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• 1 media/vm1-02-cropped.jpg 2020-08-02T09:05:54+00:00 Plate 3.6: Waynflete School and Richard Patten Monument 79 Scholarly Commentary with DZI View for Vetusta Monumenta, 3.6: Waynflete School and Richard Patten Monument. Commentary by Emily Patton Smith. plain 2024-07-05T18:01:10+00:00 Plate: The design for Plate 3.6 was drawn by Jacob Schnebbelie (1760-1792) and engraved by James Basire (1730-1802). Discussion of the monument at Wainfleet All Saints Church and the Wainfleet School took place on 11 and 18 February 1790 (SAL Minutes XXIII.296-206), providing the basis for the explanatory account. The print was officially published on 23 April 1790, but may in fact have appeared later since the engraving work was only taken up two months earlier (SAL Council Minutes III.112-13). The completion date is not recorded in the minutes. The preparatory drawings for the plate were likely completed by Schnebbelie in Lincolnshire the previous year (SAL MS 267 fol. 111).
  
  
  Objects: Plate 3.6 depicts (top to bottom): the Magdalen College School established by William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester (c. 1400-1486), in the town of Wainfleet, Lincolnshire, in the late fifteenth century; the inscription on the school’s bell dedicating the school to the honor of Mary; and the c. 1447 tomb effigy of Richard Patten, the father of Bishop Waynflete, which stood in Wainfleet All Saints Church prior to the demolition of that structure in 1820, and was subsequently moved to the chapel at Magdalen College, Oxford. The school structure still stands in the village of Wainfleet, and serves as a local museum, library, and community center; the fifteenth-century bell remains in the bell tower. Although primary sources refer to the construction of the school in 1484 (Wales and White 1981, 5), scholars date the foundation to the mid-1460s (Orme 1998, 3) or even earlier (Gough 1790, 5). The school may have been functioning on a different site before the new building was built in 1484.
  
  Transcription:
  
  Top Image caption: “N.W. View of WAINFLETE’s SCHOOL, at WAINFLETE, Lincolnshire.”
  Middle Image caption: “INSCRIPTION on the BELL at WAINFLETE’s School.”
  Middle Image inscription: “AVE MARIA GRA-TIA PLENA” [“Hail Mary, Full of Grace”]
  Bottom Image caption: “Monut. of RICHARD PATTEN, Father of Bp. WAINFLETE.” 
  Bottom Image cartouche inscription: 
  “Richard Patten.
  Wainflete Ch.l [Chapel] Lincolnshire. 
  A&B. Backs of Figures, 
  supporting his cushion
  C. His Arms at the head 
  of the Tomb, repeated 
  and held by the Angels.
  D. Part of the side Tomb.”
  
  Original Explanatory Account: Click here to read the original explanatory account for Plate 3.6.
  
  Commentary by Emily Patton Smith: The composition and content of Plate 3.6 are historically intriguing as they provide evidence not only of the purpose of Vetusta Monumenta as a publication in which to preserve a visual record of threatened antiquities, but also of its potential to draw attention to the importance of preserving monuments imperiled by progress or decay. Just as a museum preserves, displays, and interprets artifacts, Vetusta Monumenta preserves, displays, and interprets the images of historic sites for future knowledge and appreciation, and the artist Jacob Schnebbelie and engraver James Basire capitalize on this parallel in the composition here. Schnebbelie has composed his drawings of these monuments, especially of the tomb and its ornaments, as a small “museum” exhibit of three related “artifacts,” which together tell the story of Bishop Waynflete’s ties to fifteenth-century Wainfleet and his lasting impact on education there and around the country. James Basire’s arrangement of the core drawings on this plate further accentuates the effect of an exhibit.
  
  The plate is divided into three separate images, each presented within a separate banded border. The largest of the three images—that of the monument of Richard Patten—is approximately the same height as the other two depictions combined (the architectural view of the school and the inscription on the school bell). Schnebbelie must have favored this style of composition, as he reused the same organizational structure in plates for other works. One example is the design of the plate featuring the fourteenth-century Hornsey Church in The Antiqvary’s Mvsevm (Plate VII), in which Hornsey Church is shown from its southwest corner, above an inscription on a window memorial (center) and details of two carved angels from the west tower (bottom). Given the museum-display approach taken here and in Schnebbelie’s later work, The Antiquary’s Museum, it is not unreasonable to speculate that he was formulating his own ideas about historic preservation in the context of his collaboration with Richard Gough on Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain (1786-96). Schnebbelie’s work for Gough informed his contributions to Vetusta Monumenta, and the production of Plate 3.6 overlaps with study trips made for Gough’s Sepulchral Monuments project.
  
