Mr. URBAN,

Nov. 13.

ENCOURAGED by the ready

admission which you have given in your Magazine, to the account of various Public Schools and Institutions, I request a place for a short description of Repton Priory, and the School now founded on its site.(See Plate 1.)

At so distant a period as the Saxon Heptarchy, Repton (or Reopandun as it was then called) is mentioned in the scanty Chronicles of the times, as we learn from the extracts preserved by Leland, and given in his Collectanea. It was not only the Palace of the Saxon Monarchs of Mercia, but the seat of a noble Momastery of religious men and women, before the year 660; of which Palace, or Monastery, considerable foundations are discoverable, both in the Priory and adjoining Church-yard, when any alterations have been made in the School buildings, or vaults been dug in the Church-yard. The Palace and Monastery being laid waste and destroyed by the Danes, the Priory was re-edified in the year 1172, by Matilda, widow of Ranulph, 2d Earl of Chester, and continued in a flourishing condition, till the Dissolution by Henry VIII. when it was found to be possessed of revenues to the amount of £167. 18s. The site of the Priory, and its possessions in Repton, were granted to Thomas Thacker, esq. servant to Henry VIII. in whose family it continued till the year 1728, when, by the bequest of Miss Thacker, heiress to Gilbert Thacker, esq. the Priory estate in Repton was conveyed to the family of Burdett of Foremark, in which it still continues.

Sir John Port, of Etwall, Knight of the Bath (so created at the Coronation of Edward VI.) who was possessed, by marriage and inheritance, of great property in the counties of Stafford, Derby, and Lancaster, having lost his two sons at an early age, and being minded to bestow some part of his estates in charitable found ations for the repose of his soul, in the year 1556 devised to his executors, Sir Thomas Giffard, Richard Harpur, esquire, and others, certain estates in the counties of Derby and Lancaster, for the foundation of an Hospital at Etwall, and a Free GramGENT. MAG. February, 1811.

mar School at Repton. These insti

tutions were accordingly established

after his death, in the year 1557, and continued by Queen Mary's licence, under the direction of the Harpur family, till the year 1621; when, by an agreement between Sir John Harpur on the one part, and the Earl of Huntingdon, Lord Stanhope, and Sir Thomas Gerard, bart. on the other, the three several descendants of Sir John Port's three daughters, the superintendance, after the death of Sir John Harpur, was conveyed to the right heirs of the Founder. By the Petition of the coheirs, the Hospital and School, in the year 1621, were made a Body Corporate, by the style and title of "The Master of Etwall Hospital, the Schoolmaster of Repton, Ushers, Poor Men, and Poor Scholars;" and, in consequence of that settlement, the estates were conveyed by Sir John Harpur to the Corpora tion, and in that body are now vested. The foundation, from the improved state of its revenues, at present maintains a Master of the Hospital (in whom the power of receiving the rents, and paying the stipends, is vested), a Master of the School, two Ushers, 16 Poor Men in the Hospital, and 19 Poor Scholars at Repton. The entire superintendance of the School and Hospital is hereditary in the families of the Earls of Chesterfield and Moira, and Sir William Gerard, the representatives and coheirs of Sir J. Port's three daughters, who have the power of regulating the Corporation, and electing the Master of the Hospital, Schoolmaster, and Ushers; but a grant of a fourth turn with them in the appointment only of Poor Men, and Poor Scholars, was made by the Charter to the family of Harpur of Calke.

The village of Repton is pleasantly situated in a valley, washed by a rapid trout-stream, that rises in the Pistern hills, about six miles distant Southward. At the Northern extremity of the village, on an elevation overlooking the adjacent country and river Trent, stands the Parish Church, of which a View is given in your vol. LXII. p. 409.

Adjoining to the Church, stand the remains of the Priory, now converted into a Grammar School, and houses for Masters. The entrance from the

village

village to the Monastery is through a gateway with a Pointed arch, into the School-yard (formerly called the Infirmary-yard); the Eastern side of which is occupied by a long range of building, with habitations at the Northern end for the School-master; and the Southern for the first Usher. In the middle is the School-room, ascended by a flight of steps at the South end, which was once the Hall, or Refectory, of the Priory. It was formerly lighted on each side by plain round-headed windows, in the Norman style, without mouldings or architrave, with narrow apertures out, wardly, but inwardly more widely expanding. The Hall was supported by a row of massive round pillars, in the Saxon style, ornamented with capitals, carved in various patterns, evidently of very antient date, which formerly extended to the end of the Hall; but several were removed some years since, by alterations made in the first Usher's house.

The Dormitory was at the North end of the Hall, in which is remaining a small room, with a coved cieling of stone, in the Saxon style, and a carved key-stone in the centre. On the Eastern side of the Priory was placed the Cloister, the area of which is now converted into a garden, with some faint traces of apertures and doorways in the surrounding walls; one of these in the North-east corner opened from the Prior's lodge into the Cloister; the other on the East, into the Priory Church, which stood on the South side of the Cloisters, and, from the pillars now laid open, appears to have been an elegant structure, in the light florid style, that prevailed in the reign of Edward the Third.

At the West end of the Church is a square massive Tower, apparently of very antient date, now forming the entrance into the School, with narrow round-arched windows. Whether there was a corresponding Tower on the opposite side of the entrance to the Church, cannot now be ascertained, as much devastation has been made at the Western extremity of the Church. The Priory Church was built in the form of a cross, with four large clustered pillars between the nave and choir; the lower part of three of which, about five feet high, are still remaining. By admeasure

ment made from the remains, the Church appears to have extended 180 feet, and upwards, from West to East; the length of the transepts, from cross walls built on them, and ruin made of them, cannot be ascertained.

This structure was demolished in the beginning of Queen Mary's reign, by Mr. Thacker, as we are informed by Fuller, in his Church History, p. 358. In the adjoining paddock, inclosed on three sides by a strong stone wall, extending over several acres, are the foundations of other buildings belonging to the Priory. One vault only is remaining perfect; in which is a round-headed door-way, leading into the cloisters. At the Northern end of the Priory yard, on a deserted channel of the Trent, and appearing in the view through the trees, is a mansion, rebuilt by the Thackers about a century ago, upon the foundation of the Prior's lodge. The only unaltered part of the original building is a brick Tower, of the age of Henry the Sixth, which is to be ranked among the earliest specimens remaining, built with such materials as bricks. The lower room in it, now a kitchen, exhibits a cieling divided into square compartments, the intersections of which are ornamented with crests and badges of different Priors, carved in oak; one of these is the rebus and initial letter of Overton, Prior in the reign of Henry the Sixth. In the windows are remaining several pieces of painted glass, all charged with the figure of an Eagle, the crest, perhaps, of some Prior or benefactor. The Prior's lodge, of late years, has been rented of Sir Francis Burdett, and appropriated to the residence of the Headmaster of the School.

That part of the Priory now remaining, and closely adjoining to the mansion-house, was sold by Mr. Thacker, in Philip and Mary's reign, to the executors of Sir John Port; and, with some of the old possessions of the Priory, appropriated to the advancement of learning; which, as was the case in several other religious houses, had, doubtless, some encouragement among the Canons at Repton; and which, by the care of the pious re-founder, has again taken root, and continued to flourish in the place, till the present time.

Yours, &c. REPTONENSIS.