19
Amicissimo Henrico Pacey Ar.
Prospectum Bostoniæ Suæ d.d. W. Stukeley
Aug. 29. 1722.
Leak signifies a watery marshy place. Wrangle an ab A. S. Wear lacus, and hangel arundo, lacus arundinibus obsita? Return we toBoston. Boston, Fanum Sti. Botulphi, the saint of sea-faring men. St. Botulf (the bishop) his body lay in St. Edmund’s monastery at Bury. Wm. Malmsb. p. 137. This seems to have been the last bounds northward of the Iceni in most antient times; therefore its old name was Icanhoe, or Icenorum munimentum, as Mr. Baxter interprets it in his Glossary. I guess the first monastery founded here was on the south of the present church; for I saw vast stone walls dug up there, and a plain leaden cross taken up; in my possession. Many were the religious houses here in superstitious times, whose lands were given to the corporation by Hen. VIII. as likewise the estate of the lord Hussey, beheaded then at Lincoln for rebellion: he lived in one of the houses where is a great square tower of brick, called now Hussey tower. There are many such in this country, as that now called Rochford and sometimes Richmond tower, which is very high. Queen Mary was a great benefactress to this corporation, and gave them lands called Erection-lands, to pay a vicar, a lecturer, and two school-masters: they have now a revenue of a thousand pounds per annum. In the parsonage-house is a scutcheon with a pastoral staff behind it thus: a fess charged with a fish and two annulets between three plates, each charged with a cross fitché. TAB. XIX.The church, I think, is the largest parish church (without cross ailes) in the world: it is a hundred foot wide and three hundred foot long within the walls: the roof is handsomely cieled with Irish oak supported by four and twenty tall and slender pillars: many remains of fine brasses in the church, none so perfect as this in the south aile. Under the figures of the man and woman this inscription,
Ecce sub hoc lapide henricus Mete sistit humatus
vi mortis rapida generosus semper vocitatus
hic quisquis veneris ipsum precibus memoraris.
sponsam defunctam simul aliciam sibi junctam
anno mil C quater quadragenoque deno