  History of the Plate
  
  To a great degree, this plate owes its existence to another project: Richard Gough’s Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain (1786-96). Gough was unnerved by the accelerated destruction of historic sites (especially religious ones) throughout Britain in that secular age of modernization and mechanization (Heringman 2013, 234). Schnebbelie, the artist who collaborated with Gough on this project and who produced numerous other illustrations for Vetusta Monumenta, was a self-taught draughtsman with a keen interest in historic sites. Between 1787 and 1792, Schnebbelie documented “at least three dozen churches in sixteen counties in the course of his work for Sepulchral Monuments alone” (238-9), depicting “elevations and bird’s-eye views of chapels, tombs, and tomb effigies” (242). The tomb effigy in Wainfleet All Saints, and the associated Wainfleet School, were very likely drawn by Schnebbelie during one of these tours.
  
  This plate also has a direct connection to Vetusta Monumenta Plates 2.45-2.50, a series that includes several images of Bishop Waynflete’s own monument in Winchester Cathedral. Plate 3.6 depicts the tomb of his father, Richard Patten, in the church in Wainfleet, Lincolnshire, and associated monuments. Over the course of two meetings of the Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL) on 11 and 18 February 1790, Gough presented a description of Patten’s monument and Wainfleet All Saints (SAL Minutes XXIII.296-301, 303-06). This paper provided the basis for the printed account that was published with the plate. Since there was now a series of plates connected with Waynflete, also including Plates 3.1-3.3, it seems likely that Gough encouraged Schnebbelie to reallocate to Vetusta Monumenta some of the drawings that he originally made in Lincolnshire for Sepulchral Monuments (SAL MS 267 fol. 111). At a Council meeting of 19 February, Schnebbelie offered his drawing of “Bp. Waynflete’s Chapel, & Monument of his Father,” receiving three guineas, and Basire estimated the cost of engraving this at eight guineas (SAL Council Minutes III.112-13). Though officially published on 23 April (St. George’s Day) 1790, like Plates 3.1-5, this was the last of the six to be produced and probably did not appear until later in the year, as Basire typically spent many months on each engraving. It had certainly been published by 12 December 1790, when the Society read a letter to Gough from John Pickburn, the schoolmaster at Wainfleet Grammar School, who is also mentioned in Gough’s account (Gough 1790, 5). Pickburn supplied several further details regarding Wainfleet All Saints that “seemed to have escaped the attention of Mr. Gough” and described the imperiled state of the church as well as the current condition of the Grammar School (SAL Minutes XXIII.264-65). Pickburn’s letter was ordered to be printed on 4 February 1791 (SAL Council Minutes III.134) and appeared in revised form in Archaeologia (Pickburn 1792).
  
  The Wainfleet Grammar School
  
  As noted in the explanatory account, “The FREE-SCHOOL which bishop Wainflete founded 1459 is now the principal ornament of the town” (Gough 1790, 5). However, no charter or statutes are extant for the school itself, so the date of its actual founding is uncertain. The school as a functioning institution existed by 1466-7; the current structure was almost certainly begun by 1464 and completed by 1484, quite possibly earlier (Orme 1998, 3; Orme 2006, 138, 236). The institution significantly expanded educational opportunities for local people.
  
