“A leper hospital dedicated to the honour of St. Leonard was founded outside the walls of Newark by Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln (1123-48). …The patronage of the hospital was in the hands of the Bishops of Lincoln. Philip Repingdon, Bishop of Lincoln, decreed that there should be a master having rule of the hospital, and two poor men kept in the hospital with a chaplain to perform divine service, and that the chaplain and the two poor men were to be received into the hospital and maintained with the rents and profits of the same, the residue being devoted to the master's use, to the repair of the building and of the places belonging to it, and to the supporting of other charges. When the Valor Ecclesiasticus was drawn up in 1534 Christopher Massingbred was master, and the clear annual value was declared as £17 1s. 9½d. … Out of this the chaplain and three poor men received £6 18s. a year. The annual value of this hospital was declared by the commissioners of Edward VI to be £17 10s. 9d., founded (i.e. refounded) by Philip, Bishop of Lincoln, for a priest to say divine service there and to find three poor bedesmen to serve God, and also to maintain hospitality. They found a chaplain in receipt of £5 a year, and £3 18s. distributed annually among the poor; the remaining income went to the master. They further declared that the hospital was a parish church of itself, having all sacraments and sacramentals therein ministered and observed. The hospital escaped destruction at the hands of Edward VI. It was leased to Sir Robert Constable, and hence passed to William Cecil, Earl of Exeter, who built there a goodly house; after his death this house with the surroundings was exchanged by Act of Parliament, 17 Charles I, with the hospital for lands of better value, and settled on his widow the Countess Dowager of Exeter and her heirs. The Act provided that the countess was, within three years, to build a house of brick or stone, roofed with tile or slate, consisting of eight rooms, viz. four low rooms and four chambers over them to receive the master, chaplain, and two poor men from in or near Newark, and to inclose an acre of ground with a brick or stone wall to serve as an orchard and garden.” SOURCE: 'Hospitals: St Leonard, Newark', A History of the County of Nottingham: Volume 2 (1910), pp. 167-68. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=40111. Date accessed: 14 June 2007.