Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/491

 9 th S. X. DEC. 20, 1902.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

483

Gray's Inn is somewhat beyond our present

subject ; yet it is so near its gardens, indeed,

are overlooked that a slight reference may

be allowed. It seems rather a dreary old

place in the evening of a November day, nor

can it possess at any time much attraction,

either of age or art. The barrack - like

monotony of the great range of building is

pierced only by innumerable and identical

mean rectangular windows, and at long

intervals by the doors, almost bare of design,

which give entrance to the countless cells of

this hive of lawyers. If there be anything

older than, say, 1730, it must be diligently

searched for. The liveried porter or the

unliveried gardener points to the very house

No. 1 in the square once occupied by the

great Bacon, but we cannot believe it ; and

on consulting ' Old and New London,' we

read that Coney Court, covering this site, was

burnt down in 1678. Our book now thirty

years old also tells us of elms still growing

in the gardens which were planted by the

great philosopher, but they are now gone, or

at the most are represented by stumps only.

The trees seen to day are planes of moderate

age ; yet there exists the living remnant of

a foreign tree (the name not remembered by

me) which, it is told, was brought to England

by Raleigh and planted by Bacon ; and of

this tree there is a fairly flourishing offshoot.

Raymond's Buildings, date circa 1825, also

honeycombed by lawyers, have taken a large

slice of the old gardens ; but there they still

are, not so spacious, fresh, and handsome as

when Disraeli looked on them from his

windows, though yet constituting one of the

oases in the vast brick-covered area of

London.

W. L. RTJTTON.

" WITCH," A KIND OF LAMP. Not long ago, while I was staying at Cadney, in North Lincolnshire, Mr. J. R. told me that when he was a child his people used a " witch." This "witch" was a sort of tin cup with an arrangement inside for supporting several wicks, and melted mutton-fat was poured into it for the wicks to absorb. The fat of sheep which had died from accident or disease was often thus used up.

After my return to Kirton-in-Lindsey I asked A. H. if she had ever seen such a lamp. She replied that she had some recollection of an old one, out of use, "among things that had belonged to grandmother." The word " witch," however, was not known to her in the above sense, though she remarked, "Folks sometimes call that thing on low land by rivers, that always leads you into water if you follow it, a ' witch.' It looks like some-

body carrying a light. ' Peggy -Ian tern ' is another name they give it."

Now, in this connexion, it is curious to find that " Peggy " formerly meant a night- light very similar to the " witch." My father informs me that " before lucifer matches be- came common some one in each household, poor or rich, usually burnt a night-light, and long after matches were in general use many people continued to dp so. Those who were econo- mical had their night-lights made in the 'olio wing fashion. A little tin cup was pro- cured, about three inches high ; those I have seen had handles like modern teacups. In the centre of the bottom was a little holder, with a small hole in the middle of its top, into which a lavender stalk, wrapped closely, round with cotton, was inserted. This wick almost reached to the top of the vessel, which was then filled nearly to the brim with melted mutton-fat. When the fat became set, which soon took place, this primitive Lamp was ready for use. I have heard that those who would notgo to the cost of .having a tin cup made were in the habit of utilizing a damaged teacup, inserting into the bottom a slice of potato, into which the wick was put. In my childhood and youth I always heard these things called 'Peggies,' and I think my father used a 'Peggy' until after 1853." MABEL PEACOCK.

Kirton-in-Lindsey.

[A Lincolnshire woman, now over eighty and living in London, remembers that when she was a girl at home some of the neighbours made their own candles, because they were dear to buy.]

UFA VON PRIORY AND ST. WANDREGESIL'S RENTS. The parish of Moulton, in North- amptonshire, and the Priory of Upavon, Wilts, had each an early connexion the one with the other, arid both with the monastery of St. Wandregesil, Fontenelle, in Normandy. That this onnexion was not an unimportant one may be judged from the returns of the ecclesiastical taxation of Pope Nicholas IV., 1291, in which the following items occur, though not consecutively :

I. Decanatus de Hadon. *

Eccl'ia de Multon' deduct' pore', SI.

Pore' Rector de Blatherwic in eadem, 13s. 4rf.

Pens' Pri'oris Sc'i Andree Norh'mptoii' in Vicar' ejusdem inde'li, 13s. 4rf.

II. Decanatus de Haddon.f

Idem [Prior Sc'i Andr' Norhf] h't in Sulthon [Multon] in redd', 21. It. Id.

Idem h't in eadem villa in t'ris, 4.?.

Prior de Finnesheved h't in Multon in t'ris, 21. 2s.

Abb' de Osalveston h't ibidem de redd', 5s.

~"^Taxatio Eccles. P. Nich. IV.,' 1802, p. 40 [fo. 62]. f Ibid., p. 55 [fo. 86].