ST. MARY'S CHURCH, NOTTINGHAM. St. Mary's Church stands upon an eminence about 70 feet above the level of the meadows. It is, according to Leland, "excellent, new, and uniform in work, and so many fair windows in it that no artificer can imagine to set more." And Stukeley describes it as "a fine old lightsome building, with a good ring of eight bells." It is indeed a spacious and elegant cruciform structure, in the later style of English architecture, with a beautiful tower rising from the centre to the height of two stages, and crowned with battlements and pinnacles. The architecture of this church generally is deserving of high praise, both for its beauty of design and elaborate execution; but there is a most unfortunate exception to be made of the west front. In the year 1726 this part required repair; and it was then decorated after a modern style, out of all character with the rest of the building. The south porch deserves peculiar notice. It is highly enriched with panels and fan tracery depending from the roof, which is finely groined. The interior of St. Mary's answers well to its external appearance. It is lighted by ranges of noble windows of exquisite tracery. On the north side of the transept is the chapel of All Saints, belonging to the Plumptre family, in which are monuments of some individuals of that name. The window in this chapel is very beautiful. There is another chapel corresponding to this on the south, dedicated to the virgin Mary. Formerly there were three chantries in this churchSt. Mary's, St. James's, and Amyas's. It may be added that the windows were once filled with old painted glass, a few fragments of which only now remain. Among the eminent persons who have been natives of Nottingham, may be named the gifted Henry Kirke White, who gave promise of high excellence, and whose poems will always survive in English literature. He died at Cambridge, in the twenty-first year of his age. |