February 2018

At the south end of the east wing (centre right in above photo) is a small chamber on the wall of which Phillip Tyrwhitt etched is family’s commendable motto ‘Trust truth only’. This may date from 1541 when Phillip Tyrwhitt was one of the courtiers attendant on Henry VIII during his ‘Northern Progress’, the whole party […]

This fifth of six blogs was initiated following a visit to Gainsborough. Gainsborough Old Hall is a late medieval manor house ranged around a central courtyard which is, however, open to the south. It thus has three connecting ranges of building compartments, north, east and west wings. It is in the guardianship of English Heritage, is

Derby cathedral was a parish church until 1927 when it was elevated to cathedral status. The criteria by which this elevation is achieved is by the installation of a bishop’s chair, it does not require any enlargement or other physical changes, although the option might be chosen. So, like at All Saints, Gainsborough, at some

Stallingborough church (see picture shwing tower as viewed from the south with trees obscuring the nave) stands detached from the modern village but beside a deserted medieval village site evidenced in the ‘humps and bumps’ in permanent pasture. This site, in its day, would have been dominated by the manor house of the influential Ayscough family.

Just ‘across the road’ from Gainsborough Old Hall stands All Saints Church surrounded by its now grassy and tree planted churchyard. It is a fine example of a combination of Gothic and neo-Classical architecture, the latter a product of the Renaissance. The surviving late-Perpendicular west tower (Gothic) was retained when the remainder of the medieval

Recently visited Gainsborough having not been for many years. Found it very interesting. First of all visited ‘Marshall’s Yard’, a shopping complex created by adapting previously factory buildings around a works yard to retail units. Very well done, ample public seating and parking and one unit, the Laura Ashley unit, being un-ceiled allows customers to