  After graduating from Oxford, William Waynflete took a post as headmaster of Winchester school and was “afterwards preferred to be provost of Eton College by Henry VI. who advanced him to the bishoprick of Winchester in 1447, and in 1449 was constituted Lord High Chancellor of England” (Adolphus 1818, 27). Waynflete’s pedagogical aspirations aligned with the interest in promoting humanist Latin (“classics”) and the teaching of grammar during the reign of Henry VI, enabling his rapid promotion (Orme 2006, 178-79). As bishop, he dedicated much effort to the improvement of educational institutions in England, leveraging his considerable influence “to save Eton College from Edward IV” (Wales and White 1981, 2). He was involved in the development or establishment of numerous educational facilities throughout his career, including the school depicted in this plate, which he established in his hometown of Wainfleet. The school, situated on 19 acres of land and possessed of a garden and orchards, was endowed with the income produced by agricultural use of the property. The headmaster was appointed by the President of Magdalen College at Oxford, another educational project of Bishop Waynflete, and was paid ten pounds (the standard salary for a grammar master of the period), apparently at Waynflete’s directive (Orme 1998, 3). Graduates of the Wainfleet School were intended to matriculate at Magdalen College (Wales and White 1981, 8; SAL Minutes XXIII.266). According to Pickburn, this arrangement was still in place at the end of the eighteenth century, despite the decline in demand for a classical education at Wainfleet (1792, 475).
  
  The architectural view of Wainfleet School at the top of the plate shows the northwest elevation of the building (north side plus west entrance), offering an angled view of the school structure surrounded by open lawn and approached by two paths. Its style is consistent with picturesque views of country manors, churches, and landmarks. There is no suggestion of the adjacent town of Wainfleet. The site today is bordered by trees and planted shrubs, very much as depicted in the plate. This view of the school effectively demonstrates Nicholas Orme’s observation that “endowed schools in small towns or villages could make a greater visual impact than their counterparts in cities, because they had less [architecturally] to compete with” (2006, 138). The Wainfleet School is two stories high; the classroom, measuring 70 feet by 20 feet, and lodgings occupied the ground floor, with the chapel above them. A Gothic arch forms the entrance, surmounted by a similarly arched window in the upper story gable, and flanked by two octagonal turrets at the west end. The turret on the right (southwest corner) features larger windows than the left (northwest) turret; the former houses the fifteenth-century school bell, the inscription on which is included in the middle image of this plate. An attached wing, barely visible at the far right of the plate, appears to have been lime-washed and covered with a thatched roof. This may have been the cloister; a similar structure was described at Bishop Waynflete’s Magdalen College Chapel in Oxford in 1818: “On the right from the Chapel is the Cloister, which remains in its primitive state” (Adolphus 1818, 27).
  
  Orme details the shape and dimensions of fifteenth-century schools more generally, including that at Wainfleet:

  Such schoolrooms were lit by several small windows, sometimes placed fairly high, perhaps to avoid external distractions. There was usually at least one door to the outside, and sometimes a second to the master's accommodation. The orientation of the schoolroom, when deliberately designed, might follow an east-west axis, like a church, as happened at Winchester, Eton, and Wainfleet--the latter having a chapel above. (Orme 2006, 138, cf. 145)

  The school was constructed in English brick bond rather than stone—a “modern” and efficient building material advocated by Ralph, Lord Cromwell (d. 1456), for whom Bishop Waynflete served as estate executor (Wales and White 1981, 2; Davis 1993, 128). Although the clay for firing bricks was readily available, the vast quantity of brushwood required for firing was not always easily procured (Wales and White 1981, 3). Nonetheless, numerous public benefactors in the circle of Cromwell and Waynflete specified brick construction for significant structures of this period. John Cowper, a master mason from Winchester who worked for Bishop Waynflete on the construction of Esher Palace, may also have designed the Wainfleet School (Wales and White 1981, 4; Davis 1993, 100, 115). As Wales and White describe them, the large east and west windows and entry door were framed in stone, while the smaller doors, windows, octagonal towers, and spiral staircase were all constructed of specially cut and molded bricks in order to achieve their shapely elegance as well as structural integrity (1981, 4-5).
  
  Overall, Schnebbelie and Basire have taken great pains to create a faithful representation of the Wainfleet School. The placement of the fenestration is generally accurate, although its scale is sometimes misleading. The configuration of the chimneys and drains on the north wall is reasonably accurate. Nonetheless, there are noticeable differences between the extant structure and the eighteenth-century rendition, only some of which are attributable to later changes or improvements (such as the addition of a second and third flue to the foremost chimney as well as four elaborate, Victorian terracotta chimney pots). The most striking elements of the school’s architecture would have been difficult to depict using copperplate engraving without adding separate figures focusing on those details. Schnebbelie’s preparatory drawing includes details from the church, but not the school.
  
