Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/332

 272

NOTES AND QUERIES, uo- s. v. APRIL 7,

wall of the church, on which the moment of the sun's passing the meridian is shown, when it is shining, by a ray of light passing through a small hole over against it.

J. T. F. Durham.

[R. B R also refers to Dalton-le-Dale.]

PORTMAN FAMILY (10 th S. v. 48, 150, 178, 198, 217). It does not seem probable that K. T.'s query will elicit any fact or legend in support of what appears to have been simply a recent conjecture, viz., that " men at the gate " gave rise to the name Portman. The claim for position temp. Ed. I., as stated by Collinson, I have ventured to think based on the Visitation enrolment.

The object of my account of the family, or rather enumeration of its chiefs, was to amend the current list, which does not in- clude Sir Hugh Portman, Knt, who died in 1604. He is named in pedigrees, but his position in the family has not been re- cognized, apparently from neglect of the Inquisitions p.m. W. L. RUTTON.

VANISHING LONDON : PARADISE How, CHELSEA (10 th S. v. 165). There is an inter- esting reference to Paradise Row in Sir Charles \V. Dilke's lecture on Chelsea de- livered in the Town Hall, Chelsea, 11 Jan., 1888. The lecture was published in pamphlet form by The West Middlesex Advertiser. In addition to the names of former residents in Paradise Row given by MR. HEBB, Sir Charles Dilke mentions that of Sir Joseph Banks, the famous circumnavigator and President of the Royal Society. JOHN T. PAGE.

Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

"Ross OF JERICHO" (10 th S. v. 229). If MR C. S. WARD will refer to 1 st S. xi. 449 ; xii. 518, he will find the information he seeks. E. J. M. and J. S. there enter fully into the subject of the Rose of Jericho (the flower of immortality), alluded to by Jesus, the son of Sirach, in Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 14, and give the names of authors, English and German, who have written upon it.

JAMES WATSON.

Folkestone.

ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL: ITS FOUNDATION STONE (10 th S. v. 168, 213). The following interesting note on the foundations of St. Paul's Cathedral is from the diary of William Blundell, a Roman Catholic Lancashire squire who was captain of Dragoons in the Royalist array of 1642 ('Crosby Records,' Longmans, 1880) :

" Pauli Basilica Londinensis. In November, 1681,:! took great notice of that new building,

which I found then to be raised above the earth about 10 or 11 yards, according to the guess I made when I looked upon the same. Below the surface of the earth about 14 or 16 feet the foundation seemed to be laid, and all that was hollow like a cellar. If I he not mistaken, it was arched all over, even with the top of the earth, so that there is an appearance of a church below as well as above the ground. But there was no manner of building at the west end of the same, all being left so open that I guessed that the building would be continued much longer towards the west, which way there was then remaining, betwixt the new buildings and the ruins of the outermost part westward of the old burned church about 80 yards or more. The east end of this new church was then close built, and the wideness there within the walls was about 41 yards, and the greatest wideness of this church was about 104 yards, whereof 11 yards on the south side and 11 yards on the north side of the same seem to be taken up in porches. At the same time I read a written paper which hung up on a wall or pillar of this new building, mentioning the con- tributions given towards that work by the several Bishopricks of England, the total of which amounted to 14.000/., whereof London gave 2.814/., Winchester 1,0262., Chester 561?. 18-9. 6r/., Durham 334/., Canter- bury 199Z. I suppose there is a standing fund or revenue belonging to this same church by which in length of time it may come to be finished."

HENRY TAYLOR. Bicklands, Southport.

There is a slip in the quotation from Longman's ' History of the Three Cathedrals of St. Paul' : for "and the second one by Mr. Longman," read Longland.

WM. H. PEET.

There seems considerable doubt as to the layer of the foundation stone of the great metropolitan cathedral whether it was the architect, master- mason, bishop of the see (Compton), or Charles II. in 1675. An article at 9 th S. xii. 191 seems to assign the honour to the last named.

The name of the master-mason who super- intended the work was Edward Strong (not Thomas, as stated on p. 213), and to his memory there is a monument in St. Peter's Church, St. Albans. He was an ancestor of an old friend of mine, Capt. W. H. Nares, R.N., who possessed a fine portrait of him by Sir Godfrey Kneller, with the cipher GK on one side. He held in one hand a pair of compasses, and in the other a plan of the cathedral. Of this I once had a pencil sketch, but gave it a friend. In all probability the original portrait now belongs to Sir George Nares, the Arctic explorer, son of my friend. Once going over St. Paul's, I had as cicerone an old correspondent of * N. & Q.,' DR. W. SPARROW SIMPSON, and he regretted much that the cathedral did not possess any por- trait of Edward Strong in its treasures. There is the well-known story of the cathe-