Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/254

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re-built, only part of the old building being left. The chapel, however, yet remains, enriched by several objects salved from various wrecks, such as the recumbent effigy taken from the Collegiate Church, and the carved oak fronts of seats and altar rails removed from Wigston's Hospital.

(4) The 14th century house which is now used as St. Mary's Vicarage was probably at one time the residence of the Dean of Newarke College. Externally this dwelling retains much of its ancient appearance.

(5) Portions of the West, South and East boundary walls of the Newarke enclosure were standing in recent years, and fragments of "Rupert's Tower," as the South Gate has been named, may yet be found. There are traces of walls in Bonner's Lane, built into several cottages and into a warehouse or engineer's shop. Some good illustrations of the old boundary walls of the Newarke, as they appeared in 1838, and a view of Rupert's Tower in 1821, will be found in Mr. J. F. Hollings' pamphlet on "Leicester during the great Civil War," which was published at Leicester in 1840.

(6) The dwelling-house erected in 1512 by William Wigston near the Turret Gateway, has lately escaped destruction. It was the chantry-house of the two priests of Wigston's Chantry in the Collegiate Church of the Newarke, and bears above its door-way the arms of the founder. When its destruction was threatened, about ten years ago, a determined effort to save it was made on the initiative of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society, with the active co-operation of Mr. Sydney A. Gimson, who was then Chairman of the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery Committee. Nearly £3,600 were then subscribed, and the chantry house and two adjoining Jacobean houses with their gardens were assigned to ten gentlemen who had secured an option of purchasing them for the benefit of the town, upon the understanding that, as soon as the property could be freed from all burden of debt, it should be transferred to the Corporation of Leicester, to be preserved as an historical memorial of the past, and in the hope that it would be used as a Leicester and County Museum, dealing specially with matters of local interest. There is still a debt of £5,500 on the property, which

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