1

THOMAS SUTTON, Esq. who was born here, A. D. 1532. He received his education at Eton college, and studied the law in Lincoln's Inn; but it does not appear that he ever followed the profession. According to the Magna Britannia, he entered into the army, and obtained the paymastership of a regiment. Quitting the military service, he became a merchant, and acquired great riches by trade. The author of his life says, that he made several valuable purchases in the county of Durham, where he discovered coal mines. By working these he gained immense property, and by marriage obtained still more. On the death of his wife, which happened in 1602, he led a retired life, and began to think of disposing of his wealth in a way becoming the profession and hopes of a Christian. He purchased the Charter House, London, and formed it into an hospital for the infirm, and a seminary for youth. This noble monument of protestant charity, was begun and completed in his own lifetime, and endowed at his own charge. It is an institution perhaps the most magnificent ever founded in Christendom at the sole expence of an individual. He died at Hackney, in the year 1611.

BURTON GATE, five miles south of Gainsborough, is the seat of William Hutton, Esq. by whose father the present mansion was erected. It is a regular plain building of brick; but of a colour so nearly resembling stone, as at a distance not easily to be distinguished from it. The grounds are terminated on the west by the river Trent, to which there is a gentle, though irregular descent from the house, of nearly half a mile. This river, with the objects on its banks, form a beautiful feature.

SIDNACESTER. This place, anciently the seat of the Bishops of Lincoln, before the see was united with Dorchester and removed to that city, has long had a name without "a local habitation." Bede informs us, that Pauliaus, after converting the Northumbrians, came into the northern part of the kingdom of Mercia. Successful in preaching the gospel here, he converted

Blaecca,

Blaecca, the governor of Lincolnia, or Lincoln, and baptized many people of this district in the river Trent, at a place called Tiovulfingacastre. And Mathew, of Westminster, says, that over his new spiritual acquisitions, Paulinus ordained a bishop, who had six successors. On the death of Eadulph, the see having been vacant eighty years, Bishop Gibson observes, that it was united, by Leofwin, to that of Dorchester. But the question is, where was this Sidnacester? Mathew, of Westminster, when speaking of two of its bishops, Ealdulfus and Ceolulfus, observes, "Hiantem episcopi ubi sedem haberent cathedralem penitus ignoramus." Wharton, in his "Anglia Sacra," asserts, that hitherto its situation has not been known. And, Camden states, "This is now so entirely gone, that neither ruins nor name are now in being." Hence most antiquaries have adopted a general mode of description. One says, "It was near Gainsborough;" another, "In Lincolnshire, near the Humber;" and Camden, “In this part of the county;" while some are entirely silent. Others have, however, decided upon the situation of the place. Mr. Johnson thought it was Hatfield, in the county of York. Dr. Stukeley, at Newark-upon-Trent; which opinion Mr. Dickenson, in his history of that town, has adopted, and endeavoured to establish by additional, but unsatisfactory arguments, as will be hereafter clearly demonstrated. Mr. Pegge proposes to consider Kirkton, or Kirton, the place. Horsley, in his Britannia Romana, after having fixed the Roman station, Causennæ, of Antonine's Itinerary, at Ancaster, supposes that to have been Sidnacester, and the name derived from Causennacester, the first syllable being dropped, which makes Sennacester. Camden was inclined to fix it at Gainsborough; and his editor, Gibson, at Stow. This latter place seems to have the fairest claim; and Į shall endeavour to shew the superiority of that claim to those made in favour of the places previously named, by first appealing to the authority of Bede. "Eadhaed in provincia Lindisfarorum quam nuperrime Rex Ergfrid, superato in bello et fugato Ulf

bere,

here, obtinuerat, ordinatur episcopus *.". Of this province, which he afterwards calls Lindissi, he says, Eadhaed was the first bishop. The question now reverts, where was this Lindissi situated, and how far did it extend? Its bounds are, by the same writer, described with sufficient accuracy, to discover that it contained the tract of country still retaining the name of Lindsey. "Lindissi quæ est prima ad meridianum Humbræ fluminis ripam." So also Mathew, of Westminster, "Inter Lincolniam et flumen Humbri;" and further," provinciam Lindisse regionis quæ est ad meridianam plagam Humbri fluminis." Higden also states, "Provincia Lindisfarum est idem quod Lindiseia, quæ jacet ad orientem Lincolniæ, cujus ipsa caput est." Here is given its northern boundary, the Humber; and its southern, or south-western boundary, the city of Lincoln. This will invalidate the claim of Hatfield and Newark, neither of these places lying within the division of Lindsey. The observations of Stukeley, quoted by Mr. Dickenson, That the divisions of counties were not made till the time of Alfred; that then the wapentake of Newark was forcibly taken out of Lincolnshire; and that the Trent was the ancient, because the natural, boundary between that county and Nottinghamshire, are assertions which, if granted, would prove nothing in favour of his opinion; because the position on which his argument rests, that Provincia Lindissi was taken by our ancestors in so large a sense, that "It meant all Lincolnshire, whereof Lindum was the capital city," is unfounded, as appears by the definition of its boundary, above quoted from Bede, and other writers. The opinion of Mr. Pegge, given in his dissertation on the subject, that Kirton, about midway between Lincoln and the station of Ad-Abum, on the Humber, was the place, is equally untenable. The only argument he makes use of is, "that

