as a member of Sir Robert Peel's cabinet, moved in the House of Lords the second reading of the Bill for the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. In 1834 the house at Nocton was burnt down, and the earl's young son, afterwards Marquis of Ripon, laid the foundation stone of the present house in 1841. The earl died in 1859, and his widow, who survived him eight years, built in his memory the present fine church, which was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. In 1889 Lord Ripon sold the estate to Mr. G. Hodgson of Bradford.
It is interesting to hear of a school being set up in 1793 at Nocton; first as a private school by John Brackenbury of Gedney, grandson of Edward Brackenbury of Raithby, near Spilsby, which was continued for forty-six years after her father's death in 1813, by his daughter Justinia, who became Mrs. Scholey. In her time it was an elementary school which Lady Sarah financed and managed, the children paying a penny a week.
DUNSTON PILLAR Another thing that was set up was a land lighthouse on Dunston Heath. This was a lonely tract where inhabitants had not only been murdered by highwaymen, but had even been lost in the storms and snow-drifts on the desolate and roadless moor. Here then Sir Francis Dashwood set up the Dunston Pillar, ninety-two feet high with a lantern over fifteen feet high on the top. The date on it is 1751. The fourth Earl of Buckinghamshire, who as Lord Hobart was Governor of Madras, took down the lantern on July 18, 1810, and set up in its place a colossal statue of George III. to commemorate the king's jubilee.
The granddaughter of the third earl, whose father (The Very Rev. H. L. Hobart) lived at the Priory, being, inter alia, vicar of Nocton and Dean of Windsor, and also of Wolverhampton, tells me that the mail coaches used to pass the pillar and leave all the letters for the neighbourhood at one of the four little lodges close by. She has several interesting specimens of the work done by the Nocton School of Needlework under the guidance of Justinia, whose family were remarkable for their Scriptural as well as "heathen Christian names," e.g., Ceres and Damaris. Justinia herself always, as they say in Westmorland, used to "get" Justina. These specimens include a very clever and faithful copy in black silk needlework of an engraving by Hoylett from a picture by Thos. Espin of old
