Highways and Byways in LincolnshireRawnsley, W. F. (Willingham Franklin)
History
Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire
Rawnsley, W. F. (Willingham Franklin)
Lincolnshire (England) -- Description and travel
the foundation stone of the present house in 1841. The earl died in 1859,
and his widow, who survived him eight years, built in his memory the
present fine church, which was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. In 1889
Lord Ripon sold the estate to Mr. G. Hodgson of Bradford.
It is interesting to hear of a school being set up in 1793 at Nocton;
first as a private school by John Brackenbury of Gedney, grandson of
Edward Brackenbury of Raithby, near Spilsby, which was continued for
forty-six years after her father’s death in 1813, by his daughter
Justinia, who became Mrs. Scholey. In her time it was an elementary
school which Lady Sarah financed and managed, the children paying a penny
a week.
[Sidenote: DUNSTON PILLAR]
Another thing that was set up was a land lighthouse on Dunston Heath.
This was a lonely tract where inhabitants had not only been murdered
by highwaymen, but had even been lost in the storms and snow-drifts on
the desolate and roadless moor. Here then Sir Francis Dashwood set up
the Dunston Pillar, ninety-two feet high with a lantern over fifteen
feet high on the top. The date on it is 1751. The fourth Earl of
Buckinghamshire, who as Lord Hobart was Governor of Madras, took down the
lantern on July 18, 1810, and set up in its place a colossal statue of
George III. to commemorate the king’s jubilee.
[Sidenote: NOCTON HALL]
The granddaughter of the third earl, whose father (The Very Rev. H.
L. Hobart) lived at the Priory, being, _inter alia_, vicar of Nocton
and Dean of Windsor, and also of Wolverhampton, tells me that the mail
coaches used to pass the pillar and leave all the letters for the
neighbourhood at one of the four little lodges close by. She has several
interesting specimens of the work done by the Nocton School of Needlework
under the guidance of Justinia, whose family were remarkable for their
Scriptural as well as “heathen Christian names,” _e.g._, Ceres and
Damaris. Justinia herself always, as they say in Westmorland, used to
“get” Justina. These specimens include a very clever and faithful copy in
black silk needlework of an engraving by Hoylett from a picture by Thos.
Espin of old Nocton Hall, which was burnt down in 1834. The needlework
artist has done one of the trees in the picture most beautifully, but has
given the rein to her imagination by working in two fine palm trees in
place of the oaks of the picture. There is a sampler done at the vicarage
by the dean’s daughter, and inscribed:—
“Nocton Priory, 1839.
Louisa C. Hobart.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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