I

1930.]

NOTICES OF TAVISTOCK.

With a Plate.

(Continued from page 412.) N Tavistock Church is a monument, beautifully executed, of Judge Glanvile, in his robes; another, which I have little doubt, is that of the unfortunate Sir John Fitz (of whom more under Fitzford) and his lady. Also memorials of the Willesfords, the Fortescues of Buckland Filleigh, and the Manatons, who, subsequently to the Glanviles, were the possessors of Kilworthy.

Y

Prince mentions an honorary cenotaph to that eminently great and politic sovereign Queen Elizabeth: the Rev. Mr. Bray informs me, that it consisted of a painting on the south wall of the chancel, now effaced, representing a sepulchral monument. Such memorials to that eminent protector of our newly established reformed church, were, I believe, not an unfrequent tribute by the parochial congregations of England, to her mémory. Against the north wall of Greenwich Church, in Kent, there hangs, at this day, a painting on board, representing a monumental effigy of the Virgin Queen.

THE LAZAR HOUSE, OR HOSPITAL, OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN AND ST. THEOBALD.

An hospital for leprous men and women, (of the foundation of which no record is extant) stood at the west ern extremity of the town of Tavistock, on the spot where the parish work-house is now built. It was dedicated, as eleemosynary establishments for a similar purpose usually were, to St. Mary Magdalen, and was commonly called the Maudlin Chapel. St. Theobald was, in this instance, associated as co-patron with St. Mary.

My researches among such of the old deeds in the parish chest at Tavistock as were accessible to me, in the year 1827, has enabled me to give the following list of Priors or Governors of the Maudlin. I shall incidentally mention the different documents which have afforded me the information.

Ralph Gryth was Prior in the 17th year of the reign of Edward the Fourth, when I find him granting to Ralph Foster, in the name of himself and his successors, for 20 years, all the close called the Maudlin park (enclosed GENT. MAG. June, 1830.

489

fields obtained, and in many instances I believe retain, the appellation of parks in this county), at the yearly rent of 12s, per annum.

Thomas Glanfelde was Prior in the 19th year of Henry VIII. as I learn from his lease to John Tibb, during the term of the contracting parties' lives, of nine feet of ground lying by the hospital plats and boundyngs," at 10d. per ann. the rent to be paid at Michaelmas and Lady-day, half-yearly.

William Cole, Prior in the 32d of Henry VIII. leases for 60 years to Richard Foster, Constance his wife, and John the son of Richard Foster, all the close and garden situate north of the hospital, having on the west the Spital-lane, and the land called the Mawdelyn grounde."

Robert Isaac, who is styled Gubernator (Governor), in the following year grants a lease to Guido Leman, of a tenement and three gardens in Ford-street.

Thomas Payne, Prior in the 2d and 3d of Philip and Mary, lets to William Russell, baker, all the garden and its appurtenances called "the blind Hey," at 2s. per ann. The style of the King and Queen I shall add from, the attestation, as it is not perhaps very generally known: " Philipp and Marye, by the grace of God Kyng and Quene of England, Fraunce, Naples, Hierusalem, and Ireland, defenders of the Fayth, princes of Spayne and Sicyll, archedukes of Austria, dukes of Millayne, Burgundye, and Brabant, counts of Haspurge, Flaunders, and Tyroll."

The hospital or lazar-house of St. Mary and St. Theobald; survived the suppression of establishments of a larger nature, and in the 27th of Elizabeth, "John Batte, then Prior, and the bretheryn and sustern of the same house, with one consent, by deed indented under seal, demised to John Ffitz, Esquier, William Houghton, Nicholas Glanvile, Robert Moore, Edward Denys, Roger Upcote, Thomas Libbe, Richard Drake, Thomas Sowton, the last eight being supervisors, dispensators for the behoof of the Church and pa rish of Tavistock of the poor people of the same, for the term of one thousand years, the house known by the name of the Maudlyn Chapel, the chapel hay thereto belonging, three closes of land called the Maudlin parkes, one garden in the occupation of John Ffitz, and one meadow called

1830.]

