ents. It was rebuilt under the direction of an
architect, of the name of Cheshire at an expense, exclusive of the old
materials, of 245l. 10s. the height of the spire from the ground 61
yards. In this church, in which for many years he officiated as curate,
is interred the Rev. W. Bickerstaffe, a man of great simplicity of
manners, and urbanity of disposition; who by his laborious and minute
researches materially assisted the Topographers of Leicester.

Near the north door of this church is a passage leading under an old
fashioned building forming a gate-way into an area called the castle
yard. That the present structure was the gate-way of the castle when it
was tenable as a place of defence, cannot, for a moment be imagined; but
that there was always an entrance at this place we are well assured, for
the adjoining building on the left is known by the name of the Porter's
Lodge, and it must therefore be concluded that the present was built upon
the scite of the antient gate-way, and that it was constructed with the
timbers and other materials taken in later ages from some part of the
castle which had been taken down.

At this gateway was preserved, till within a few years past, an antient
ceremony expressive of the homage formerly paid by the magistrates of
Leicester, to the feudal Lords of the castle. The mayor knocking for
admittance at the gate was received by the constable of the castle, while
the mace was sloped in token of homage; he then took an oath of
allegiance to the king as heir to the Lancastrian property; the latter
ceremony, agreeable to one of the corporation charters, is still
performed, but in private. The office of constable of the castle, which
in the beginning of the reign of Mary, was held by Henry duke of Suffolk,
with the annual fee of sixty shillings and eight pence, is now retained
only nominally.

Opposite the gate-way stands a building most probably erected by the
first of the Bellomonts, tho' the modern front which meets the eye
effectually conceals all the outward traces of antiquity. The inside of
the edifice however is a room exceedingly curious. Its area is large,
being about seventy-eight feet long, twenty-four high and fifty-one
broad. It is framed into a sort of aisles, by two rows of tall and massy
oaken pillars, which serve to support a large and weighty covering of
slate. This vast room was the antient hall of the castle, in which the
earls of Leicester, and afterwards