The Query of your correspondent opens a tale of despoliation perhaps unparalleled even in the days of iconoclastic fury, and but very imperfectly known.
The estate of Letheringham devolved, about the middle of the last century, upon William Leman, Esq., who, being obliged to maintain his right against claimants stating they descended from a branch of the Naunton family who had migrated into Normandy at the end of the preceding century, was placed in a position of considerable difficulty to defend his occupation of the house and lands. I will not say by whom, but in 1770 down came the residence in which the author of the well-known Fragmenta Regalia had resided, and, what is far worse, the Priory Church, which, after the Dissolution, was made parochial, and which was filled with tombs, effigies, and brasses to members of the family—Bovilles, Wingfields, and Nauntons—was also levelled with the ground. It was stated at the time that the sacred edifice had only become dilapidated from age, and that the parishioners were therefore obliged to do something. What was done, however, was no re-edification of the fabric, but its entire destruction, and the erection of a new church. Fortunately, Horace Walpole saw the edifice before the contractor for the new building had cast his "desiring eyes" upon it, and has recorded his impressions in one of his letters. More fortunate still, the late Mr. Gough and Mr. Nichols visited it, and the former employed the well-known topographical draughtsman, the late James Johnson of Woodbridge, Suffolk, to copy some of the effigies, which were afterwards engraved and inserted in the second volume of the Sepulchral Monuments. The zeal of Johnson, however, led him to preserve, by his minute delineation, not only every monument (only two, I think, are given by Gough), but also the interior and exterior of the church, with the
position of the tombs. The interior view may be seen among Craven Ord's drawings in the library of the British Museum; and I am happy to say I possess Johnson's original sketches of all the monuments, and of the exterior of the building. A fair idea of the extent of the destruction may be gained by the mention of the fact, that six hundred-weight of alabaster effigies were beaten into powder, and sold to line water-cisterns. Some of the figures were rescued by the late Dr. W. Clubbe, and erected into a pyramid in his garden at Brandeston Vicarage, with this inscription:
"Fuimus. Indignant Reader, these monumental remains are not (as thou mayest suppose) the ruins of Time, but were destroyed in an irruption of the Goths so late in the Christian era as the year 1789. Credite posteri."
John Wodderspoon.
Norwich.
William Naunton, son and heir of Thomas Naunton (temp. Hen. VII.), and Margery, daughter and heiress of Richard Busiarde, married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Anthony Wingfield. Their only child, Henry Naunton, was the father of two sons, viz. Robert the secretary (temp. James I.), whose son died unmarried, and daughter, married to Paul Viscount Bayning, died without issue; and William Naunton (fil. 2s). His son and heir, who married a Coke, had one daughter, Theophila, married to William Leman (ancestor of the family whose great estates are in search of an owner): their only issue, Theophila, married Thomas Rede, who thereby became possessed of Letheringham in Suffolk, and the whole of the Naunton property. His estates went to his son Robert, who, dying without issue in 1822, left them much diminished to his nephew, the Rev. Robert Rede Cooper, second son of the Rev. Samuel Lovick Cooper and Sarah Leman, youngest daughter, and eventually heiress, of the above Thomas Rede. The Rev. Robert Rede Rede (for he assumed that name) died a few years ago possessed of Ashmans Park, Suff., which was independent of the Naunton property, and of certain heir-looms, the sole remains of the great estates of the "Nauntons of Letheringham," which continue in the possession of the descendants of that family. It is at Ashmans that the portrait inquired for by your correspondent Q. will probably be found. Whether that estate has already been sold by the daughters of the late possessor (four co-heiresses) I am unable to say.
H. C. K.