THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES -vJv^ Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/bygonenottinghamOOstev BYGONE NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. NOTE. Of this book 750 copies have been printed and this is No. U^6^ : Bygone Nottinghamshire. BY WILLIAM STEVENSON, AUTHOR OF THE BUILDING MATERIALS OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE," "THE TREES OF COMMERCE," " WOOD AS A MATERIAL OF CONSTRUCTION FROM A PRACTICAL STANDPOINT," LIFE-HONORARY MEMBER OF THE NOTTINGHAM NATURALISTS* SOCIETY, ETC. NOTTINGHAM : FRANK MURRAY. LONDON SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, & CO., LTD. HULL: ^^TLLIA^[ andrew.s & CO., tiil hull frks.s. 1893. V» .« ,. ly PA TO THOMAS CHAMBERS HINE, F.S.A., OF NOTTINGHAM, AUTHOR OF "NOTTINGHAM, ITS CASTLE A MILITARY FORTRESS, A ROYAL PALACE, A DUCAL MANSION, A BLACKENED RUIN, AND A MUSEUM AND GALLERY OF ART," A GENTLEMAN WHO HAS TAKEN A LIFE-LONG, AND A LONG-LIFE, INTEREST IN ALL THAT RELATES TO THE MATERIAL AND INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS OF HIS NATIVE TOWN, THIS WORK, BY A FELLOW STUDENT OF LOCAL HISTORY, IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 545227 ; preface. ^ f ^HIS work, the o-reatest literary task I have ^ hitherto performed, is uniform with other " Bygone" county histories from the press of my friend WilHam Andrews, f.r.h.s., who, from being a native of Nottinghamshire, has evinced great interest in its pubhcation. This uniformity extends httle beyond the title, inasmuch as it is the production of one pen alone. To render the work acceptable to the public, I have travelled over a wide field for my subjects these I have endeavoured to treat without colour from political or other sources ; although necessarily epitomised, I claim for them, if they possess no other merit, originality. Where authorities exist they are invariably given ; where otherwise, I am personally responsible for the matter. My object in compiling this work has been twofold, Jir,stJi/, to shed a light, obtained from PREFACE. sources beyond the reach of the ordinary student, in the dark recesses of our local history, and sccondbj, to prove that, although poor in size compared with many other counties, Nottingham- shire is rich beyond comparison in ancient lore. In connection with the illustrations I have a pleasmg task to perform, in thanking the gentle- man to whom this work is dedicated for contributing the panoramic view of Farndon, Stoke, and Nottingham, from a drawing evidently contemporary with and relating to the Battle of Stoke-field, copied by liim from the original in the British Museum ; and in thanking Mr. Robert White, of Worksop, the northern light of our local history, for contributing the engraving of the grand old priory gatehouse of his town. In performing this office I must not overlook my son, Mr. W. H. Stevenson, the editor of the " Records of the Borough of Nottingham," the " Calendar of Close Rolls. Ed. II., 1307-1313," etc., to whom I am indebted for the Forest-boundary map of a.d. 1227, and assistance in revising the proofs. Of the (jther illustrations little need be said PREFACE. further than " Newark Castle," is a process ' reduction of the rare ^^rint in the ' History of Newark," by Wilham Dickinson, pubhshed in 1805, and the "Sketch maj) of the count}^," which cannot fail to be a guide to the Text, is a production of my own. The views of Southwell and Newstead are from Cassell's " Cathedrals, Abbeys, and Churches of England and Wales." William Stevenson. lo John Street, Hull, December 8th, 1893. Contcnte. PAGE The Wapentakes . 1 The Origin of the County 59 The Origin of the Town G8 The Earliest Recorded Visitors to the Countv . 74 The Suppression of the Knights Templars . 83 Old Sanctuary Days 92 Notable Instances of Sanctuary 102 A Note on the Beverley Sanctuary 112 The King's Gallows of the County 119 The Reign of Terror in Notts 129 Public Executions 135 Old Family Feuds 142 Visitations of the Plague 153 Visitations in the Town 158 Visitations in the County 167 Nottingham Goose Fair 174 The Great Priory Fair at Lenton 179 The Pilgrimage of Grack • 185 194 The Pilgrim Fathers ; or, The Founders of New England The Descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers . 204 Archiepiscopal Palaces 212 The Ancient Inns and Taverns of Nottingham . 