GUILDFORD.

supposed to be here introduced long before the general use of the pointed arch in this country; it still remains tolerably perfect, and is now a window. There was a circular staircase in one corner of the building, and galleries in the walls for the more speedy communication of orders, in case of siege or attack. The roof of this building was taken down in 1630, being very much decayed on the easternmost part of the south side is a small machicolation, which is a mock entrance or sally port. In a chalky cliff, a part of the same hill on which the castle stands, about 200 yards south-west from it, is a cavern, or rather several caverns, the entrance to which is near Quarry Street, facing the west, from whence there is a gentle descent into a cave about forty-five feet long, twenty feet wide, and nine feet high near the entrance on either hand were two lower passages, now closed up, leading to the other caverns.

The town of Guildford is a borough by prescription, has an elegant town hall and council chamber; its privileges have been enlarged by several charters. It is governed by a mayor, seven magistrates, and about twenty bailiffs, by the style of the mayor and approved men of Guildford, who assemble and hold a court in their guildhall every three weeks, and are vested with power at their general sessions of judging criminals to death. By a grant in 1256, the county court and assizes for Surry are to be held here at all times for ever. The right of election in this borough is of a very peculiar kind, and

GUILDFORD.

differs from all others in the kingdom, being in the freemen and freeholders paying scot and lot, and resident in the town. Guildford was incorporated by Henry I. and gives title of earl to the noble family of North; it sent members to parliament in the twenty-third of Edward I.; the mayor is the returning ofcer. There are three parish churches at Guildford-Trinity, St. Mary's, and St. Nicholas; the last is in the patronage of the dean of Sarum, the two first have long been vested in the crown. Trinity church fell down in May 1740; the workmen who were employed in taking down the bells and steeple, had quitted the spot about a quarter of an hour before the accident happened; not a single person received any hurt, though great numbers were spectators, it being fair-day. The church has since been rebuilt with brick.

The grammar school at Guildford was founded and endowed in 1509 by Robert Beckingham, of London, grocer; the endowment has been considerably augmented by the contributions of other charitable benefactors. Edward VI., by his letters patent in 1551, made it a free grammar school, by the name of "Schola Regia Gramaticallis Edwardi Sexti," and gave thereto £20 per annum for ever. At this school have been educated some very eminent persons, one of whom was George Abbott, archbishop of Canterbury, who, in 1621, built an hospital here, and settled thereon £300 per annum, with a joint donation of £600 from sir Nicholas Kemp, knight, for the maintenance of a master, twelve aged men, and

GUILDFORD.

eight women, all single persons; and for the encouragement of the woollen manufactory, which then flourished in this town. To this hospital, Mr. Thomas Jackson, late alderman of this borough, bequeathed £600 in the year 1788, whereby the number of women was increased to twelve Tradition reports the occasion of building and endowing this hospital by George Abbott, was to atone for his accidentally killing a gamekeeper by a shot from a cross-bow.

The building called the friary, which formerly belonged to an order of mendicants, but to what order or when founded is uncertain, is now the property of the Onslow family: in one part of this building, the judges are accommodated during their stay at the assizes; and here the assemblies and feasts for the borough are usually kept; the other portion is now converted into a boarding school.

BYCKNACRE PRIORY,

ESSEX.

THIS Priory was founded for black canons in the reign of Henry II. by Maurice Fitz Geffery, sheriff of Essex: its vendowments were considerably increased by the king, who granted to the canons the site of a hermitage which formerly stood near the spot on which the Priory was erected. In the reign of Henry VII. the possessions of this house had been so much lessened by neglect and inattention that it was nearly abandoned; and, on the petition of the prior and monks of Elsing Spittle, London, was granted by the king to that hospital. Soon after the dissolution, the manor of Bycknacre, with the site of the Priory, was given by Henry VIII. to Henry Polsted, who, in 1548, sold it to sir Walter Mildmay, of whose grandson it was purchased by George Barrington, esq. of Little Baddow, and is still in the possession of one of his descendants.

The site of this Priory is on the west side of the road leading from Danbury to Woodham Ferry; of the buildings not a vestige remains standing, except a portion of the conventual church. For many years the roads in the vicinity have been mended with stones taken from the ruins; and at this time the small remains of the church are suf

BYCKNACRE PRIORY.

fering reduction for the same purposes, and for paving the yards and sties belonging to the farm on which it stands. This church was in the form of a cross, but the east end is entirely destroyed, together with the south transcept. The nave of the church seems, soon after the dissolution, to have been fitted up as a dwelling for the occupier of the land, as there are large fire-places within it of the fashion of queen Elizabeth's time, and divers chambers; a beautifully carved roof of wood, if we may judge by the remains, was then destroyed. The four pillars, which probably supported a ceutral tower, are highly polished; and on the arch springing from the front ones, as seen in the annexed print, are remains of the ancient painted emblazonments, with which the interior of the church was decorated.