  One example of omitted elements involves a very striking window on the southwest corner bell turret, not visible in the view shown. The window was notable for its complex and elegant combination of surface jack-arch, straight header, and inset arch. According to the explanatory account “The North and South windows were filled with lilies in single panes” (Gough 1790, 5). A design honoring Wainfleet in the school’s east window, also not depicted here, was already lost by the time Schnebbelie made his drawings, but a second-hand description of it appears in the explanatory account (5) as well as in later antiquarian scholarship, including Pickburn (1792, 473-5) and Sharp (1817, 306-8). This window depicted a full-figure portrait of Bishop Waynflete and his coat of arms, which incorporated three silver lilies with the Five Wounds of Christ. Thomas Sharp, describing objects bearing the inscription “Vulnera quinque Dei sint medicina mei” [The five wounds of Christ are my medicine], states that “the portrait of Bp Waynflete, in stained glass, [which] formerly existed in the East window of the School founded by him at Waynflete,” was inscribed with that verse underneath (1817, 307). According to Wales and White, much of the stained glass originally adorning the school windows was gone by 1755, including the Bishop’s portrait, so these details necessarily derive from another, unknown source in both cases (1981, 3).
  
  Another striking feature of the school that is barely evident in the engraving is the subtle interlaced diamond (“diaper”) pattern on each of the octagonal turrets, which was created by the calculated use of green-glazed brick, as described by Jonathan Foyle (2002) and by Wales and White (1981, 4). These colored bricks were created by firing them with green fused sand or possibly a lead glaze tinted with copper. Some suggestion of this ornamental patterning may be seen in the print on the foremost corner turret, but the helix-like form in the engraving is much simplified from the complex design seen on the existing structure.
  
  Eighteenth-century concerns regarding the future of the school may have been founded in part on waning interest in its original use. The quality of teachers by that time was frequently poor, perhaps because the annual salary for the headmaster was only 17 marks (£11.33) per annum (Wales and White 1981, 8), nearly unchanged since the school was established in the fifteenth century (Pickburn 1792, 475). Its original purpose was to house and educate several boys at a time, who would be instructed in Latin (and later, Greek) grammar in preparation for their eventual matriculation at Magdalen College, Oxford. According to Pickburn, local demand for this kind of education had diminished. As noted in the explanatory account (Gough 1790, 5), only one boy was studying classical grammar there in the early 1790s. Rather, as Pickburn attests, “the learning most useful to [local students] is reading, English grammar, writing, arithmetic, mensuration, bookkeeping, &c.” which he taught to “on average about forty” students “from six or seven different parishes” who were enrolled there in 1790 (Pickburn 1792, 475). By the nineteenth century, the school ceased to serve as a college preparatory school but continued to operate as a primary school for 30-60 boys and girls. Despite renovations in the 1850s, the enrollment declined to three students in 1877, at which time the curriculum was modernized, and the school continued until 1933, when its operations were finally transferred to the modern Skegness Grammar School (Wales and White 1981, 8).
  
  Consistent with these changing uses, the Wainfleet School underwent numerous stabilizations and renovations, beginning in 1585 and recurring in 1608, 1755, 1775, and 1856. Many of these modifications comprised functional improvements to the master’s accommodation and schoolroom and repairs to the chapel. The structure which supports the surviving bell, whose inscription is featured in the center of the plate, was replaced in 1796 (Wales and White 1981, 7). When the school was renovated again in the mid-nineteenth century, many of the updates were sensitive to the original form and function of the building, possibly as a result of the value placed on the historical structure in Vetusta Monumenta. Some elements of the lost iconography were even reintroduced: two stone mantels inscribed with the motto “Sicut Lilium” were added, alluding to the lilies which adorned the North and South windows (Wales and White 1981, 3). The stone corbels which support the rafters depict various saints or patrons and “have been claimed as original fifteenth-century carving,” but may in fact be mid-nineteenth century recuts (Wales and White 1981, 6). The fact that Schnebbelie did not depict any of these unique images in the Vetusta Monumenta plate may support the hypothesis that they were not extant in the eighteenth-century structure.
  
