HIGH-CROSS-STREET,
from a plain doric pillar bearing the name of High Cross, and which formed
some years ago one of the supporters of a light temple looking building of the same name, that served as a shelter to the country people who here hold a small market on Wednesdays and Fridays for the sale of butter, eggs, &c. Here the members of parliament are proclaimed, and here also may be seen on Michaelmas day, the grotesque ceremony of the poor men of Trinity Hospital, arrayed like ancient Knights, having rusty helmets on their heads and breast-plates fastened over their black taberdes proclaiming the fair.
Some paces lower the massy stone front of an edifice adorned with rusticated pillars points to the eye the County Goal, erected in the year 1791, at the expense of six thousand pounds. The spectator may prehaps be led into a reflection on the violation of propriety, when he sees the Roman Fasces and Pileus encircled
by heavy chains decorating an English prison. Under these symbols the name of the Architect is fully conspicuous, and it may be observed as an example of sudden vicissitude, that the builder of this fabrick became, as a debtor, its first inhabitant.
This prison, to which the county bridewell is now added, was erected, upon the scite of the old goal, some years after the benevolent Howard visited Leicester, and is built with solitary cells after the plan recommended by that celebrated philanthropist.
The mention of a character so widely expanding beyond the customary sphere of human action irresistibly arrests the attention of the heart that glows into admiration at striking examples of virtue, and of the head that feels interest in tracing the motives which influence the conduct of man.
Separated from the county prison, by a lane called Free-School Lane, is a rude heavy building, adorned with the Royal Arms. This is the Free Grammar School, the æra of whose original foundation has been thought uncertain; but upon the authority of the learned topographer Leland, it is ascertained to have been founded by one of the three Wigstons interred in the collegiate church in the Newark, and who, according to the same writer, was a Prebendary of that church. This, if not the same person, was brother to him who founded the Hospital dedicated to St. Ursula, now called Wigston’s Hospital. The master of that Hospital, had formerly the privilege of recommending, if not appointing the master and usher of the school, but this right is now exercised by the Mayor and senior Aldermen.—The present building was erected by the
Mayor and Burgesses, in the fifteenth of Elizabeth, who granted them for that purpose, the materials of the adjoining church of St. Peter.
On the opposite side of the street projects the gabel end of a building once part of the Blue Boar, afterwards Blue Bell inn, in ancient times undoubtedly the principal inn of the place. The old over-hanging window gave light to a chamber in which stood the bedstead, which has been celebrated by the name of King Richard’s Bedstead, from the circumstance of his having slept in it a few nights preceding Bosworth Fight.
Antiquaries have spoken of this bedstead as belonging to the king rather than to the master of the house; and this opinion has been thought favoured by the circumstance of a large sum in gold coin, partly of Richard’s
reign, accidentally discovered in its double bottom. The bedstead is of oak, highly ornamented with carved work, and is now, in the possession of Tho. Babington Esq. m.p. There seems but little reason to suppose that a Royal General while attending the march of his Army, should unnecessarily encrease his baggage by so cumbrous a piece of furniture, or that a Sovereign, guarded by nearly all the military force of the Nation, should find it expedient to hide his gold like a private unprotected person. The bedstead therefore, it may safely be inferred, belonged, not to a monarch, but to the master of a good inn; and the money was secreted in it by some person anxious to secure his property from the dangers threatened by times of civil distraction.
At the bottom of Blue Boar Lane, which takes it name from the inn, is a small Alms-house, founded 1712, by Matthew Simons Esq. for six Widows, and endowed with 20l. 10s. annually.
The next observable object in the High Cross Street, is the Town Goal. It is a commodious building, with a handsome stone front, and built after the plan of Howard—the Architect, Mr. W. Firmadge.
In taking down the old Goal for the erection of the present edifice, in the year 1792, incorporated with the walls of the cells were discovered the remains of the chapel of St John, supposed to have been destroyed during the contests between Henry the Second and his Son. A regular stone arch belonging to this chapel, of a circular form, with ornaments of cheveron work, was carefully taken from among the ruins of the old
goal, and preserved by that industrious Antiquary and Historian of Leicester, Mr. Throsby.
The small Hospital of St. John, to which this chapel belonged, joins the prison; it supports six Widows who subsist on a very scanty stipend arising from various annual donations. Bent’s Hospital, being the ground floor of the same building, supports four Widows on an endowment equally small.
