WEST, A. W., 6, St. Ann's Valley, Nottingham WHITAKER, B. S., J.P., Hesley Hall, Tickhill, Rotherham +WHITE, Sir ARCHIBALD WOOLLASTON, Bart., The Castle, Tickhill, Rotherham WHITE, JOHN HARROP, Layton Burrow, Mansfield WHITE, Miss M. H. TOWRY, Walton Hall, Kelso, N.B. WINDLEY, JOHN W., Lucknow Road, Nottingham WING, JOHN W., 112, Mansfield Road, Nottingham WINTOUR, Rev. G. FITZGERALD, St. Peter's Vicarage, Upton, Notts. WOODWARD, SYDNEY, Park Dale, Peveril Drive, Nottingham WYLES, HARRY, The Court, Cropwell Butler, Notts. The Transactions of The Thoroton Society. 1914. T The Summer Excursion. HE Summer Excursion was arranged for Tuesday, 16th June, when about twenty-five members left Nottingham in a motor char-à-banc for Mansfield, where a few more members were picked up, and the party proceeded to Sookholm, where the following paper on the church was read by Mr. A. S. Buxton. SOOKHOLM CHURCH. By MR. A. S. BUXTON. The chapel of Sookholm is the smallest old ecclesiastical building in the deanery of Mansfield, and is a chapelry of Warsop, as it has been for centuries. From the 1650 Inquiry we learn that the rector of Warsop of the time, the Rev. Oliver Dand, whose brass you will see in Warsop church, kept "a preachinge minister at Sookholm." It was after the Reformation that Sookholm was joined to Warsop, before that time it belonged to the Priory of St. Oswald, at Nostel, in Yorkshire, and possibly a Nostel Canon served in this small chapel. According to tradition there was a branch establishment of St. Oswald's at Sookholm, but no record of the fact remains, and allowing the tradition to be true the settlement could not have been an important one, seeing that no enlargement of the chapel took SOOKHOLM B SOOKHOLM place in the 13th and 14th centuries when so many churches were enlarged, and this in a locality where building stone was easily obtainable. After the Reformation "Sokeholm with all its appurtenwas granted to the Leek family; later on it passed to the Cavendishes, next to the Dukes of Portland, and then by an exchange of land to Mr. Henry Gally Knight, and so on to the present owners the Fitzherbert family. We are indebted to the late Sir Richard Fitzherbert for the preservation of the chapel, for towards the end of the 19th century it became sadly out of repair, and Sir Richard was strongly advised to pull it down, but his love of ancient buildings made him take the wise course of having a thorough restoration, which was carried out in 1893. The oldest part of Sookholm chapel belongs to the Norman period, and a large part of the original walling may be seen on the north side of the nave, as well as fragments in other parts of the chapel. The plan is not as the Norman builders left it, for early in the 19th century the west wall was taken down and re-built further east, robbing the nave of about one third of its length. As we see it to-day the width of the nave looks large compared to the length, but even with the missing third added the interior must have looked more like a spacious hall than a church. The only entrance to the chapel is the west doorway. The chancel is nearly square, being slightly less in width than the nave and standing on its original foundation, as it escaped the usual lengthening so many Norman churches underwent during the Gothic period. The most important part of the original Norman work now remaining is the low and wide chancel arch, with its rude cushion capitals on engaged columns. Plain as it is in appearance its date is later than would be at first supposed, and probably belongs to the latter half of the 12th century. Another relic of the Norman time is the plain bucket shaped font standing to the north of the west door. The |