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Sketch of Hucknall church as it appeared in 1842
Posted inCulture & Society Local Histories Religion & Spirituality Travelers' Tales

Nooks And Corners Of Old England – Hucknall Torkard Church

The unpretending structure of which we this week present a view of to our friends, is rendered sacred by being the depository of the remains of that transcendant genius and poet—Byron. From Moore’s “Life of Byron,” we find that, “It was on Friday, the 16th of July, 1824, that in the small village church of Hucknall, the last duties were paid to the remains of Byron, by depositing them close to those of his mother in the family vault. Exactly on the same day of the same month in the preceding year, Byron said despondingly, to Count Gamba, ‘Where shall we be in another year?’ The gentleman to whom this foreboding speech was addressed, paid a visit some months after the interment to Hucknall, and was struck on approaching the village, by the strong likeness it seemed to bear to his lost friend’s melancholy death place, Missolonghi.”

Illustration of St. Pancras' church
Posted inCulture & Society Local Histories Religion & Spirituality

The Churches Of The Metropolis No. XIII – St. Pancras’ Old Church

It seems but the other day this old suburban church was pleasantly surrounded by green fields and quiet hedgerows; but now the mammoth magnitude of this great city—the modern Babylon—has stretched itself in this direction, as in all others; and St. Pancras’ fields, with their rows of goodly elms, and pleasant meandering footpaths leading to the then village church, exist only as a pleasant memory. Surrounded by houses, the old church seems out of place, and might be passed as little worthy attention. Still are there facts worth noting in its history, and that of the locality in which it stands—and associations which may serve to prompt more than a passing thought. The whole of this neighbourhood is linked by tradition with a deadly fight between the Britons and their invaders, when seventy thousand men were said to have been slain at “Battle-bridge.” Modern fashion has attempted to get rid of the old Saxon name which serves to keep this struggle in remembrance, by christening the locality in courtly guise, King’s Cross—erecting, too, in the centre of the road an architectural hybrid, the use of which could never be discovered, unless built there for omnibuses to run against. All round Battle-bridge traces of entrenchments have been found, running up close to the old church; some of them, called the Brill, occupied the pen of the learned and ingenious Stukely. During the civil wars, also, this spot again became the seat of armed entrenchments, and the Royalists and Parliamentarians occupied the ground which more than a thousand years earlier had been trodden by the armed legions of Rome, and the comparatively defenceless Britons.

Illustration of Wilford church and the church yard
Posted inCulture & Society Local Histories Religion & Spirituality Travelers' Tales

Nooks And Corners Of Old England – Wilford Church

Wilford is a delightfully picturesque and secluded village on the banks of the river Trent, about a mile from the town of Nottingham; and though so short a distance from a populous manufacturing district, it yet retains all those rural characteristics which poets, and topographers delighted to describe centuries ago. Sir Juckes Clifton, Baronet, of Clifton Hall, is the lord of the manor; his ancestors have been seated at Clifton, two miles’ distant from Wilford, ever since the reign of Henry the Third; but they held lands in this district long before that period. Sir Gervase Clifton was created a baronet in the ninth year of James the First. Wilford was anciently a Roman station, and some years since many Roman coins were discovered there, most of which were of the latter emperors. It was an eminent manor in the time of Edward the Confessor; and “did belong,” says Thoreton, “to the famous Godes the Countess” When the great survey under William the Conqueror was made, his natural son, William Peveril, governor of Nottingham Castle, had possessions there; and the village in those days had a “priest and a church.” The population is now about 600. The present rector (the Rev. Thomas Thorp) was instituted in 1819 ; and the annual value of the living, according to the report of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, is £574. The church, which is dedicated to St. Wilfrid, presents, to the north-east, an interesting and handsome appearance; but the southern side is disfigured by an unsightly porch, and several pieces of patchwork, which the hand of “modern improvement” has introduced. It has a low tower and clerestory, a rather spacious nave and aisle, and a good chancel, which, as the village chronicle says, was “beautified by the Rev. Mr. Carter, rector of this parish who also founded and endowed a charity school, and upon a flat stone in the north aisle, no further record on it being discernible. The churchyard is sheltered by a range of noble elm trees; and the silvery Trent flows close past this hallowed enclosure with a rushing stream.