We are now approaching one of the most valuable traces which Leicester affords of our Roman Conquerors, a relick of their tesselated floors; preserved with great attention, in the cellar of Mr. Worthington, opposite the town prison. It was discovered in the year 1675, about four feet and a half under the surface of the earth, which beneath was found to consist of oyster shells to a considerable
depth; it was sunk from its original portion on one side being considerably inclined from the level.—This pavement, which is an octagon three feet diameter, represents a Stag looking intently upon the modestly-inclined countenance of a figure seemingly female, with her arm resting affectionately against his neck; in front stands a boy, whose wings and bow plainly indicate him to be a Cupid; he appears about to discharge an arrow at the breast of the female; a circumstance which renders it very certain that the subject must be the amours of some fabulous personages, but assuredly not Dïana and Actæon; nor yet as some Antiquaries have hastily supposed, Cypressus lamenting the death of his favourite stag. Indeed in the whole of the Metamorphoses, no story cm be found bearing the slightest resemblance to the subject before us.
The elegant and picturesque Gilpin has chosen to denominate this pavement “a piece of miserable workmanship,” which can only be owing to the manner in which he injudiciously viewed it. By placing the light in a proper position, the spectator will observe that the effect of the whole piece gives the idea of good design, shade, and relief; and will be clearly convinced that it could not have been wrought by a hand which had not made considerable progress in the art of painting, as is evident from the rounding of the arm of the female, the foreshortening of the stag’s horn, and the animated expression of each countenance. The tesseræ are of various sizes, mostly square, but where a narrow line of light was required, as in the strait Grecian nose of the female, they are small and long. They
appear to be a composition, and are of three or four distinct shades, the darkest a brown approaching to black, the next a warm or red brown, and the lightest, which forms the ground work, an ochery white.
The admirers of this art, so much practised by the Romans as a decoration of their magnificent buildings, an art which has survived so long as to have obtained an established manufactory in modern Rome, will ascertain the pavement in question to be one of the first specimens of antient mosaic, and will, with gratified attention, here behold form and shade called up from that unmanageable material, a piece of baked earth.
The commonly received opinion of these pavements having been the floors of baths, as founded on the circumstance of their being discovered three
or four feet under the surface of the earth, is not conclusive; for the soil has been raised by accidental accumulation; and had not this been the case, the depth of three or four feet would not have been sufficient for a Bath as it could not have allowed room for submersion. Neither does the vault with a floor and walls of tesselated work, and pipes in the roof, discovered near Leicester in the reign of James the first, the memory alone of which is preserved by our indefatigable topographer, Mr. Nichols, render such an opinion in any respect more certain; but that some of them were floors of sitting rooms may be justly inferred, from the flues constructed under them for the purpose of conveying heat.
In examining the specimens of the mosaic art, we are tempted to draw a far different conclusion from that
adopted by the truly learned author of the Munimenta Antiqua, who strongly adduces the number of fragile (as he terms them) tesselated floors found in Britain, as a proof of the slightness of the superstructures erected by the Romans. Now, surely it is not to be expected that a people whose architecture in their own country was so strikingly characterized by massiveness & splendor, should, in this island, which though a distant was a durable conquest, and improved by all their arts and industry, have departed from their usual principles. And farther, the taste and costly magnificence discoverable in these curious remains must lead to the conclusion that they could not have committed them to slight or ordinary buildings, for they were decorations which the experience of more than fourteen hundred years has scarcely surpassed.
Even the looms of modern Brussels, in elegance and beauty of pattern, cannot fairly outvie the Mosaic Carpets of the antient Romans.
The next object that engages the eye is the church of All Saints, projecting on the west end into the street, exhibiting in its clock an humble copy of the machinery of St Dunstan’s, in London. It is a small neat church with three aisles and a low tower, and nothing in its architecture attracts regard. This vicarage with that of St Peter’s, which was annexed to it in the reign of Elizabeth, includes the antient parish of St Michael, and part if not the whole, of that of St. Clement.
A monument in this church-yard commemorates a character greatly distinguished by his large donations to the poor—Ald. Gabriel Newton.
Of the prevalence of alms-giving in
Leicester, this parish, together with the rest, bears full testimony, in a long list of benefactors, from the Royal Grant of Charles the first of forty acres of land in Leicester forest, to poor housekeepers, (which now produces annually 33l. 11s. 4d [42]) to the donor of the penny wheaten Loaf. From the returns to Parliament in the present reign, when accounts were made of all the charitable donations in the kingdom, it appears that there are donations in the parishes of Leicester, in land and money (including the endowments of the lesser Hospitals) mostly vested in the trust of the Corporation and by them distributed, to the annual amount of upwards of 800l.—see Nichols.—
A short space below the church is the spot where formerly stood the North Gates; here a narrow lane, which once obtained the name of St. Clements, from its leading to that church, but which is now degraded into Dead-mans Lane, is the passage to a Meeting House, belonging to the Society of Quakers. The street continuing in a right line, now takes the name of