BKADBOURNE CHURCH. 79 



all I thought about church restoration in Derbyshire, and before 

 a Derbyshire audience, I might be glad to take refuge in the 

 church tower ! But it is some kind of satisfaction to know that 

 the wholesale " restoration" which took place here, and obliterated 

 as much as was possible of the church's later history, would be 

 almost impossible at the present day. The world has learnt much 

 during the last forty years, and at a great cost, and we do not 

 now all of us think it wise to wipe out parts and fittings of 

 churches, if they are seemly, simply because they do not come 

 within the charmed " Gothic " circle. We recognize that a 

 Jacobean pulpit, and even a Queen Anne gallery, is just as much 

 a part of the history of the church, and consequently of the place, 

 as Marston Moor, or the coming of the Highlanders to Ashbourne 

 in '45, are of the country. 



I have, I fear, been very long, but we have dealt with a long 

 period, and perhaps I have propounded certain things which you 

 will not accept. I remember, some years ago, after my father had 

 shown with unerring certainty, from public records, that Edward 

 II. was not born in Caernarvon Castle, but that he built a great 

 deal of it, and roofed it ten years after he came to the throne, 

 it was the custom of the custodian to continue to point out to 

 the visitors the miserable passage room as the place of Edward 

 II.'s birth, and to add : " A man called Hartshorne says Edward 

 II. built this tower; but, Lord bless ye, lie knows nothing about it ! " 

 I have, in the same way, endeavoured to read the history of 

 Bradbourne church from the records and the stones themselves, 

 but I am far from prophesying that no one will come here in 

 future and say the same of me. 



After the paper had been read, the members inspected the 

 Saxon work of the tower, the ancient cross shaft, and the Norman 

 doorway. Inside, Mr. Hartshorne called attention to the dis- 

 tressing harsimess and nakedness, and the mischief that had been 

 done to the church by the senseless process of stripping the walls 

 of the plaster and pointing the rubble masonry. He deplored the 

 manner in which the whole of the interior except the tower had 



