Chapter I. Long years ago.

Colonel Bruce. Lord of the Manor.
Colonel Bruce. Lord of the Manor.

In the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) Clifton belonged to Gode the Countess. After the Norman Conquest when William the Conqueror made the great survey known as Domesday Book in 1086. Clifton is mentioned as having "a priest and a church." At that time the property belonged to King William's son, William Peverel, and there is an old parchment stating that Sir Alvered de Clifton was Guardian of Nottingham Castle under him. In King Henry II.'s reign (1154-1180) the estate is mentioned as belonging to the King: but when King John began to reign in 1199 it had come into the possession of a very great and powerful family called de Rodes.

Before the end of King Henry III.'s reign in 1272 Sir Gerard de Rodes, Lord Melles, had sold the Manors of Clifton and Wilford and the services of the people at Barton to Sir Gervase de Clifton, whose family had held the land both at Wilford and Clifton since William the Conqueror's reign (1066-1087); this sale was confirmed by Edward I. in 1281, and the property has been in the uninterrupted possession of the Clifton family and its direct descendants ever since, a period well over 600 years.

THE OLD REGISTERS.

The parish registers date from the year 1573. when Queen Elizabeth reigned and before Shakespeare's plays or Ben Jonson's were published; they are full of interesting and quaint memories. For instance, at the time of Commonwealth (1649-1660) the charge of the church and parish fell into the Puritan hands of Mr. Upton first, who signed the registers merely "Henry Upton," and he was in due time, buried in 1699 at Clifton with his wife, after the Restoration. Not so Mr. Johnathan Boole his successor, who added to his signature " Rector of Clifton," but "the whirligig of time brought on its revenges" for his "orthodox" Cavalier successor after the restoration was unwilling to allow his claim, so he went over the whole period, and wherever the word "rector" occurred, erased it, and substituted "regester" or "regesterer" in his own hand-writing, which is not difficult to identify in the light of his own subsequent entries:—this enthusiast was the  Rev. Robert Thirlby who died in 1675, and whose memory a brass plate recalls, on the North side of the chancel, facing the east window. This Mr. Robert Thirlby is the "old chaplain" to whom Thoroton refers as being called for by the Sir Gervase Clifton who had seven wives, on his death-bed in 1666 to "do the office of his confessor," his son Gervase Thirlby died in 1695, and the register records "he was a solger for ye king."

All the old registers have been copied, numbered and carefully rebound by a recent rector, and are, as I write in 1906, in very good condition, and are kept in an iron safe with a secret lock, bearing the inscription "Clifton Register Chest 1813."

Thatch in Winter. Mrs Morris' cottage.
Thatch in Winter. Mrs Morris' cottage.