THE WINDOWS
There is a very fine brass also of one of the last provosts or wardens of the college, probable date between 1510 and 1520. In 1487 Henry VIII. granted the manor to his mother, Margaret Countess of Richmond, and, the Duke of Richmond having no issue, Henry VIII., in 1520, granted it with many other manors in the neighbourhood to Charles Duke of Suffolk. This grant was confirmed by Edward VI. on his accession in 1547, but the duke and his two sons having died, he granted it, in 1551, to Edward Lord Clinton, afterwards Earl of Lincoln. The Clintons held it till 1692, when it passed, through a cousin Bridget, to the Fortescue family under whom both church and castle have suffered severely. Amongst other vandalisms, Lord Exeter, when living at Revesby, was allowed to remove the fine stained glass windows to his church of St. Martin’s in Stamford, in 1757. He paid £24 2s. 6d. to his steward for white glass to be put in in their stead, but the glass was not put in, and for eighty years the church was open to the wind and rain. The removal at all was a disgraceful business, and no wonder the Tattershall folk threatened to kill the glazier who was employed to take the windows out.
Tattershall Church.
The castle is now (1912) the property of Lord Curzon, who is putting it into repair. The story of its sale quite recently to a speculator, and the ruthless tearing out by his creditors of the fine historic mantelpieces is one which reflects little credit on any concerned in it. They are now replaced.
THE KEEP RESTORED
But “All’s well that ends well,” and Lincolnshire may congratulate herself that the finest old brick building in the country is in such good hands, and that the needed restoration is being carried out so admirably. It was no easy task to find oak trees to supply the beams which carry the floors, as each had to be twenty-four feet long and eighteen inches square.[27] The floors are now in, and the roof, which had been off for 250 years, reinstated. In the inner ward the ground plan of the kitchen has been laid bare; this was close outside the south-east angle of the keep and connected with it by a covered passage leading from the staircase turret. The turrets and parapets are repaired, and the floors and roof being again in place and the moat refilled with water, though not what one would call a comfortable residence, it will be a most interesting place to visit, and never again, we trust, be likely to fall into the neglect which it has suffered for the last two hundred years. Enough pottery and metal has been found to form the nucleus of a collection which will be preserved for visitors to see. But no collection will ever be half as interesting as the sight of this magnificent brick building itself, and the close examination of all its structural details.
Scrivelsby Stocks.