250 Index 287 and piinciiial Sketch map of the county of Nottingham, sliowing the Wapentakes, the ancient text, etc. j-oads, the houiulaiyof the Royal Forest of Slierwood, references to BYGONE NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. Zbc Mapcntahcs. WE commence our work with a sketch-map of the county, compiled from Overton's map of 1714, with the object of showing the arrangements of the Wapentakes or Hundreds, of which it is composed, the river system, the ancient roads, of which we have the best information, and as a key to places of importance or interest alluded to in the body of the text. (1.) The Old Bycar-dyke, a Roman canal, connecting the Trent with the Idle, mentioned in the Domesday survey as the " Bigredic'' on the occasion of a villain holding a garden at Saundby, a few miles south, part of the king's great manor of Mansfield, for the rent of findinof salt for the kino-'s fish taken in this water ; also in the charter of John, Earl of Mortain, to the burgesses of Nottingham, circa 1189, as the boundary of their ancient franchise. •2. BYGONE NOTTIN(;iIAM.'ilIIRE. This canal is said to have been drained by Sir CorneUus Vermuiden and his Dutch and Flemish associates about the year 1650. It now exists in part as a small drain, known as the Heck-dyke. This appears to have been a varient name before the Dutch drainage works, as it is called the "Hokdike" by John Speede, in his " Theatre of Great Britain," published in 1610. (2.) The New Bycar-dyke, said to have been cut by Sir CorneHus Vermuiden, a navigable water to Bawtry, part of the Idle river canal. Locally, the old name is nearly lost, as the dyke ' appears on the Ordnance maps as ' The Morther Drain." The statement that this dyke was cut by the Dutch drainers is incorrect, for it is shown to exist in Speede's map, forty years before their time. The probability is that this is the original Bickardyke, and that the boundary was pushed north to the Heckdyke, so that the Bickardyke, for the purpose of toll, was wholly in the county. Leland, in his " Itinerary," gives a picture of this district, part of the levels of Hatfield Chase, before the drainage, over which his journey to the Isle of Axholme, a few miles further north, was performed in boats. The navigation of the Idle river canal, from the Trent to Bawtry, has. THE WAPENTAKES. 3 since the construction of the Great Northern Railway, fallen into decay. (3.) Bawtry, partly in Yorkshire, was probably a Roman town and port, and is situate on the line of the Roman road from Lincoln, via Doncaster, to York, mentioned in the v. and viii. Iters of Antoninus ; but, unlike Littleborough, its Roman name is unrecorded. It was rated as one of the ports of England in mediaeval times, being a busy place for the shipment of lead, millstones, grindstones, timber, etc. It is the place whence the Pilgrim Fathers removed with their families and household goods, via the Foss Dyke and the river Witham to Boston, to embark for Amsterdam, the first act of the subsequent found- ing of New England in America. Bawtry is the point at which the great North Road, passing through Newark, leaves the county for Doncaster, situate eight miles to the north-west. It was also on another North Road of a very early date, which passed through Nottingham by the Roman Way, now known as Blyth Lane, along which the Danish invaders probably marched from York to the entrenchments of Nottingham, in 868, a road by which they probably returned to York in the following year. This road, still in exist- 4 BYGONE NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. ence through the old Sherwood forest district, bears the names of Stoiiey Street, Broad Street, and York Street, at Nottingham, and was known as the " Stanstrete of Nottingham " in 1227, when it formed the eastern boundary of the king's forest of Sherwood. It is recognised at different points between Bawtry and Nottingham about this date as the "great way," "great road," or "great street." Bawtry was the only point west of Lincolnshire where a road trending north could possibly exist, owing to rivers, canals, and swamps, (4.) LiTTLEBOROUGH, on the river Trent, was the Segelocum of the v., and the Agelocum of the viii., Iters of Antoninus. It was the site of the ford on the great Roman highway from Lincoln, via Doncaster, to York. On the Lincolnshire side this road is perfect, and is known as " Till- Bridofe Lane." Between Littleborouo^h and Bawtry it exists in a distorted form, on its line is the village of Sturton, a mere corruption of "Street Town," as in old records it is called "Streton." The river here is tidal, and at low water was formerly fordable on a roadway of blocks of stone, pinned down with stakes, a Roman work, disturbed only in part in improving THE WAPENTAKES. 5 the navigation of the Trent. The ferry still exists, and here, until the introduction of railways, coaches plying from Retford and Bawtry to Lincoln were ferried over on a Hat- bottomed boat, now a ruin on the river bank. Here the sea-wave, called the " ^Egre,'' ''Eagre'' or '' Hygre,'' rushes up the river at the change from the ebb to the flow of the tide, a powerful and, at full tides, a destructive w^ave.