on the east part, and between the buildings and houses called "The Bruehouse" and "The Backehouse" of the said late monastery on the north part, and the aforesaid great ditch called "The Milldam" on the south part.

MODERN BUILDINGS.

ASHBURNHAM House was in 1708 the residence of Lord Ashburnham. Considerable portions remain in it which were built by Inigo Jones, and were illustrated by Sir J. Soane. In 1712 the Cottonian Library was removed hither to a gallery within the King's library, and adjoining the south cloister. In the disastrous fire of 1731, a large number of MSS. were removed to "the large boarding-house opposite," and Dr. Friend used to relate with glee that Dr. Bentley, the King's librarian, sallied out in his night-shirt and a flowing wig with the Alexandrian MS. under his arm. Camden the Antiquary lodged in "the Gate-house near the Queen's Scholars' chambers." The "Terrace" was begun after the year 1815.

The Sanctuary Church is described in Archæologia, i. 35, and Entick's "Maitland's London," ii. 1343. Near its site the present Guildhall was built in 1805, on the foundations of the old belfry-tower. (Widmore, p. 11.) The old Guildhall stood on the west side of King-street, about fifty feet to the south of Great George-street; an ancient painting representing it,perhaps the gift of a Duke of Northumberland,-was transferred to the walls of the present Sessions-house.

At the entrance of the Little Sanctuary, in the early part of the last century, a groined cellar was discovered near some remains of a stone gateway; it was probably a portion of the house of the porter. The entrance-gate from the Sanctuary into King-street was removed before the year 1708. The gate-house with its double gates at the west entrance of the Abbey, was built by W. de Warfield, cellarer, in the reign of Edward III.; on the east side was the Bishop of London's prison for clerks convict; and over the south gate leading into Dean's Yard was the prison for debtors and State criminals. Dr. Johnson longed to see its demolition, as it was "a disgrace to the present magnificence of the capital, and a continual nuisance to neighbours and passengers." In 1776 it was destroyed. The names of Vine-street and Bowling-street recall the vineyard and bowling-alley of the monastery. In the overseers' books of St. Margaret's for the year 1565, "the Vyne garden" and the "Myll next to Bowling Alley" are duly rated. The site of Black Dog Alley was Abbot Benson's garden; and the Hostelry garden extended over the ground which lay between the bowling-green and the river bank. In the re

house which stood at the entrance of Tothill-street is drawn in "Gent. Mag.," March, 1836. A Cheyney Court is attached to the Close of the Deanery at Winchester, and is said to derive its name from the oak (chêne) under which the Episcopal Court was held.-M. W.

gister-book of the treasurer of the Abbey, this entry occurs under the year 1733" Hostry Gardens, with the houses thereupon built, Rent, 107. 138. 4d., and four capons or 12 shillings." Great College-street was long called the "Dead Wall," owing to the houses fronting the wall of the infirmary garden built by Abbot Litlington.-M. W.

Plan of the Jewel-house, with the groining of the basement

FEW persons are aware that the King's Jewel-house, built in the time of Richard II., is still standing. The walls are perfect, even to the parapets, and the original doorways remain, their heads being of the form called the shouldered arch, so much used in domestic work throughout the Middle Ages, from the twelfth century to the fifteenth. The interior has been entirely altered to fit it up for a Public Record-office, and it is still the depository of the records of the House of Lords. A modern vault has been introduced over the first-floor room, probably as a security against fire, this room having had originally a wooden ceiling; but fortunately, the ground rooms having long been used for a kitchen and offices, and being below the level of the present street, have been preserved intact, with their original groined vaults, with moulded ribs and carved bosses, evidently a part of the same work as the cloisters and other vaulted substructures of Abbot Litlington.

This tower is situated to the south of the chapter-house, and at the back of the houses in Old Palace Yard: the entrance being through a Government-office, admittance is commonly refused, but the antiquary who wishes to explore these remains may do so by explaining that the part he

wishes to see is the basement or kitchen occupied by Mrs. Vincent, the housekeeper, and that he does not wish to go into the Record tower itself; in which there is nothing for him to see, so far as the architecture is concerned, all vestiges of antiquity having there been carefully destroyed.

View of the Principal Chamber in the Basement of the Jewel-house, A.D. 1377-80.

