extent of ground; but at what date they fell into decay is not known. A wing projects northward from the east end of the hall, and behind the main building is a picturesque gallery, the appearance of which has recently been marred by the insertion. of a modern sash window. Eastward of the hall runs a brook, and beyond again the ground rises in terraces, where, under the shade of lofty trees, the cavaliers of Sir Robert Bindloss's time passed many an idle hour. For many years now the hall has been uninhabited, and is consequently falling out of repair. It stands melancholy in its solitude, the silence only broken by the visitors who come to gaze on the former home of a family which, in its day, played its part in Lancashire history, but whose name and habitation are now almost forgotten. Mention may be made here of a piece of vandalism which occurred within recent years to the tombstone of a member of the family connected with Borwick. Francis Bindloss married Cecilia, daughter of Thomas West, Lord de la Warr. Some of her family seem to have settled in the neighbourhood, and one of them was buried in Warton Church. His tombstone was in the floor of the nave, and bore upon it the arms of West-Argent, a fesse dancettée Sable-with the epitaph, which I copied some four or five years ago, Hic jacet Dominus Nathaniel West praeilustris Domini Nathanielus West filius natu maximi et illustrissimi Domini Thomas West Baronus de la Ware ex fratre nepos obit xvij Kalendis Februarii ab Incarnacionis Dominicae Anno 1670. The interior of the church was restored in 1892, and instead of this and certain other monuments being carefully preserved, they were actually sold, to be used for flags for footpaths in the village! The above tombstone was sawn in half; the upper portion, bearing the arms and part of the inscription, forming one of the flags in the path leading up to a house at the north end of Warton. How comes it that, notwithstanding all the formalities necessary to obtain a Faculty for the restoration " of a church, such ruthless desecration can be carried on without a word of objection on the part of the authorities of the church? 66 S. HELEN'S CHURCH, SEPHTON. By the Rev. G. W. Wall, M.A., Read 7th March, 1895. PREVIOUS LITERATURE ON THE SUBJECT. THOMAS PENNANT, the antiquary and "tourist," supplies in the year 1773 some brief information regarding Sephton. The church and parish are, of course, mentioned at some length in Baines' History of Lancashire; and some account is given of it in a small book styled A brief Historical and Descriptive Account of Sefton Church, published in 1819, and dedicated by its author, "Thomas Ashcroft, Esq., of Lydiate," to the Rev. R. R. Rothwell, Rector of the parish at the time. The In the year 1822, a certain R. Bridgens, an architect by profession, living for several years at Liverpool, published in London a large folio volume, dedicated to the Rt. Honble Earl Sefton." work contains little letterpress, but consists of drawings of the interior and exterior of the church, and of the screens and bench ends and details of the carving, as they existed in the year 1818. The author remarks, that since the earlier date the church, so he had been informed, had undergone "considerable repairs and some alterations." This work would possess more value if greater dependence could be placed upon its correctness; but in some instances the draughtsman appears to have trusted to a defective memory, and in others to have drawn upon his imagination. His ground plan does not indicate any northern opening either of door or window in the "revestre," though the exterior view shows a south window; nor does it place any window in the tower, or at the west end of the south aisle. His interior view shews the Molyneux brass in a position which it does not at present occupy. He places at its foot a brass of three children, of which no trace remains, and omits the coats of arms, at present sufficiently obvious. His drawing shews no side galleries, but a blocked-up tower arch with a western gallery, in which it is probably correct. A small square-headed window is shewn in the north aisle, which is probably a misplacement of the square-headed one now existing. It shews the stalls as if paved with stone, and a flight of steps descending from a nave at a higher level into the chancel. The present levels would seem to put such steps out of the question. His concluding plate is styled "a composition." In it two knights in armour, standing amidst the ruins of the church, anxiously contemplate one of the mailed effigies which it contains. The oak tracery of a screen is standing, but the font and a bench-end, with its poppy," lie uncared for on the ground. work is painstaking and interesting, but it cannot be relied upon as an authority. The A more extended history of the church and parish appeared in the year 1893. This " descriptive "and historical account" is the joint work of "W. D. Caröe, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A., and "E. J. A. Gordon," and is copiously illustrated by engravings. It contains an account of S. Helen's |