[Footnote 173: From a MS. _penes_ Rev. H. J. Branson, M. A., Rector of Armthorpe. It is not now known with certainty to whom we are to attribute the authorship of these lines. They appeared in the "_Yorkshire Journal_," of Saturday January 19, 1788, a newspaper at that period printed and published at Doncaster, by Thomas Sanderson. In introducing the subject he says, "The following Ballad on Armthorpe Bells was wrote some years ago, supposed by a gentleman of this town, sometime since deceased, and were sent to Mr. Anstey, author of the _Bath Guide_, nephew to the Rev. Christopher Anstey, the then rector of Armthorpe. They were for some time handed about in manuscript, but having never appeared in public may not prove unacceptable to our readers; and we hope the vein of wit and humour, which runs through the whole poem, will sufficiently apologize for its length." Who the gentleman thus alluded to was we are unable to state. An impression has prevailed that they were written by Mr. Anstey, the author of the _Bath Guide_; but, in the absence of any positive evidence to that effect, we must assume that the proprietor of the _Yorkshire Journal_, writing in 1788, when the subject would be fresh and talked about, is more likely to be correct in the statement above made. Mr. Christopher Anstey, the poet, was born 31 Oct. 1724, and died 3 Aug. 1805. The Rev. Christopher Anstey, rector of Armthorpe from about 1771 to 1784, died June 17, 1784, aged 73, and was buried at Doncaster.] [Footnote 174: Armthorpe is a village, situated in an agricultural district, about three miles south-east of Doncaster. An account of it at length may be read in Hunter's able work, the "History of South Yorkshire." The place lay close to the confines of the ancient Chace of Hatfield, and once formed a valuable part of the possessions of the monks of the abbey of Roche. At the dissolution of the abbey the manor of Armthorpe came to the crown. In 3 James I. the king granted it to sir Robert Swyft, of Tristrop, (now Streetthorpe,) knt. The family of Cooke, of Wheatley, had a good estate here, most of which sir George Cooke, bart. sold, in 1804, to John Walbanke Childers, esq., of Cantley, in whose family it remains. The church is dedicated to St. Mary. Dr. Miller, in his "History of Doncaster," 1803, briefly remarks that it was then "a very small mean building, with one bell hanging on the outside of it, and nothing worth noticing within." Hunter, in 1828, remarks that it is a small building of one pace, with two bells hanging in a kind of pent-house on the roof, and is a fair specimen of what the original churches of the smaller country parishes must have been. "This," he says, "is the only instance of a church without a tower in the deanery." The living is a rectory in the gift of the crown, and is now held by the Rev. H. J. Branson, M.A., who was presented thereto, by Lord Chancellor Brougham, in 1834.]