The growth of the new borough was for a long period very slow. In 1272, the year of the accession of Edward I., Liverpool consisted of only 168 houses, occupied (computing on the usual basis) by about 840 people; and even a century later, when Edward III. appealed to the nation to support him in his attack upon France, though Bristol supplied twenty-four vessels and 800 men, Liverpool could furnish no more than one solitary barque with a crew of six. It was shortly after this date that the original church of "Our Lady and St. Nicholas" was erected. Were the building, as it existed for upwards of 400 years, still intact, or nearly so, Liverpool would possess no memorial of the past more attractive. But in the first place, in 1774, the body was taken down and rebuilt. Then, in 1815, the same was done with the tower, the architect wisely superseding the primitive spire with the beautiful lantern by which St. Nicholas's is now recognised even from the opposite side of the water. Of the original ecclesiastical establishment all that remains is the graveyard, once embellished with trees, and in particular with a "great Thorne," in summer white and fragrant, which the tasteless and ruthless old rector of the time was formally and most justly impeached for destroying "without leave or license." Wilful and needless slaying of ornamental trees, such as no money can buy or replace, and which have taken perhaps a century or more to grow, is always an act of ingratitude, if not of the nature of a crime, and never less excusable than when committed on consecrated ground. The dedication to St. Nicholas shows that the old Liverpool townsfolk were superstitious, if not pious. It is St. Nicholas who on the strength of the legend is found in Dibdin as "the sweet little cherub"-- "that sits up aloft, And takes care of the life of poor Jack." Up to 1699 the building in question was only the "chappell of Leverpoole," the parish in which the town lay being Walton.