Wesleyan Sunday School and Church Day School.

In 1804 the present Wesleyan Chapel in North Street was opened for public Worship. There were 22 Local Preachers in the District in 1827, and 45 in 1841.

A second Wesleyan Chapel, in Bridge Road, was opened in 1886, and an Iron Chapel in Ropery Road in 1899.

PRIMITIVE METHODISTS.

The Primitive Methodists, an offshoot from the parent stem of Methodism, erected a Chapel in Spring Gardens in 1838, but removed to Trinity Street several years later. Their Chapel being large and commodious, they have a large and earnest congregation in Gainsburgh.

FREE METHODISTS.

These are another offshoot from the original body, and have a considerable Chapel and Schools in Hickman Street.

THE SALVATION ARMY.

This active and enterprising body of religious workers, whose aim is the spiritual and corporal salvation of the most degraded, especially in large towns, obtained possession, some years since, of the old Chapel of the Primitive Methodists in Spring Gardens, and have adapted it for the purpose of their head quarters or "Barracks."

There were at one time Baptists in the town in sufficient numbers to erect and maintain a Chapel in Spring Gardens. But this is no longer in use, and it would appear that members of this religious Society, if such there be, resident in Gainsburgh, attend other places of Worship.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE OLD HALL-THE PILLARED HOUSE. THE OLD GUILDS GAINSBURGH INNS.-CLUBS.-CHURCH INSTITUTES.

CHAPEL.

THE OLD HALL.

HE buildings and gardens of the Old Hall were originally encompassed by a moat, some remains of which were visible down to a comparatively recent period. It is not quite easy to give an exact date to the older portions of the building, but a single glance is sufficient to assure the visitor that it was not all erected at one time, and the historical notices which we have already quoted, enable us to make a fair conjecture as to the gradual development of the structure.

Of whatever buildings stood here when King Sweyn wintered in Gainsburgh it is probable that not a single stone remains above ground, and neither can we point to any visible relics of the Talbots, or of William and Aymer de Valence. In 1281 there was indeed "a certain capital messuage, worth 10s. per annum"; but by 1327 its value had declined to vanishing point, and in 1376 there was only left "the site of the Manor," which in 1432 was found to be "let out on farm." Had the present stonework of the central wing, with its fine oriel window, been then in existence, other expressions must have been used, but it is clear that whatever buildings were then in use were not of sufficient importance to be noted by the inquisitores post mortem.

We seem to gain a further clue to the date of the building from the expression of the chronicler that in 1469 Lord Willoughby

and others, attacking Sir Thomas Burgh, "pulled down his place." Shortly after this Sir Thomas attained to great prosperity and a peerage, and it is natural to conclude that in repairing the damage done by the Lancastrian party, he should have determined to erect a much more dignified Hall than that which his predecessors had occupied. In place of a country Manor House, the new Baron desired to be the owner of a Baronial Hall. This was the tradition of Leland's time, about sixty years later, for he distinctly says that the first Lord Burgh "made most of the motid Manor place by the West ende of the Chirche yarde." We do not think that there is anything of importance at the Old Hall much older than 1475, although if it were not for these historical allusions we might have assigned the Central wing to a considerably earlier period. As it is, we regard it as a tangible memorial of the Wars of the Roses.

It was in the Old Hall, as it existed before the newer developments, that Lord Burgh received King Richard III, the little hunchback whose crimes, which brought him to the Throne, were expiated on the bloody field of Bosworth. It was in the same building that the third Lord Burgh entertained King Henry VIII and his Queen from August 12th to August 17th, 1541. Within sixty years Gainsburgh witnessed two royal entries, and a century later was privileged to welcome another Monarch, in the person of the hapless King Charles I.

We have already alluded to some of the probable guests who gathered in the Old Hall to welcome the greatest of the Tudors, but it remains to record the most important occupations that drew them together. On each of the four whole days of Henry's visit he presided at a meeting of the Privy Council, and transacted the business of the Realm: There were present at these meetings, besides the King, the great Duke of Norfolk, uncle of the Queen, and Henry's brother-in-law and early favourite, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. The Great Chamberlain and the Great Admiral of England were there, together with the Bishop of Durham, the Treasurer and the Comptroller of the Household, the Master of the Horse, the Vice-Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Augmentations, and Sir Thomas Wriothesley, afterwards Earl of Southampton, acting as secretary. We may imagine with what

intense interest the men of Gainsburgh learnt that these Great Officers of State were daily closeted with the King in the Old Hall, and were eagerly discussing and ordering the fortunes of England.

The Eastern wing of the Old Hall was erected by William Hickman, probably on the site of earlier buildings, and was completed in 1600. At that time brick-work was in general use for domestic architecture, and the style of the building is not unlike that of Tattershall Castle, although the latter was 160 years earlier in date. After Sir William's time there would seem to have been few structural alterations of importance, and the whole building remains a fine example of a Baronial Hall, adapted to the use of a noble family of affluence.

As it now stands, the Old Hall consists of a Central Wing, containing the great hall, with its open timber roof, prolonged Westwards to the kitchen premises and offices; an Eastern Wing, with its high tower at the angle, its banquetting-room and sittingrooms on the ground floor, and its long ball-room in the upper storey; and a Western Wing, in which timber-work is more prominent, and which contains several chambers now disused.

Some time after the Hickmans had purchased the Manor of Thonock, they removed there, and since their migration no lord of the Manor has permanently resided in the Old Hall, which has since been put to various uses. About 1760 one Mr. Hornby established a linen manufactory in the buildings, a large part of which was afterwards used as private dwellings. The great hall was used in later times as a theatre, and as a workshop for machinery, until at length it became an auction room. The lord of the Manor has of late years spent large sums of money upon the restoration and preservation of the building.

One of the most interesting episodes in connection with the Old Hall is related in the Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, founder of the Wesleyan Methodist Society. He says:

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1759, August 2. "I preached at Gainsburgh in Sir Nevil Hickman's great hall . . At two it was filled with a rude

wild multitude, (a few of better spirit excepted), yet all but two or three gentlemen were attentive while I enforced our Lord's words 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? I was walking back through a gaping staring crowd, when Sir Nevil came and thanked me for my sermon, to the no small amazement of his neighbours, who shrunk back as if they had seen a ghost!

Sir Neville George Hickman had evidently retained something of the evangelical spirit of his ancestors, and was able to appreciate the words and the deeds of a good and holy man, spoken though they were in an unaccustomed place.

Beautiful in its appearance, and interesting in the details of its structure, the Old Hall at Gainsburgh is still more interesting in its historical associations, for those who stand before its weatherbeaten walls can scarcely help remembering that the old Court Yard may have been trodden by the happy feet of Alfred and Elswitha; that here Sweyn fell, and Knut the Powerful was raised upon the shoulders of his Northern sailors; that within these ancient precincts the greatest Plantagenet feasted with his cousin from Valence; that here the Yorkist Lord stood to welcome the Yorkist King in the person of the hump-backed Richard; that here Tudor majesty in its most terrific form overawed even the turbulent bucolism of Danish blood; that these walls have gazed upon the pathetic face of Charles the Martyr, and have listened to the apostolic eloquence of the patriarchal Wesley; whilst the echoing voice of the chivalrous peace-maker from newer lands, sans peur et sans reproche," has scarcely died away.

THE PILLARED HOUSE.

Although not possessing any great antiquity, the Pillared House in Bridge Street naturally attracts notice from its somewhat unusual architecture. There is a tradition that upon the site of the present building stood formerly a Gothic Mansion, in which we may believe that the Good Earl of Kingston had his headquarters in 1648. Stark has given a sketch of a coat of arms