A relic of old times is found in the custom at Newark known as “Ringing for Gofer.” On six successive Sunday evenings, beginning twelve Sundays before Christmas, the old parish church bells are rung for one hour, complying with the terms of a bequest left by a merchant named Gofer, over two centuries ago. He had on one occasion lost his way at night in Sherwood Forest, then infested by robbers of no very chivalrous instincts, who required, not “your money or your life,” but both. Just as he had given up hope, he heard these bells of Newark, and by their sound he made his way to safety. In memory of his deliverance he left a sum of money for this bell-ringing. The market-square has always been the centre of Newark’s life. It is singularly like the great market-square of Nottingham, on a smaller scale, and, like it, is partly surrounded by houses with a colonnaded piazza. An empty void now, save on the weekly market-day, that occasion finds its broad, cobble-stoned space thickly covered with stalls, while groups of farmers throng the pavements, and with their samples of corn displayed in the palms of their hands sell and buy in immense quantities. In the old times this vast empty square was peopled every day with arriving or departing coaches, and its pavements beset with passengers mounting or alighting, for the celebrated inns of Newark were mostly situated here, and the chief of them are here, even now, on the opposite side from the church, and adjoining one another. Newark is said to have once had no fewer than fifty inns. The classical Town Hall, built in 1773, on the west side of the square, stands on the site of two of them, and many others have been converted to different uses. Here on the south side are the “Clinton Arms,” so called in honour of the Duke of Newcastle’s family, powerful in these parts; the “Saracen’s Head,” with a bust of an alleged (but very pallid and mild-looking) Saracen on its frontage; and the “White Hart,” most ancient of all these existing hostelries. An inn of this name is spoken of as existing here in 1113. A “Saracen’s Head” stood here, certainly as far back as 1341, but unhappily the existing house only dates from 1721. This house is the one mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, who says, “The travellers who have visited Newark more lately will not fail to remember the remarkably civil and gentlemanly manners of the person who now keeps the principal inn there, and may find some amusement in contrasting them with those of his more rough predecessor.” Let us put on record the name of this remarkable person: William Thompson, landlord from 1784 to 1819. His “more rough predecessor” was perhaps the landlord who dispensed such open-handed and free hospitality to Jeanie Deans, when that somewhat priggish young woman stayed there, and on leaving asked for her “lawing.” [Picture: Market-Place, Newark]