Hist. Lib. IV. c. 12.

+ Printed in an Appendix to the First Volume of Nichols's History and Antiquities of Leicestershire.

"that this name, signifying the Church Town, would be one probably given by the Saxons at first to Sidnacester." In a subse quent place he destroys this argument by observing, that "The name has a manifest reference to a church, which is usually pronounced kirk in the name of places in the northern parts, particularly in Lincolnshire, where this word enters the composition of a num ber of names." On this ground, other places might have equal pretensions, especially as Kirton has no vestiges of antiquity, though Dr. Stukeley fancied it was the In Medium of the Romans, nor any thing very noble in its appearance to induce the mind to give this the preference above the rest; yet, by an unaccountable and extraordinary mode of reasoning, Mr. Pegge thinks, "The very obscurity of Kirkton, veiled as it were by its modern name,” is a good argument that this was the place in question!

The reasonings of Bishop Gibson, for placing Sidnacester at Stow, are the strongest of any hitherto adduced; and his conclusion, if not decisive, is extremely plausible. Eadnorth, the Bishop of Sidnacester, who died A. D. 1050, built St. Mary's, or the church of our Lady, in Stow. "Where then can we imagine," says Gibson,

a Bishop of Sidnacester should so probably build a church as at Sidnacester? Or whence should he sooner take his pattern or platform, than from his own cathedral of Dorchester?" The see of Legecester, or Leicester, is concluded to have been where St. Margaret's now stands; and as that is a peculiar, a prebend, and an archdeaconry, so is Stow. Besides, the present ecclesiastical privileges of this place are greater than any hereabouts, except Lincoln; and they have formerly even exceeded that. For that it was famous before Lincoln, and was a bishop's see, is beyond dispute; and it is a common notion in those parts, both of learned and unlearned, that Stow was the mother church to Lincoln. The steeple of the church, though large, has been much greater than it is. And Alfred Puttock, or Putta, Archbishop of York, anno 1023, when he gave two great bells to Beverley steeple, which he had built, and two others of the VOL. IX.

U u

same

same mould to Southwell, bestowed two upon Stow*" It is generally agreed, that whatever places have chester in their names, were formerly Roman forts or stations. Upon this view, the site of Sidnacester must either have been one, or in the vici nity of one. Close adjoining to the present Stow is Stretton, so named from being situated on the Roman road, which branches off from the one leading from Lincoln to Ad Abum, and proceeds in a westerly direction to the Trent, and thence on to Da, num, now Doncaster.

About three miles west of Stow, on the banks of that river, is the site of the ancient Segelocum of the fifth Iter, and the Agelocum of the eighth. There Horsley fixes this station: for though he says that the present village of Littleborough answers to it, yet he observes, "The Roman station has been on the east side of the river, though the town stands on the west. Roman coins have been found here, called Swine pennies, two Roman altars, and other antiquitiest." Here was a Roman Trajectus, and it is still a place for passing the river, which, from the opposite village, is called Littleborough Ferry. In the summer season it is often fordable. About a quarter of a mile from Marton the Roman road is still visible; and several pieces of pavement have been found here. The ancient city might have stood more to the west; and, being built near the station, would of course obtain the addition of Castra, and Saxon Ceaster.

Stow, though now a small village, is an archdeaconry; and its jurisdiction, comprehending the whole of Lindsey, is a strong argument in its claims to ancient note; but a still stronger is adduced by Mr. Gough, who says, "the district round it is called Şidena." The see, in the early time of Remigius, was certainly at Sidnacester; and that prelate is said to have built, or rather re-edified, the church of Stow, which had been raised by Ead

north.

* Gibson, in Camden Col. 571.

↑ Britannia Romana, p. 434.