Welsh Journals

30G Certain churches, as apparently this one of Pennant, had special rights of sanctuary attached to them ; but in later times the privilege was extended, and some of our larger towns enjoyed the prerogative of being public sanctuaries. Manchester, for instance, was erected into an asylum in 1540 ; but, immediately growing tired of the distinction, it was transferred to Chester in 1541. References to sanctuaries in other parts of the kingdom were made by several members, and especially by Dr. McEwen to that at Holy- rood, Edinburgh, for debtors only, the privileges of which had been exercised within living memory. Mr. T. Hughes would supplement Mr. Wynne Ffoulkes's remarks on the sanctuaries of Manchester and Chester by observing that before the privilege, such as it was, had been three months located at Chester, the mayor and other civic dignitaries had been despatched to London to secure its immediate removal, inasmuch as the city had thereby become the common resort of criminals of the worst description. At their instigation Chester ceased to be a sanctuary, and the distinction was thereupon transferred to Stafford. In the days of the Norman earldom there were three special sanctuaries established in Cheshire, one being at Hoole Heath, near Chester, its boundary extending to the outer limits of the city north-eastward ; another at King's Marsh, an extra-parochial district near Famdon ; and a third at liudheath, near Sandbach. These were sanctuaries in the fullest sense of the word, and sheltered the fugitive for life, if he committed no fresh depreda¬ tion, and kept within the privileged bounds ; he erecting, by the bye, no house of habitation, but dwelling solely in booth or tent. Very similar to the asylum at Holyrood was the debtor's sanctuary formerly at Chester. Here, whenever a citizen could prove to the mayor that he was unable to pay his just debts, he was piaced in the " free-house," near Northgate prison, and might walk at large, and with perfect im¬ punity, within its boundaries, which extended to the then corn-market on the north side, and from the Water Tower to the Phoenix Tower on the City Walls. This privilege bad fallen into disuse towards the com¬ mencement of the present century. Mr. Mokris said that the old churches in Montgomeryshire were rather famous for their rood-screens, though several had been mutilated, and portions of them fixed up in different parts of the church, as he believed was the case at Pennant Melangell. With respect to the curious font at Pennant, he might observe that there was one somewhat