection seems to have been raised to its removal, the space it occupied being assigned for the enlargement of the churchyard as a place of sepulture. A further enlargement took place in the fourteenth century, for on the 5th May, 1349, licence was granted to the perpetual vicar of the church of Newark, and to every one of the parishioners thereof, to enclose a new churchyard, lying in the street called Apeltongate, and there to bury their dead, in regard to the fact that their churchyard was too narrow for the sepulture by reason of that great mortality and plague which then happened in several parts of the land, &c. The licence authorised the parishioners “to convert the timber, lead, stone, glass, and other material of the chapel to the use of the church and part of the fabric thereof lately built in a certain alley by the said parishioners,” who were to found a perpetual chauntry for the soul of the said Henry and his predecessors, and to find a special mass to be continually made for him. It would be about this time that the magnificent belfry staging in the tower was constructed, as it belongs to the flowing Decorated period of the early part of the fourteenth century. Mr. Micklethwaite describes it as one of the finest he had seen, and he remarks, “About this time the good people of Newark seem to have been extremely ambitious. They set out the whole of this magnificent church, and it took about a couple of centuries to finish it.” As time did not permit a full architectural description, the dates had been summarised as follows:—A church was built towards the end of the twelfth century, of which portions still exist in the present structure. The south aisle of the nave (Decorated windows) date from A.D. 1313 to 1315. The nave and north aisle (Perpendicular windows,) were finished about 1460, or at any rate before 1487. The chancel dated from 1487 to 1500. The altar screen and stalls of choir were begun in 1498. The mortuary chapel on the north side of the altar was begun in 1500. The corresponding chapel on the side of the altar was begun A.D. 1505. The rood screen was finished A.D. 1508. The stalls of the chancel aisle were begun in 1521, and the transepts, probably somewhere between 1500 and 1539. Mr. Brown remarked that as the various parts of the church were completed, the same spirit of devotion which led to their construction led also to the furnishing and enrichment. The party then inspected the chancel, the reredos, the chantry chapels, the crypt, and were shown the most interesting monuments, notably the Fleming brass.
Newark Castle.On leaving the church, the members met in the Council Chamber at the Town Hall, where Mr. Brown read a short paper on the castle. After dealing with architectural features and changes so far as known from the erection of the building by Bishop Alexander the Magnificent, in 1123, Mr. Brown said the leading historical incidents would fill a volume. King John was here on several occasions, as the Patent Rolls and Close Rolls testified, and died at the castle in 1216. We might trace from the records that remained to us the King’s work on his death bed, for though grievously ill on his arrival at Newark, he was yet well enough to pay attention to the transaction of business. On October 18th he despatched several letters on divers subjects, and on the following day, October 19th, he died. In the reign of Henry III. the castle was seized by Robert de Gaugi, a famous freebooter, and had a narrow escape from destruction, while in 1325 it was entrusted to Donald de Mar, for there was an entry in the Close Rolls of his expending certain sums of money in repairing it in that year. He (Mr. Brown) had in his possession the transcript of a rental roll of the castle of the time of Edward IV. (1461), giving the names of most of the residents of the borough at that period, but it was too lengthy to quote. In the sixteenth century the castle was the residence of eminent members of the noble families of Rutland and Cecil, and in the register of Stoke, in which parish the castle was situate, was an entry of the marriage, on June 30th, 1588, of William Cecil, Esq., son and heir apparent of the Right Worshipful Thomas Cecil, Knight, and Elizabeth, daughter of the Right Hon. Edward, late Earl of Rutland. The marriage took place in the church of the castle, and the register was signed by Mary Manners in a beautiful handwriting, almost as distinct as on the day it was written, and by fifteen other witnesses. In Lord Salisbury’s manuscripts at Hatfield was a memorandum of occurrences in Lord Burleigh’s handwriting,in which the following reference occurs:
“May, 1590. W. Cecil de Ross, son of William Cecil, son of “Thomas, son of William Baron Burleigh, born at Newark.”
James I. stayed here in 1603, as a contemporary manuscript shows, and he was so pleased with this stronghold that he visited it on at least six other occasions. During the troublous times of Charles I. the town clung loyally to the fortunes of the ill-fated King, and after successfully resisting siege after siege the castle, to which his Majesty several times resorted, and to which tired, broken-hearted troops from the fatal field of Naseby repaired for rest and shelter, was only surrendered to the enemy on honourable terms by the direct orders of the King himself, who was then a prisoner in the Scotch camp in the broad fields of Kelham, of which so fair a view could be obtained from the castle windows. It was then dismantled and reduced to the ruinous condition in which they now saw it, with nothing but the splendid front and gateway to remind them of its former magnificence. The place which had been one of the greatest military strongholds in the country, visited by eminent ecclesiastics and monarchs, the residence of famous courtiers and nobles, battered in many sieges but always manfully defended, ceased for all time to be a centre of strength for the combatant or a place of refuge for the fallen.
At the close of Mr. Brown’s paper, Mr. Wallis, F.S.A., moved, and Mr. W. Bradshaw seconded, a hearty vote of thanks to him, which was carried with acclamation.
The general meeting of the society was afterwards held, under the presidency of Dr. Appleby, Mayor of Newark. The following officers were elected after the report, which was of a satisfactory character, had been unanimously adopted:— Vice-Presidents, His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Southwell, the Right Hon. Lord Belper, Alderman E. H. Fraser, D.C.L., Mr. G. W. Marshall, the Very Rev. R. Gregory (Dean of St. Paul’s, London), Rev. Canon Trebeck, M.A., Mr. John E. Ellis, M.P., Mr. John G. B. Thoroton-Hildyard ; Chairman of Council, the Right Hon. Lord Hawkesbury ; Hon. Treasurer, Mr. John C. Warren ; Hon. Secretaries, Rev. J. Standish and Mr. W. P. W. Phillimore. The following were elected on the Council:—The Revs. Whitworth, Baylay, and Dobbin, Dr. Gow, Mr. G. Fellows, J.P., Mr. M. A. Joyce, Mr. John Russell, Mr. W. H. Stevenson, Mr. G. H. Wallis, Mr. J. Ward, Mr. F. W. Dobson, and Mr. C. Brown. Messrs. H. Ashwell, J.P., Mr. R. Mellors, J.P., and Mr. W. Bradshaw were elected Auditors. The usual vote of thanks terminated the proceedings.