At the east end is a small chapel in which prayers are read twice a day, and where some mutilated monumental
figures, probably of the Huntingdon family, are still to be seen.
Nothing farther remains to be noticed concerning this interesting part of the town, except that the south gateway was beaten down by the king’s forces at the storming of the place in the spring of the year 1645, when they left only a part of the jamb on the eastern side standing. One of the prebendal houses on the west side of the antient quadrangle of the college has, within these few years, been purchased for the vicarage house of St. Mary’s parish. Opposite the old hospital a house has been lately erected as an Asylum for the reception and education of poor female children.
From the Newark, in a lane opposite to which called Mill-Stone lane, is a Meeting-House of the Methodists, we proceed along South gate or
HORSEPOOL-STREET,
At the end of this street, situated on a gentle eminence affording the desirable advantages of a dry soil and open air, we perceive one of those edifices which a country more than nominally christian must ever be careful to erect, a house of refuge for sick poverty. The Infirmary, which owes the origin of its institution to W. Watts, M. D. was built in 1771, nearly on the scite of the antient chapel of St. Sepulchre, and is a plain neat building with two wings, fronted by a garden, the entrance to which is ornamented with a very handsome iron gate the gift of the late truly benevolent Shuckbrugh Ashby, Esq. of Quenby. The house is built upon a plan which for its convenience
and utility received the approbation of the great Howard, whose experience and observation qualified him for a competent judge. It is calculated to admit, exclusive of the fever ward, 54 patients, without restriction to county or nation. Its funds, notwithstanding the exemplary liberality it has excited, are, owing to the pressure of the times, scarcely adequate to its support. Adjoining the Infirmary is an Asylum for the reception of indigent Lunatics.
At the distance of a quarter of a mile from the Infirmary, are some remains of a Roman labour, called the Raw Dikes, these banks of earth four yards in height, running parralel to each other in nearly a right line to the extent of 639 yards, the space between them 13 yards, were some years ago levelled to the ground except the
the length of about 150 yards at the end farthest from the town. It was a generally received opinion that they were the fortifications of a Roman camp, till the supposition of their having been a cursus or race course, was started by Dr. Stukely. If it is to be admitted that they formed an area for horse races, of which the Romans are known to have been extravagantly fond, we may imagine that the sport here practiced consisted in horses running at liberty without riders between the banks; traces of such a race run in an enclosed space may be found in the Corso dei Barberi, now practiced in the streets of Florence; [125] the Italians having in many instances preserved the original customs of the Romans. But the
question must still hang in a balance whether the Raw Dykes were the scene of Roman games, or