  Other renovations occurred out of functional necessity. Although not visible from the exterior, the interior upper story of the north (staircase) tower was significantly altered internally when it served as an observation post during World War II. The preservation of the school was only fully realized later in the twentieth century, when it was renovated to serve its present role as a community center and local museum. The approach to the entry was widened and paved with stone and cement to accommodate modern public access. The service wing on the south side of the building has also undergone significant alteration or reconstruction since the eighteenth century. The lime-washed outbuilding or “cloister” with its sloping thatched roof, as depicted by Schnebbelie, has been replaced with two brick offices with front-facing gables, one of which features an archway echoing that of the main entrance to the school. The brick which forms these structures appears to be similar in type and color to that of the main edifice, and may have been reused from the previous outbuilding. The brickwork is not as careful as that of the original building and some of the bricks appear to be spalling, which suggests that softer, interior “salmon” bricks were later reused on the exterior of the new wing. Wales and White date the current outbuildings to the nineteenth century (1981, 7). Schnebbelie’s design fittingly foregrounds the main school building as the “key” structure of historical note. In keeping with this emphasis, the school itself was preserved while the outbuildings were demolished and rebuilt to modernize the living space and possibly to attract more qualified schoolmasters.
  
  Wainfleet All Saints and the Tomb Effigy of Richard Patten
  
  The first four pages of the explanatory account meticulously describe the tomb effigy of Richard Patten and its context within Wainfleet All Saints. The careful treatment of this monument attests to Gough’s recognition that, unlike the school, the church and the tomb within were under imminent threat of destruction by intent or neglect, a realization which compelled him to describe the site in as much detail as possible. The lower frame of Plate 3.6, representing the memorial effigy to Waynflete’s father, Richard Patten, depicts the monument in its entirety (center), surrounded by reverse details of the two smaller figures (upper left and right; thought by Gough to represent Patten’s two sons, the Bishop himself at left and his brother John, a physician, at right) as well as an angel bearing the family arms (lower left) and the gothic tracery adorning the side of the tomb (lower right). The arrangement of the group within the frame reinforces the impression of artifacts in a display case. As in an exhibition, the capital letters are used to denote each element and the plate’s key (lower right) offers an explanation of each. Additionally, Basire has chosen to frame the key within a decorative cartouche, placed beneath the depiction of one side of the tomb so that it seems to become an element of the original architecture of the tomb. This is a design motif Basire has borrowed from earlier plates in the Vetusta Monumenta, especially those engraved by George Vertue—for example, Plate 1.8, in which the coins found at the Verulamium site are depicted on a similar scroll, and a description of the site appears to be engraved in a plinth block beneath two collapsed columns. Another plate by Vertue, Plate 2.5, depicts the Savoy hospital and uses similar devices to provide the title and description of the engraving. In Plate 3.6, the position and design of the cartouche—seamlessly integrated into this ensemble of artefacts cut from stone—underscore the advantage of the print over a cabinet display: specifically, the print’s capacity to render and combine very different (and differently sized) materials in a small format, and to integrate text into the image without cluttering the visual display.
  
  Richard Patten (sometimes alias Barbour) was a local merchant in Wainfleet when his son, William Patten, was born c. 1400. Wainfleet was then a significant port and market town in the county of Lincolnshire on the east coast of England (Wales and White 1981, 1). According to James Markland,

  The father of Waynfleet was called indifferently Richard Patten or Barbour, notwithstanding the perfect dissimilarity of the two names. There are, however, proofs that the former was considered the proper surname of the bishop’s family. On the tomb of Richard are the arms of Patten, and which, with certain variations made by the bishop, are also to be found on the seal of Magdalen College Oxford, &c. Godwin (de Praesul. Angliae, p. 233) calls Waynflete, ‘filius Ricardi Patten,’ [the son of Richard Patten] and further observes, ‘Hinc patet cognomen illi genuinum fuisse Pattini, Waynfleti ascititium, ex more illius temporis clericorum’ [From this it is evident that his true surname was Patten, but he assumed the name of Waynflete, according to the custom of the clergy of that time’]. (Markland 1817, 109)

  Pickburn in 1790 described Wainfleet All Saints, the site of Patten’s memorial tomb, as an “ancient Fabrick built of freestone in the form of a Cross, the walls are decayed and in some places repaired with brick. The Tower which stands in the middle…was probably made of wood originally…the foundation being on a stratum of sand and shells incapable of supporting a heavier structure” (1792, 473). Pickburn further noted that “about the year 1718” the church tower was given a facing of brick. The church was demolished around 1820 and the tomb effigy “suffered much damage” in the process but was relocated to the chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford, where it can still be seen today (Wales and White 1981, 2; Davis 124).
  
