for leprous persons-and one, Daundy's almshouse, was conceived more in the spirit of a modern establishment for the retreat of the unfortunate and impoverished, than an institution of the time, when given by its founder. The HOSPITAL of ST. MARY MAGDALEN was situated in the parish of St. Helen, and was one of the three established for the reception of poor persons afflicted with leprous diseases. King John granted the right and profit of a fair to St. Mary Magdalen in the first year of his reign, appointing it to be held on the morrow of St. James the Apostle, and Bacon in his manuscript says, the charter to the fair was confirmed in the 7th Edward IV. Upon the Dissolution, the revenues were appropriated to the rectory of St. Helen. ST. JAMES'S HOSPITAL was also situated in the same parish, and also increased the revenues of the parochial incumbent at the Dissolution. Its object was similar to that of St. Mary Magdalen, was of early establishment, and is mentioned in 1324. DAUNDY'S ALMSHOUSES, founded by Edmund Daundy, a wealthy merchant of Ipswich, and situated in Lady Lane, in the parish of St. Matthew, were founded by their pious and munificent originator in 1515. The charity still subsists much enlarged. T T CHURCHES. S already stated, the town of Ipswich contains thirteen churches, twelve of them being ancient structures, and one (Trinity) erected in 1836 by the munificence of the late Rev. J. T. Nottidge, rector of St. Clement and St. Helen's. The ancient structures are St. Matthew, St. Mary at the Elms, St. Mary at the Tower, St. Margarett, St. Lawrence, St. Helen, St. Clement, St. Mary at the Kay, or Quay, St. Peter, St. Stephen, St. Nicholas, and St. Mary in the Hamlet of Stoke. Of these, St. Mary at the Tower, St. Mary at the Elms, St. Lawrence, St. Peter, St. Stephen, and St. Mary at Stoke, are mentioned in the Domesday Survey, together with other churches now either consolidated or fell early into decay-namely, St. Augustine, St. Michael, St. Botolph, St. George, and St. Julian. A chapel also existed dedicated to St. Edmund, now consolidated with St. Helen, and St. Mildred, which occupied the site of the present Guildhall. The church of St. Botolph was most probably the church dedicated to that Saint in Thurlestone. The church mentioned as St. Michael is likely to have occupied a site near St. Nicholas church. The site of St. Edmund, or St. Edmund a Pountney, is not known, but as it was consolidated with St. Helen, after the destruction of the Priory of St. Peter and Paul, most probably it stood near that church, and not at the south west corner of Rosemary-lane, Brook Street, as conjectured by Kirby. It is supposed to have been early dedicated to St. Edmund, king of the East Angles, and afterwards endowed by Sir John de Pountney, or Polteneye, Lord Mayor of London in the fifth year of Edward III, 1331. He traded with that monarch in wools, and is believed to have been as well acquainted with the town of Ipswich and the county of Suffolk as his royal master. This merchant bestowed unmistakable evidences of his piety and munificence in other places besides this town. founded a chapel in honour of the Holy Cross adjoining the church of St. Lawrence, Candlewick-street, London, in 1333; built the church of All Hallows the Less, Thames-street, and was a great benefactor if not the founder of the White Friars, in the city of Coventry. He Another ancient chapel, not now existing, stood in Lady Lane, in St. Matthew's parish. It was dedicated to our Lady of Grace, and contained an image of the Virgin, to which pilgrimages were made, believed to be possessed of miraculous powers in the cure of diseases. To this chapel a yearly procession was ordered by Wolsey to take place, from his College and the church of St. Peter, on the 8th of September, but this honour to the Virgin was not bestowed more than once, for the disgrace of the Cardinal not only heralded the destruction of his College, but also the chapel, and the marvellous image it contained. Cromwell, the instrument appointed by king Henry VIII to carry out his commands rela tive to Wolsey's College, also caused this image of our Lady to be pulled from her niche, and after despoiling the effigy of its rich habiliments and jewels bestowed upon it by the cupidity of the superstitious, it was conveyed to London and destroyed. Our Lady of Grace was estimated as highly as the celebrated Boxley Rood, and is recorded to have performed many marvels. The chapel dedicated to St. George and mentioned in the Domesday survey stood in Globe Lane, upon the site of houses now called St. George's Terrace. It was from the pulpit of this chapel that Bilney, afterwards a martyr, was "plucked" by the enemies of the Reformation. The remains of this building existed within the last quarter of a century, and had been used as a barn- the architecture of that portion which remained until its destruction, was of the early English period. The architectural details of the Ipswich churches are not of much interest or beauty. A Norman door-way exists in the south porch of St. Mary at the Elms. This had long been concealed from recognition by a course of masonry, which kept the mouldings from view. The door itself is ornamented with iron-work of the Norman character, and probably the timber and iron of the door, as also the arch, are of the Norman period. At the west end of the south aisle of St. Nicholas church stood imbedded in the wall a large slab of an earlier period, on which was carved a dragon in relief, and the Archangel Michael with extended wings in an attitude of attack. Between the combatants appears an inscription not irrecoverably defaced, but read as-HER SCT MIKAOL FIHT VID DANE DRACA. Another stone, half circular, as if once filling the head of a small round-headed doorway, also stood in a similar position, on which was carved the outline of a beast partaking chiefly of the form of the wolf, but with some parts of a nondescript character. Round the upper or circular part of the stone is the following-IN DEDICATIONE ECCLESIÆ OMNIUM SANCTORUM. This was evidently, from the inscription, a stone marking the dedication of the chapel to the honour of All Saints, a small curacy in the town ruined and unproductive in 1535, according to the Liber Regis, but still annexed to St. Matthew. The characters are Roman as far as close examination has gone. The animal on the stone seems to have been without application. That the stone was commemorative of dedication, no doubt can be expressed, as the usual sign of the cross is cut on the reverse. These stones were removed in 1848, from their situation outside to a position within St. Nicholas church, and in the progress of enlargement and repair of that building at the same period, three portions of stone figures in relievo were found worked into the walls, and evidently of the Saxon period. Each of these pieces of sculpture represents an ecclesiastic, and prove that the episcopal vestments of those early times varied but little from those of a later date by several centuries. The figures on two of these stones are perfect, with the exception of the heads. On one, the right hand of the figure holds an episcopal cross, and the left a maniple. The chesible, the dalmatic and the stole also appear-the fringed extremities of the latter appearing distinctly near the feet. The raiment of the figure on the second stone is * All Saints is said by Kirby to have been probably situated on a space of ground near Handford Bridge. (Quere.) |