20 ASTLEY.

From the churchyard may be seen the charming site of Glasshampton, formerly the residence of the Cookes family, but which mansion was totally destroyed by fire. The Rev, D. J. 3, Cookes, on coming into possession of the property, greatly enlarged and beautified the family mansion. When the work was nearly completed a dinner was given to the workmen, when a drunken fellow let fall the contents of his pipe in some shavings, and the place was soon in a blaze. An organ, built by Green, the favourite artist of George III, was preserved, and was afterwards sold to St. Nicholas' parish, Worcester. Disastrous as was this fire, it nevertheless was an auspicious event for genius and literature, as it brought into notice that remarkable man, the Rev. Dr. Lee, late Professor of Arabic and Hebrew at Cambridge. At the time of the fire he was employed as a carpenter in the mansion! The loss of his chest of tools in the fire compelled him to solicit pecuniary aid for the purchase of another set, and this circumstance led to such a development of his character and attainments as terminated in his acquaintance with the late Archdeacon Corbett, and to his matriculation and career at Cambridge.

Astley is also famous for other great men. Here first saw the light Andrew Yarranton, who in his day undertook far more than our own Lord John Russell has ever done. His projects for the improvement of Great Britain and - restoring the balance of Europe, for rectifying the legal and ' priestly professions, for outdoing the Dutch without fighting, paying debts without money, for preventing suits at law, rendering our rivers navigable, and putting all the poor to work, were probably unique. This man was originally a linendraper! Some of the Winford family were also distinguished, among whom was the Hon. Sir John Winford, a celebrated Royalist, temp. Charles I, who compounded for his estate to the Roundheads for £703.13s.; and his descendant, the Hon. Sir T. C. Winford, who represented the county in two sessions of Parliament in the middle of the last century.