  
  
  The effigy of Richard Patten is described in the original explanatory account published with this plate: “On the embattled slab lies the figure of a man in a gown hemmed at the bottom, with a standing cape and puffed sleeves; the coat, with the sleeves tied, appears under it: his hair is cropt; he has a purse, whittle, and beads at his belt, which is studded, a ring on the first finger of his right, and last of his left-hand; his feet stand on and are sided by flowers” (Gough 1790, 1). The tomb and effigy were then moved to Magdalen College, as detailed by Macray and Gunther (1915, 8: 93). An illustration by Cottingham depicts the tomb in a niche on the south wall of the chapel sanctuary in Figure I (Macray and Gunther 1915, 8:71), but according to Rachel Mehtar of Magdalen College, it was ultimately relocated to the small side chapel instead (pers. comm., 7 Feb 2022). In addition to the plate in Vetusta Monumenta, the tomb was described in Richard Chandler's The Life of William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester (1811, 241-47). In both accounts, the heads of the smaller figures (probably representing the bishop and his brother John) are acknowledged to be intact, and no account is given of their restoration, but as Mehtar observes, a visual assessment of the extant sculpture suggests the figures may have been re-cut to smooth over surface damage occurring when the tomb was moved. A photo of the tomb effigy at Magdalen College is featured in Orme (2006), p. 179.
  
  Conclusions
  
  Significantly, Plate 3.6 embodies the key concerns of the SAL in undertaking the depiction of ancient monuments: first and foremost, to generate interest in preserving such edifices as the Wainfleet School; and second, to document monuments of significance such as the effigy of Richard Patten before they were lost to neglect or deliberately destroyed. Gough, Schnebbelie, and others undoubtedly recognized that the school and church, with their connections to Bishop Waynflete, represented an important piece of English academic heritage as well as architectural merit. However, despite the fact that the school building was “the principal ornament of the Town” of Wainfleet (SAL Minutes XXIII.304), the school itself was no longer the college preparatory institution for which it had been constructed and was therefore under threat.
  
  Gough himself was skeptical about the potential of such projects as Vetusta Monumenta and Sepulchral Monuments to generate interest in preservation, but he did perceive the value of documentation for perpetuating a collective understanding of historic sites. “It is perhaps too weak a hope that this design may induce more attention in future to preserve what remains from immediate ruin,” he wrote sadly in Sepulchral Monuments, but he expressed the belief that conscious efforts to document threatened places would allow lost monuments to remain a part of the national heritage (Gough 1796 qtd. In Heringman 2013, 237).
  
  Gough was right to be skeptical. Wainfleet All Saints was already damaged, possibly beyond repair (Gough 1790, 3), and was demolished by 1820. The need to document and promote the preservation of those historical elements which were still intact was pressing. Although the town of Wainfleet already took great pride in the school as a local landmark, it seems noteworthy that the school, which was depicted in the plate, remains intact, while the building not depicted—the Wainfleet All Saints Chapel, which housed the tomb monument—was demolished by 1820. The monument to Richard Patten which it housed was consciously removed, at significant cost and effort, to Oxford, where it remains preserved in the chapel at Magdalen College, the spiritual center of Patten’s influential son’s most renowned academic project (Macray and Gunther 1915, 8: 93). The description and depiction of the monument and school in Vetusta Monumenta may have influenced its preservation. If so, Plate 3.6 especially points to the importance of the this series, which spurred preservation efforts while providing posterity with a record of the appearance of threatened sites in advance of their possible demise.
  
