{192b} This chapel probably stood in or near the street running northward out of the Market place, and called St. Lawrence street, near which bodies have been exhumed at different times. When the clump of shops were cleared away in 1892, to make the present Market place, through the liberality of the late Right Hon. Edward Stanhope, several large fragments of Norman pillars were found, which probably once belonged to the old Norman chapel. {193c} St. Lawrence is the Patron Saint of Horncastle; and as he was martyred on a brander, or gridiron, the arms of the town are a Gridiron. The “canting” device of a castle on a horn has no very ancient authority. The “pancake bell” is rung on Shrove Tuesday, at 10 a.m.; the Curfew at 8 p.m. from Oct. 11 to April 6, except Saturdays at 7 p.m., and omitting from St. Thomas’s Day to Plough Monday. The Grammar School bell used to be rung, and the writer has often assisted, as a boy, in ringing it at 7 a.m.; but it has been given up of late years, as the governors of the school declined to pay far it. In one of the Parish Registers appears the following entry:—“On the Vth daie of October one thousand six hundred & three, in the first yeare of our Souvraine Lord King James was holden in Horncastle Church a solemn fast from eight in the morning until foure a clock in the afternoone by five preachers, vidiz. Mr. Hollinhedge, vicar of Horncastle, Mr. Turner of Edlington, Mr. Downe of Lusbye, Mr. Phillipe of Salmonbye, Mr. Tanzey of Hagworthingha’, occasioned by a general and most feareful plague yt yeare in sundrie places of this land, but especially upon the cytie of London. Pr. me Clementen Whitelock.” A Record at the Rolls Court states that Horncastle Church was resorted to by a robber for the purpose of Sanctuary, as follows:—“22 August 1229. The King (at Windsor) commands the Sheriff of Lincolnshire (Radulphus filius Reginald) to send two coroners of the county to see that a robber who keeps himself in the Church of Horncastle, abjures the kingdom.” {193} Among some MS. Records in the possession of Mr. John Overton, I find it stated that in December, 1812, the vestry room was broken open and robbed of all the money, and other valuables; and that £50 reward was offered by the Vestry for the discovery of the culprits.