The following extracts from Widmore give the history of this building, or at least the purchase of the ground, and there is no doubt that it was built or rebuilt immediately.

From Widmore's Enquiry, &c., 4to., 1743.

"In the last year of King Edward III., an exchange was made between that prince and the convent; the King had from them a part, either of a tower which was afterward the King's Jewel-house, and is at present the Parliament-office, or else the ground on which this building stands: I have given the authority for this because there may be some doubt as to the meaning of the writer; but the place is so particularly described, that I think there can be no question concerning that. The church had no lands in return for this, but only, which yet might possibly be as agreeable to them, a licence to purchase in mortmain forty pounds a year."

GENT. MAG. VOL. CCXI.

C

From Niger Quaternus, fol. 79.

"Anno regni regis Edwardi tertii quinquagesimo primo, septimo die Junii, idem dominus rex licentiam dedit abbati et conventui Westmonasterie perquirendi terras, tenementa et redditus ad valorem quadrigenta librarum per annum. Statuto, &c., ad manum mortuam, &c., non obstanto.... Et hæc licentia concessa est pro magna parte cujusdam turris in angulo Palatii privati versus austrum una cum quadam clausura juxta Turrim prædictam ex parte occidentali infra clausum abbatiæ et solum Sancti Petri domino regi concessum.... Erat autem inter Turrim prædictam et murum Infirmarii, ubi nunc est clausura prædicta, via pedestris et carectaria usque ad angulum turris," &c.

The title of the writing is, "Licentia regia data abbati Westm. perquirende terras et tenementa ad valorem 401. pro parte Turris Vocatæ le Jewel-house," &c.

THE SIEGES OF PONTEFRACT CASTLE.

We regret that we cannot speak as favourably of the last volume issued by the Surtees Society as we have been able to do of most of its predecessors. One of its constituen parts is an admirable appendage to Dugdale's "Visitation of Yorkshire," and is its redeeming feature; but we must confess we would rather have had it by itself. We see little in the life of either the Nonjuring dean or the Nonconformist justice to repay perusal, and we should leave the book unnoticed but for its second article. In this Mr. Dyer Longstaffe has edited the quaint narrative of Nathan Drake, the "Gentleman Volunteer," with his usual ability. This minute and curious record of a siege in the seventeenth century has hitherto been only known through the medium of a very inaccurate résumé by Boothroyd, in his History of Pontefract, but Mr. Longstaffe has now printed it entire from the original MS., which is in the possession of the Drake family, and he has added, from a variety of sources, all requisite illustration, including a curious bird's-eye view of the Castle and town at the time of the third and most famous siege. The diarist was not present in that gallant stand of a single fortress against the victorious Parliamentarians, but Mr. Longstaffe, justly feeling that his book would be incomplete without, has supplied an account, which is mainly drawn from the Autobiography of Thomas Paulden, one of the party which captured and killed Rainsborough, the Parliamentarian colonel, and who was therefore excepted from mercy on the surrender of the Castle. He, however, made his escape on the following night, and if our readers' sympathies, like ours, are with the besieged and not with the besiegers, they will read with some interest what he wrote more than half a century afterwards ::

"I myself followed the fortune of King Charles in his exile, and was sent into England on several occasions, for his Majesty's service. I was once betrayed, and brought before Cromwell; but I denied my name, and nothing could be proved against me. However, he sent me to the Gate-bouse in Westminster, from whence I made my escape, with our old friend Jack Cowper, by throwing salt and pepper into the Keeper's eyes; which, I think, has made me love salt the better ever since; as you, and all my friends, know I do, with whom I have eaten many a bushel.

"I went again beyond sea, and, upon King Charles II.'s restoration, returned into England, accompanied with my old companion, loyalty, and with the usual companion of that, poverty. The first never quitted me; the other, by the favour and bounty of the Duke of Buckingham, was made tolerable.

"And having now survived most of my old acquaintance, and, as I verily believe, all who had any part in the foregoing story, being in the 78th year of my age,—perhaps it

"Miscellanea of the Surtees Society." (Vol. xxxvii. of the Society's Publications.) 1. The Works and Letters of Dennis Granville, D.D., Dean of Durham. 2. Nathan Drake's Journal of the First and Second Sieges of Pontefract Castle. 3. A brief Memoir of Mr. Justice Rokeby.