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THE MONUMENTAL BRASSES OF CLEVELAND. 

 By T. M. Fallow, M.A., F.S.A. 



Cleveland is not rich in Monumental Brasses, and there are 

 none of any special interest or beauty. There are three brasses 

 •with engraved effigies, three plates with inscriptions, and two 

 stones from which brasses have been stripped. 



The most important; as it is also the most interesting of tbe 

 Cleveland Brasses, is that in the little church or chapel of Roxby 

 in the Parish of Hinderwell. The reduced facsimile of a heel- 

 ball rubbing of the brass, which is given here, explains its 

 character better than a verbal description can. The brass is to 

 the memory of Thomas Boynton, Esquire, who died in 1523, and 

 who, the inscription states, " caused this chyrche fyrst to be 

 halowed and was ye fyrst corsse that was beryed in yt." He 

 was the son of Henry Boynton, Esquire, and married Cecily, 

 daughter of James Strangeways, Esquire, of Sneaton, near 

 Whitby. It will be seen, that the composition of the brass is 

 that of a full length figure in armour in the centre, below which 

 at an interval, is a plate with a black-letter inscription in 

 English, and that there are four shields at the corners. The 

 brass has been relaid on the present slab, and part of the sword 

 has been broken off. In the reproduced rubbing the two lower 

 shields have been brought nearer the centre to avoid too great a 

 reduction of the whole device. Each of the shields bears the 

 Boynton Arms — a /esse letiveen three crescents. The figure, says 

 Mr. Mill Stephenson, "which is clumsy and illproportioned, is 

 armed in a collar of mail, breastplate, skirt of taces, with 

 fringe of mail, over which are three very small leaf-shaped 

 tonleteis. The pauldrons, or shoulder pieces, differ slightly in 

 shape, that on the left shoulder having an upright ridge. The 

 elbow-pieces also differ slightly. The knee-pieces are very large 

 and the sabbatons round-toed, with gussets of mail at the insteps, 

 and large rowel spurs. The sword, the greater part of which is 

 lost, is supported by a narrow belt crossing the hips diagonally 

 and having a somewhat complicated fastening." *The figure, it 

 should be added is 25 inches in height. 



* Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 17, P. 307. 



