100 SOME ANCIENT DOCUMENTS. 
first floor. Here the panelling, of which we saw specimens which had just 
been stripped from its walls, was of very good and rich character, and strongly 
resembled that still remaining in the old dining-room at Carbrook Hall. We 
understood that it had been sold for £500 to a person from Lancaster. The 
ceiling of this room is in six compartments, and of fine, elegant stucco work, 
each compartment varying, On the chimney-piece in one of the rooms is the 
figure of a Saracen (perhaps intended as a crest), with the initials L. E. G., 
and the date 1623. The same figure, with like initials and date, appears 
repeatedly on the conductor spouts of the western end of the house. The 
spouts are partly gilt, and of extremely good character. The initial and date 
in all probability will lead to the knowledge of the time of the erection of the 
house and the name of the builder. This latter, it would seem, was not a 
Morewood, as Lysons suggests, but Leonard Gill, who married Elizabeth, the 
sister of Bishop Saunderson, at Blyth, Oct 13, 1607. (See ‘‘ Hunter’s Hallam.,” 
Gatty’s edit., p. 399). Edward, the eldest son of this marriage, took as his 
first wife a daughter of Stephen Bright, of Carbrook, and this connexion may 
well account for the great similarity of the panelling of the dining-rooms of 
the two places, which very likely were designed and executed by the same 
artists. ‘Though Norton House was erected before the civil wars, and was 
possessed by a family of stout Parliamentarians, it does not appear that it 
suffered any aggression in those troublous times. It was reserved for a later 
day for its inhabitants to be brought into suspicion and danger for their 
political opinions, for it is stated that during the revolutionary period of the 
latter part of the last century it was searched, to the great annoyance of its 
then owner, Mr. Newton, under the authority of a warrant from the Secretary 
of State, certain supposed dangerous characters having been suspected of 
hiding there. Before taking leave of this venerable mansion one cannot but 
express a regret that it should be deemed necessary or desirable to demolish it, 
especially as it is so well and substantially built that it might be restored at a 
very moderate cost. 
October 2, 1877. j.5: 
The present representative of the Gill family is Francis Westby 
Bagshawe, Esq., of The Oaks and Wormhill Hall, in Derbyshire. 
I. 
[Circa 1280.] 
Sciant preesentes et futuri quod ego Johannes filius Thome de Holm dedi, 
concessi, et hac preesenti carta mea confirmavi Petro de Bernis et heeredibus 
suis, vel suis assingnatis, pro quadam summa pecunize quam mihi pre manibus 
donavit, quamdam placiam terree meze que vocatur le stord jacentem versus 
rivulum de Totinley, et buttantem super terram Simonis de Vodethorp versus 