  Interestingly, three years after the publication of the engraving in Vetusta Monumenta, the Magdalen College School at Wainfleet was again commemorated, this time on a halfpenny token (Wales 8). Copper coins such as halfpence and farthings were infrequently minted, so local merchants and manufacturers made up for the shortage of small coins by issuing private tokens which could be redeemed for silver if exchanged in quantity. The Wainfleet token was issued by D. Wright and S. Palmer and depicts the school on the obverse with the inscription, “FOUNDED BY WILLIAM WAYNEFLETE 1459.” The reverse depicts a personification of Hope bracing a ship’s anchor, with a ship at harbor in the background. This alludes to Wainfleet’s former role as a thriving port town in the Middle Ages, before the receding seas reduced “The Haven” to two miles of riparian marshland on the edge of the North Sea (Evans et al, 2019).
  
  The efforts to generate interest in these monuments through their inclusion in Vetusta Monumenta were suitably rewarded, as every major element depicted in this plate remains in existence today. In 1811—twenty-one years after the publication of this plate but only nine years before the demolition of the church—Richard Chandler was inspired to write his Life of William Waynflete. The significance of the tomb effigy of Richard Patten was now well known and great effort was made to ensure that it was preserved and relocated to the chapel of Magdalen College. Wainfleet School has itself survived, beautifully restored, and now operates as a local history museum and community center, a significant landmark and the pride of its community, as it has been since its founding in the fifteenth century. It is preserved in the spirit of Gough’s initiatives as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, county no. 321, and is a Grade I listed building (Wales and White 1981, 8).
  
  Acknowledgements
  
  Many thanks to Sally Badham and to Rachel Mehtar (Fellows’ Administrator, Magdalen College, Oxford) for helping me to trace the present location of the Patten Tomb Effigy, and for the contextual information and images they provided.
  
  Works Cited:
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  Badham, Sally. 2021. Email communication, 9 Dec 2021.
  
  Chandler, Richard. 1811. The Life of William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester. London: White and Cochrane.
  
  Davis, Virginia. 1993. William Waynflete, Bishop and Educationalist. Rochester, NY: Boydell Press.
  
  ------. 2004. "Waynflete [Wainfleet, Patten], William (c.1400-1486)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/28907.
  
  Evans, David J.A., et al. 2019. "A Chronology for North Sea Lobe Advance and Recession on the Lincolnshire and Norfolk Coasts during MIS 2 and 6." Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association 130, 523–40.
  
  Foyle Jonathan. 2002. "Some Examples of External Colouration on English Brick Buildings, c. 1500–1650.” Bulletin du Centre de recherche du château de Versailles. http://journals.openedition.org/crcv/125; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/crcv.125.
  
  Gough, Richard. 1790. "Explanation of Volume III. Plate VI." In Vetusta Monumenta, Vol. 3.
  
  Heringman, Noah. 2013. Sciences of Antiquity: Romantic Antiquarianism, Natural History, and Knowledge Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  
  Macray, William Dunn, and Gunther, Robert. 1915. A Register of the Members of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford. Description of Brasses and other Funeral Monuments in the Chapel. Vol VIII. London: H. Frowde.
  
  Markland, James H. 1817. “Remarks on the Antiquity and Introduction of Surnames into England.” Archaeologia 18: 105-11.
  
  Mehtar, Rachel. 2022. Email communication, 7 February 2022.
  
  Orme, Nicholas. 1998. Education in Early Tudor England: Magdalen College Oxford and Its School, 1480-1850. Oxford: Magdalen College.
  
  -----. 2006. Medieval Schools: Roman Britain to Renaissance England. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  
  Pickburn, John. 1792. “Further Particulars relative to Bishop Wainflete and his Family, at Wainflete in Lincolnshire; in addition to the Account given in the ‘Vetusta Monumenta.’” Archaeologia 10 (1792): 473-75.
  
  Society of Antiquaries of London. MS 267. Letters from and to Mr. Jacob Schnebbelie, Draughtsman to the Society of Antiquaries, chiefly addressed to Richard Gough, Esq., and John Nichols Esq., to Which are prefixed Memoirs of Mr. Schnebbelie Mr. Gough & Mr. Nichols.
  
  ------. 1718-. Minutes of the Society’s Proceedings.
  
  ------. 1754-. 6 vols. Minutes of the Council of the Society of Antiquaries.
  
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