Writers in Churches in Nottinghamshire #8: Lord Byron in Hucknall

'BYRON

BORN

JANUARY 22 1788

DIED

APRIL 19 1824'

'IN THE VAULT BENEATH
WHERE MANY OF HIS ANCESTORS AND HIS MOTHER ARE BURIED,
LIE THE REMAINS OF
GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON,
LORD BYRON, OF ROCHDALE
IN THE COUNTY OF LANCASTER,
THE AUTHOR OF CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.
HE WAS BORN IN LONDON ON THE
22ND. OF JANUARY 1788.
HE DIED AT MISSOLONGHI IN WESTERN GREECE ON THE
19TH. OF APRIL 1824,
ENGAGED IN THE GLORIOUS ATTEMPT TO RESTORE THAT
COUNTRY TO HER ANCIENT FREEDOM AND RENOWN.

HIS SISTER, THE HONOURABLE
AUGUSTA MARY LEIGH,
PLACED THIS TABLET TO HIS MEMORY.'

'Byron

The Pilgrim of Eternity'

'Bright be the place of thy soul.

Burial place of

Lord Byron

the poet and his family'

Byron's tomb is apparently in the vault directly beneath this spot.

At the side of the plaque and memorial to Lord Byron:

'IN THE BYRON VAULT BELOW

LIE THE REMAINS OF
AUGUSTA ADA,
ONLY DAUGHTER OF

GEORGE GORDON NOEL,

6TH. LORD BYRON,
AND WIFE OF
WILLIAM, EARL OF LOVELACE.

BORN 1OTH. DECR. 1815,

DIED 27TH. NOVR. 1852.

R. I. P.'

The visitors' centre inside the church has information about famous locals, principally Lord Byron. In it is this statuette which was sculpted by Nikoloas Kotziamanis, who was born in Cyprus in 1946. In 1992 he was commissioned to sculpt a three-metres-high statue as a gift from the British nation to Missolonghi, where it now stands in the Garden of Heroes. Newstead Abbey Byron Society and friends bought this smaller one. The sculptures were modelled on Thomas Philip's oil painting in the British Embassy in Athens.

In the Market Square there are a number of plaques on the ground, some of which are relevant of the Byrons:

'Hills of Annesley, bleak and barren,
Where my thoughtless childhood stray'd,
How the northern tempests, warring,
How above thy tufted shade!
Now no more, the hours beguiling,
Former favourite haunts I see;
Now no more my Mary smiling,
Makes ye seem a heaven to me.

Lord Byron 1805.

Annesley Hall is where Mary Chaworth – a young woman with whom Byron was infatuated – lived, near Byron's ancestral home Newstead Abbey. The above verses were written shortly after Mary married Jack Musters.

Ada

'Albeit my brow thou never shouldst be-hold
My voice shall with thy future visions blend.
And reach into they [sic] heart, when mine is cold'

Byron

The above quotation is from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III (1816), Stanza CXV, where Harold is addressing his daughter.

Ada Byron King
Countess of Lovelace

'For your father's fame they would have loved you,
And for your endless womanly virtue:
A wife, mother and writer of letters.
And yet you sidestepped female fetter.

Looked past your time's low expectation.
Lent you mind to Babbage and computation.
Now No. 10 glows with your silver gowns
A role-model for this evolving town.'

The railing in front of the public library bears several representations of local figures, among them of course Lord Byron.

And his daughter Ada.

On the west wall of the church:

'This Khachkar (Armenian stone cross) was presented to Holgate School in 1991 in recognition of work undertaken by Britain following the devastating earthquake in Armenia of 1988. The Lord Byron School, Guimri, Republic of Armenia, was built to replace one of the destroyed schools and subsequently a link was formed between this new school and the Holgate School, Hucknall. The Khachkar is placed here in memory of Father Fred Green'.

(I visited this church because of the Diocese of Southwell Nottingham's Open Churches Weekends (Saturday and Sunday 14 and 15 July and 21 and 22 July 2012). Details of participating churches and opening times are listed here.)

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'The Byron Vault at Hucknall Torkard', by A. E. L. Lowe

Lord Byron in Hucknall

Lord Byron and Newstead Abbey