GERARD'S HALL, OR GISORS' HALL, LONDON, MIDDLESEX. Of this remnant of the ancient mansion of sir John Gisors, Pennant, in his account of London, gives the following particulars: "To the east of Knight-rider Street, on the south side of Basing Lane, stood the mansion of sir John Gisors, mayor of London, and constable of the Tower, in 1911. In the turbulent times of Edward II. he was charged with several harsh and unjust proceedings, and being summoned to appear before the king's justices, to answer to the accusation, he and other principal citizens fled, and put themselves under the protection of the rebellious barons. This house was built upon arched vaults, and had arched gates, made of the stone brought from Caen.-In the lofty roofed Hall (says-Stow, in his Survaie, p. 665) stood a large fir-pole, near forty feet high, which was feigned to have been the staff of Gerardus, a mighty giant, which proved to be no more than a maypole, which, according to ancient custom, used to be decked and placed annually before the door : from this fable, the house long bore the name of Gerard's Hall, but was properly changed to that of Gisors. It remained in the family till the year 1386, when it was alienated by Thomas Gisors. The house was divided into several parts, and in the time of Stow was a common hosterie, or inn. At present, nothing remains but the vault (supported by pillars), which serves as cellars to the houses built on the site of the old mansion." This vault is now nearly perfect; the capitals of the pillars and the groining of the roof are sharp and fresh. The shafts are nearly half embedded in dirt and filth, which has been accumulating for centuries. borough, which was purchased of sir William Shareshull, knight. In the thirteenth year of Richard II. the abbot had a grant in Lilleshull and Mocklestone; and in the eleventh year of Edward IV. the hospital of St. John, at Bridgenorth, was put under the direction of this abbot. LITTLESHALL, or Lilleshull Abbey, was held by Godebaldus, presbyter of the church of St. Alkmond, in Shrewsbury. Philip de Beumeys gave all that tract of land between Watling Street and Merdiche, to build a religious house in honour of the Virgin Mary, and for the use of the canons regular of St. Peter, of Dorchester, who were afterwards styled the regular canons of Doninton. The principal benefactors Alanta Zouch and John L'Estrange, who gave the church of Hulme; and Hillaria de Trusse-issuing out of Foxley, for the maintenance of twelve but, the first wife of Robert de Budlers, who gave several parcels of land, and here she desired her corpse to be interred. Alanta Zouch, who died in the seventh year of Edward II. left Ellen, the wife of Nicholas St. Maur, Maud, the wife of Robert de Holland, and Elizabeth, a nun at Brewode, his daughters and coheirs : Maud, the wife of Robert de Holland, had for her portion, the advowson of this Abbey. Robert, the son of the said Maud, died in the forty-sixth year of EdwardIII. leaving one sole daughter and heir, Maud, who was married to sir John Lovell, knight, and had livery of her lands. In the forty-seventh year of Edward III. the church of Badminton was given to this monastery. In the fourteenth year of Edward III. Roger de Norborough, bishop of Lichfield, granted to these canons the appropriation of the church of Farn In the thirty-fifth year of Henry VIII. the king granted to James Leveson the manor of Lilleshull. Lady Catherine Leveson left rent of 120l. per annum, poor widows, whereof three were to be chosen by the minister, churchwarden, and overseers of the poor of Lilleshull; and to each of them a gown of grey cloth, with these letters, K. L. in blue cloth, affixed thereto; as likewise for the placing of ten poor boys apprentices, whereof two were to be of this parish. The revenues of this Abbey, at the dissolution, were valued at 2291. 9s. per annum. This house lying near the Chester road, the abbots were sometimes known to complain that their income was too scanty for the entertainment of the passengers that passed that way. But a small portion of this Abbey remains: it consists principally of the western entrance to the church and adjacent walls. The buildings do not appear ever to have been extensive. THE rocky scenery, portions of which form the subject of the present View, in a westwardly direction from the highest headland, St. Govens' Point, to another bold cape, called the Head of Man, is peculiarly striking, when seen from the water, and perhaps not equalled by any thing of the kind on the different coasts of the kingdom. It consists of one vast stratum of limestone, here and there intersected by veins of reddish grist, mixed with a saponaceous substance, somewhat harder than clay, which, whenever it occurs, is, by time and the constant lash of the surge, separated from the harder materials, and forms curious excavations, some penetrating the rock for several yards: there is one in particular of this description, leading to an aperture called, from its shape, The Caldron, where the incumbent earth, from being thus undermined, has fallen in, and exhibits, when approached from the surrounding ground, a most tremendous circular gulph of considerable depth and diameter, having its sides nearly pependicular to the water's edge below. Here the sea, after a storm, when impelled through the narrow subterraneous passage that is connected with it, finds a vent, and boils up to an immense height in a mass of foam, diminishing or increasing as the waves from without recede or advance. The stratification of these stupendous cliffs is very various; in some places they seem to have felt the most violent convulsions, being distorted into every possible variation of the horizontal line, from a gentle wave to the herring-bone, that frequent characteristic of Etruscan masonry, and seen to this day in some of the Roman stations of Britain, particularly at Colchester. In others, the original masonry of nature is still maintained iu its pristine solidity, and seems to form the only bulwark calculated to arrest the progress of the vast western ocean, which for ages has here alone contended for the mastery, every other substance having yielded to the strength of its wave, its ascendancy being still visible in the vast chasm now opened between the different rocks, called Stacks, from their columnar appearance and their great height from the water and the continent, of which they undoubtedly formed a part some centuries ago, having only escaped the devouring element from being of harder texture. |