376
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. i. MAY 7, im.
having been its last occupants. The walls
stood long after the roof had fallen in, and
at length the materials were removed to
build cowhouses; but in the middle of the
ruin there grew up a young ash tree, forcing
up one of the flags of the cottage floor. It
looked so healthy and thriving a plant that
the labourer employed to remove the stones
for the purpose of forming the pathway to
the neighbouring farmhouse spared the
seedling, and it grew up to a large and
flourishing tree, 6ft. 9 in. in girth, standing
in the middle of the croft, and now known as
"Brindley's Tree." This ash tree is nature's
own memorial of the birthplace of the
engineer, and it is the only one yet raised to
the genius of Brindley.
There is no actual illustration of Brindley's birthplace, but in the afore-mentioned work is an engraving of this tree and a contiguous house, which is still called " Brindley's Croft." On p. 467 will be found an illustration of ' Brindley's House at Turnhurst.' It was for- merly the residence of the Bellot family, and is said to have been the last house in England in which a family fool was kept. On p. 470 it is stated :
"After an illness of some duration, he expired at
u ? use - at Turnhurs t on 27 September, 1772, in
the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was interred in
the burymg-ground at New Chapel, a few fields
distant from his dwelling."
A view of ' Brindley's Burial-place at New Chapel ' is on p. 476.
9^e of my proudest possessions is an oil painting of this burial-place and the church of bt. James the Less at Newchapel (also depicted on p. 476), for of this church my grandfather (see 9 th S. xii. 493), the Kev. T. .borshaw, was vicar for thirty-five years, and many a time, when I was a child, the dear old gentleman pointed out Brindley's grave to me
Brindley's house at Turnhurst was resi- dentially occupied by my grandfather and tamily before the erection of the vicarage of JNewchapel, which was built by my ancestor m 1845, on land given by Mr. Lawton, o Prestbury Hal], Cheshire.
CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D. .Baltimore House, Bradford.
James Brindley was born in the year 1716 at a cottage between the hamlet of Grea Kocks and that of Tunstead, in the liberty o Inornsett, some three miles to the north-eas -Buxton. He died at his house at Turn hurst, 27 September, 1772, and was buried in the ground of New Chapel, a few field distant trorn his dwelling.
These particulars are taken from Smiles' -Lives of the Engineers,' ed. 1874. The sam
nformation is given in a 'Dictionary of
biography,' ed. J. Gorton, 1828.
R. A. POTTS.
See John Gorton's ' Biog. Diet.,' 1828 ; tVatkins's ' Biog. Diet.,' 1829 ; and Dugdale's British Traveller,' 1819, vol. ii. pp. 82, 83, where there is a long biographical account.
J. H. MACMlCHAEL.
Brindley died at Turnhurst, Staffordshire, September, 1772. See 'Charabers's- Encyclopedia,' 1888, vol. ii. pp. 455-6.
W. H. PEET.
[MR. C. S. WARD gives the date of death as 27 or September, with a reference to the ' Penny yclopsedia' and Hole's 'Brief Biog. Diet.' Numer- us other replies acknowledged. ]
NELSON AND WOLSEY (10 th S. i. 308). The arcophagus in which the remains of Nelson, ie can hardly be called a second-hand one r eeing that, although it was intended for the
- orpse of the magnificent cardinal, and by his
means designed by Torrigiano, it was never occupied until 1806. From c. 1525 until kelson's day the cist in question stood empty n Wolsey's Chapel, so called, at Windsor.
The tomb-house east of St. George's Chapel was built by Henry VII. for his own remains, Dut he afterwards deserted Windsor for Westminster ; and Henry VIII. granted his lather's first mausoleum to Cardinal Wolsey, who began his own tomb within it, employing a Florentine sculptor on brazen columns and brazen candlesticks, which were sold in 1646 for 600. as defaced brass. James II. con- verted the tomb-house into a Romish chapel, which was defaced by a Protestant rabble. In 1742 it was appropriated as a free school- house. Finally George III. converted it into a tomb-house for himself and his descendants, and it has since been vaulted in stone and much decorated as a sepulchral chapel in memory of Prince Albert.
In the very centre of the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral the corpse of Nelson lies underneath a splendid black-and-white sarcophagus of the sixteenth century. This work of art, upon which Benedetto da Rovanza and his masons spent much labour, was intended by Wolsey for his own monument, but was confiscated with the rest of his goods. His Ipswich foundation was entirely suppressed, but Christ Church, Oxford, as the creation of his cruel master, has come down to us, an imperfect realization of the Cardinal's great aim, while to this day no man knows the exact spot where the Abbot of Leicester and his monks buried the great Tudor statesman.
A. R. BAYLEY.
