No XXV. See p. 171. Extracts from Letters of Mr. Pickburn concerning the School at Waynflete. Revd Sir, I AM happy to find that the memory of our excellent Founder will be rescued from oblivion by a pen so able to do justice to his worthy character. If any thing in my power can in the least degree contribute to so laudable a design, it will give me unspeakable pleasure. The number of steps in the staircase is forty-two; viz. eighteen from the ground to the school-floor, and twenty-four from thence to the top, where the door opens to the leaded roof. The building is brick; the bricks of a somewhat larger size, better clay, and closer contexture, than those usually made in our neighbourhood. These are supposed (how truly I know not) to have been made in the isle of Ely, and conveyed hither by water; many of thein are formed in curious figures for ornamental parts, as cornices, or mouldings, in the door-cases, windows, &c. The number of windows I take to have been orginally thirty; viz. in the school and chapel six on each side, two large ones in the ends, and two in the bell-tower, which last two were bricked up long before my time. In the lower apartments there have been seven on each side, but only five appear, the door and chimney filling the places of two. I cannot learn that there ever were any arms, inscription, or portrait, in memory of the Founder in any part of the school. * On the south-west side of the house, in a lower room, is a small closet, five feet long, three feet broad, and eight feet high. Below this, and of the same compass, is a vault six or seven feet deep, arched over with brick, except a small opening for entrance. I have been down in it, and find nothing but dirt and water. I cannot imagine what purpose it was intended for. This little cell occasions an excrescence on the outside of the building. There is no other chapel but that marked and mentioned in the plan, which appears to me only as a part of the school; there is, indeed, a sort of pulpit and reading desk. The endowment of the school consists of a salary seventeen marks a-year from Magdalen college; the school-house, with gardens, orchard, and greenyard, the whole being near an acre; and about eighteen acres of land in nine pieces widely di spersed in distant parts of two parishes, much of it inundated in winter; yielding annually £7: 5s. rent; known by no name but School Lands. The school is free for Latin and Greek, other branches of literature are paid for. The privilege extends to all the three parishes of Wainfleet; viz. Wainfleet All Saints, Wainfleet St. Mary's, and Wainfleet St. Thomas, alias Northolm. Whether it goes any further I cannot certainly say, nor is it of much im portance portance to me, or the inhabitants, the general demand being for reading, writing, and arithmetic. I was nominated to this school, August 6th, 1755, and have been here almost thirty years. The number of scholars, upon an average, is about thirty or forty in summer; sometimes upwards of fifty in winter; near sixty last winter. They come from six or seven different parishes, for this town is a small place. I have kept an assistant several years, and cannot do without. I forgot to mention, in its due place, an old thatched building with clay walls, in the nature of a kitchen, adjoining to the south-west tower; and another against the south-east end, for stable, cow-house, and hog-stye: as these are extraneous to the edifice, and add nothing to its beauty, but rather derogate from its symmetry, I thought it would be beside the purpose to give any view or account of them. Wainfleet, May 7, 1785. I BEG leave to make a few additional observations on the school-house. The length within is seventy feet, the breadth twenty; to which if we add the thickness of the wall, it makes seventy-six by twenty-six; and the towers projecting four feet and an half each way, add so much to the length, and twice as much to the breadth, making in the whole eighty feet and an half by thirty-five. The whole building (exclusive of the towers) appears to me as designed at first for no more than two rooms, one above and one below; intended, as it should seem, promiscu ously ously for the reception of scholars, and convenience of dwelling, agreeable to the taste of those unpolished times. The lower story is now divided into many small apartments, for the better accommodation of a family; but this is done so irregularly, and with such slight materials, as plainly proves the divisions not coeval with the edifice. There is, indeed, one partition-wall of solid brick-work towards the east end, forming a good room twenty feet by eighteen; but this wall, being very near, and parallel to, one of the transverse beams that support the upper floor, seems to be no part of the original design, for it might very well have supplied the place of that timber had it been erected before the floor was laid. All the windows that remain in their first state are strongly ironed; and those below have had very massive shutters on the inside, as may be seen by iron crooks left in the wall, strong enough to carry a five-bar gate. Probably the contests at that time subsisting between the houses of York and Lancaster might cause a temporary suspension, or partial administration of the penal laws, and make it unsafe for people to sleep in a habitation less strongly fortified. In my view of the house I thought it best to draw the windows in their ancient form and size; some of them are now made up, others enlarged and altered. The staircase is a piece of workmanship that well deserves notice; it is built and arched with brick cemented with excellent mortar; winding about, and supported by a round column of the same materials, made or cut semicircular for that purpose. purpose. In the wall opposite there runs a spiral moulding that serves for a hand-rail. May 28, 1785. To the Rev. Dr. Chandler. Mr. Pickburn is still living at Waynflete, at the advanced age of eighty-five, and till lately has been attending the duties of the school as master. Having now sent in his resignation to Magdalen college, the society has agreed to settle on him an annuity in reward of his meritorious services. EDITOR. No XXVI. See p. 206. Statutum de cõi annua vestium liberata execucioni non prius mandandum quousque Coll percipiat et possideat reverciones diversarum terrarum perquisitarum per Dñm Funda? in diversis Comita tibus. ITEM ut Socii et Scholares dicti nostri Cołł unanimes interius perseverent et in charitate mutua copulentur quo ips pariter uno signo exterius conspexerint se signatos et ad idem nostrum Coll affectionem majorem obtineant quo ab eodem plura subsidia et commoda in suis indigentiis se noverint percepturos; Statuimus, ordinamus, et volumus quod Presidens Socii et Scholares universi nostri Coff infra probationis annum existentes Lector in S. Theologia et duo Lectores in Philosophia etsi Socii Cołł |