68 HERMITS, FORDS, AND BRIDGE-CHAPELS. 



certain chapel at Chesterfield, constructed near (juxta) the bridge 

 there, in honour of the Assumption of the Blessed and Glorious 

 Virgin Mary, to celebrate divine service every day in the said 

 chapel for the health and good estate of us, and of our Consort 

 Margaret Queen of England, and for the aforesaid Earl, and Alice 

 his wife, whilst we live, and for our soul, and the soul of the afore- 

 said Queen, when she shall liave departed from this life, and for 

 the souls of all the faithful departed for ever, and of the five 

 women sisters perpetually devoted, in the chapel aforesaid, &c., 

 according to the appointment of the said Earl. And to make, 

 found, and erect houses and edifices near the same chapel, for the 

 station or lodging of the said chaplain, and sisters, and that he 

 may be able to reconstruct them and build them ''de novo.' And 

 that the chauntry thus founded and established, shall for ever be 

 called ' The Chauntry of the Earl of Salisbury of Chesterfield,' and 

 that the chaplain of the aforesaid chauntry and the sisters of the 

 same and their successors, when so founded, erected, and estab- 

 lished, shall form one body ; and that they shall be able to obtain 

 and appropriate to themselves and their successors, any lands, 

 tenements, rents, and possessions whatsoever, both temporal and 

 spiritual, to the value of 20 marks per annum ; which is not held 

 of us in chief of any person or persons, &c., &c. Teste R. apud 

 Westm. viij die Julii. (a.d. 1446.)" 



I have not the means of ascertaining the number of bridge 

 chapels once existing in England. A few still remain in their 

 time-honoured positions, but by far the majority have perished 

 with the old bridges they once so quaintly adorned. Of those 

 which remain, perhaps the chapel on Wakefield Bridge is the best 

 known. Others were — 



The Chapel on London Bridge. The following story given 

 by John Stowe of the originof this, is typical of the early history 

 of others whose origin is unknown. " A ferry being kept in the 

 place where now the Bridge is builded, at length the ferryman and 

 his wife deceasing, left the same ferry to their onely daughter, a 

 maiden named Mary, which, with the goods left her by her parents, 

 as also with the profits rising of the said ferry, builded an house 