THE BRIDGES.

There are three stone bridges over the Tavy at Tavistock, establishing a communication between the town and

the south bank of the river. Two are in immediate contiguity with the town, Abbey or Guile bridge, and New bridge; and the third is West bridge at Ford or Fitzford, in its immediate vicinity. The legend which accounts for the erection of Guile or Abbey bridge, however trite, cannot well be passed over in silence in a topographical sketch of Tavistock. In the reign of Edward III. one Child of Plimstock, a man of large possessions, hunting in the winter season on the trackless waste of Dartmoor, lost his way, and being pressed by the extremity of cold, killed his horse, embowelled him, and crept into his carcase for shelter; but seeing little chance of preservation by this expedient, he at the same time made his will in the following terms, using some of the blood of his steed for ink:

"He that finds and brings me to my tomb, "My lands which are at Plimstock shall be

his doom."

At length, to use the words of a British pastoral poet, pathetically describing a similar occurrence,

-" on every nerve The deadly winter seizes, shuts up sense; And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, Lays him along the snows a stiffened corse, Stretch'd out and bleaching in the northern blast."

A passenger finds the body with the testament, and gives notice to the monks of St.Rumon of the circumstance; they hasten to the spot in order to bring the corpse to their church for interment, and to claim the conditional bequest. The men of Plimstock, hearing also of the extraordinary will of their townsman, assemble at a certain bridge, then the only passage over the river in those parts, to oppose the monks in their way,

and possess themselves of his body.. The monks, too subtle for their opponents, construct a temporary bridge for the passage of the corpse, on the spot where one of stone was afterwards erected, which bears to this day the name of "Guile bridge," in allusion to

491

the wily stratagem. Those, however, who are not easily credulous of these amusing old tales, will perhaps conceive that by Guile bridge there is nothing more implied than the Guild bridge, particularly as it leads immediately to the Guildhall of Tavistock. Mr. Bray informs me that the old bridge of the town was situate between Guile and the East-bridge, and that he some years since recollects the ruins of one of the

piers projecting above the water-course. None of the present bridges at Tavistock bear the marks of any antiquity. FITZ-FORD.

At the distance of about a mile westward of the town of Tavistock, near the bridge over the river Tavy, called West bridge, in which spot the river was anciently passed by a ford, stood the mansion of the ancient family of Fytz, which from its contiguity to the passage over the river, obtained the appellation of Fitz-ford; a gothic gateway of the Tudor age, and some spacious barns and outbuildings, still afford testimony of the former importance of this knightly residence. John Fytz, one of the governors of the Society of Lincoln's Inn, in 6, 7, and 8 Hen. VI., settled here about the middle of the fifteenth century, and John his great grandson joined to a distinguished proficiency in his profession as counsellor at law, a profound application to the more abstruse and altogether chimerical principles of judicial astrology; reveries which, like those of Gall and Spurzheim, had their day, but which possessed a longer influence than the latter are likely to maintain over men's imaginations. Mr. Fytz married a daughter of Sir John Sydenham, of Brimpton, in the county of Somerset,* and previously to the birth of a son and heir, while his lady was in labour, he erected a scheme to calculate his child's nativity, and found by the relative position of the planets at the moment,

*The counterpart lease of a field, with liberty to John Fytz, esq. to convey water from a fountain therein "in pipes of timber, lead, or otherwise," to his mansion-house at Fitzford, dated 10th of Elizabeth, is extant among the archives of Tavistock parish. It is sealed with Mr. Fytz's arms, a cross engrailed gules in a field gouttée argent. There is some variation between this and the coat as given by Prince. The spring above mentioned is in a meadow at a short distance from the gateway, and a little conduit is erected over it. The name of Fytz is pronounced by the Devonians long, Fyze.