9 th S. X. DEC. 20, 1902.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
483
Gray's Inn is somewhat beyond our present
subject ; yet it is so near its gardens, indeed,
are overlooked that a slight reference may
be allowed. It seems rather a dreary old
place in the evening of a November day, nor
can it possess at any time much attraction,
either of age or art. The barrack - like
monotony of the great range of building is
pierced only by innumerable and identical
mean rectangular windows, and at long
intervals by the doors, almost bare of design,
which give entrance to the countless cells of
this hive of lawyers. If there be anything
older than, say, 1730, it must be diligently
searched for. The liveried porter or the
unliveried gardener points to the very house
No. 1 in the square once occupied by the
great Bacon, but we cannot believe it ; and
on consulting ' Old and New London,' we
read that Coney Court, covering this site, was
burnt down in 1678. Our book now thirty
years old also tells us of elms still growing
in the gardens which were planted by the
great philosopher, but they are now gone, or
at the most are represented by stumps only.
The trees seen to day are planes of moderate
age ; yet there exists the living remnant of
a foreign tree (the name not remembered by
me) which, it is told, was brought to England
by Raleigh and planted by Bacon ; and of
this tree there is a fairly flourishing offshoot.
Raymond's Buildings, date circa 1825, also
honeycombed by lawyers, have taken a large
slice of the old gardens ; but there they still
are, not so spacious, fresh, and handsome as
when Disraeli looked on them from his
windows, though yet constituting one of the
oases in the vast brick-covered area of
London.
W. L. RTJTTON.
" WITCH," A KIND OF LAMP. Not long ago,
while I was staying at Cadney, in North
Lincolnshire, Mr. J. R. told me that when
he was a child his people used a " witch."
This "witch" was a sort of tin cup with an
arrangement inside for supporting several
wicks, and melted mutton-fat was poured
into it for the wicks to absorb. The fat of
sheep which had died from accident or disease
was often thus used up.
After my return to Kirton-in-Lindsey I asked A. H. if she had ever seen such a lamp. She replied that she had some recollection of an old one, out of use, "among things that had belonged to grandmother." The word " witch," however, was not known to her in the above sense, though she remarked, "Folks sometimes call that thing on low land by rivers, that always leads you into water if you follow it, a ' witch.' It looks like some-
body carrying a light. ' Peggy -Ian tern ' is
another name they give it."
Now, in this connexion, it is curious to find that " Peggy " formerly meant a night- light very similar to the " witch." My father informs me that " before lucifer matches be- came common some one in each household, poor or rich, usually burnt a night-light, and long after matches were in general use many people continued to dp so. Those who were econo- mical had their night-lights made in the 'olio wing fashion. A little tin cup was pro- cured, about three inches high ; those I have seen had handles like modern teacups. In the centre of the bottom was a little holder, with a small hole in the middle of its top, into which a lavender stalk, wrapped closely, round with cotton, was inserted. This wick almost reached to the top of the vessel, which was then filled nearly to the brim with melted mutton-fat. When the fat became set, which soon took place, this primitive Lamp was ready for use. I have heard that those who would notgo to the cost of .having a tin cup made were in the habit of utilizing a damaged teacup, inserting into the bottom a slice of potato, into which the wick was put. In my childhood and youth I always heard these things called 'Peggies,' and I think my father used a 'Peggy' until after 1853." MABEL PEACOCK.
Kirton-in-Lindsey.
[A Lincolnshire woman, now over eighty and living in London, remembers that when she was a girl at home some of the neighbours made their own candles, because they were dear to buy.]
UFA VON PRIORY AND ST. WANDREGESIL'S RENTS. The parish of Moulton, in North- amptonshire, and the Priory of Upavon, Wilts, had each an early connexion the one with the other, arid both with the monastery of St. Wandregesil, Fontenelle, in Normandy. That this onnexion was not an unimportant one may be judged from the returns of the ecclesiastical taxation of Pope Nicholas IV., 1291, in which the following items occur, though not consecutively :
I. Decanatus de Hadon . *
Eccl'ia de Multon' deduct' pore', SI.
Pore' Rector de Blatherwic in eadem, 13s. 4rf.
Pens' Pri'oris Sc'i Andree Norh'mptoii' in Vicar' ejusdem inde'li, 13s. 4rf.
II. Decanatus de Haddon.f
Idem [Prior Sc'i Andr' Norhf] h't in Sulthon [Multon] in redd', 21. It. Id.
Idem h't in eadem villa in t'ris, 4.?.
Prior de Finnesheved h't in Multon in t'ris, 21. 2s.
Abb' de Osalveston h't ibidem de redd', 5s.
~"^Taxatio Eccles. P. Nich. IV.,' 1802, p. 40 [fo. 62]. f Ibid., p. 55 [fo. 86].
